Posted here Monday, June 28, 2004 at 1:53:08 PM 
The new NYRB
Making Torture Legal
By Anthony Lewis
Reading through the memoranda written by Bush administration lawyers on how prisoners of the "war on terror" can be treated is a strange experience. The memos read like the advice of a mob lawyer to a mafia don on how to skirt the law and stay out of prison. Avoiding prosecution is literally a theme of the memoranda. Americans who put physical pressure on captives can escape punishment if they can show that they did not have an "intent" to cause "severe physical or mental pain or suffering." And "a defendant could negate a showing of specific intent...by showing that he had acted in good faith that his conduct would not amount to the acts prohibited by the statute."
The Truth About the Drug Companies
By Marcia Angell
Every day Americans are subjected to a barrage of advertising by the pharmaceutical industry. Mixed in with the pitches for a particular drug—usually featuring beautiful people enjoying themselves in the great outdoors—is a more general message. Boiled down to its essentials, it is this: "Yes, prescription drugs are expensive, but that shows how valuable they are. Besides, our research and development costs are enormous, and we need to cover them somehow. As 'research-based' companies, we turn out a steady stream of innovative medicines that lengthen life, enhance its quality, and avert more expensive medical care. You are the beneficiaries of this ongoing achievement of the American free enterprise system, so be grateful, quit whining, and pay up." More prosaically, what the industry is saying is that you get what you pay for. Is any of this true?
Will Turkey Make It?
By Stephen Kinzer
Nine centuries after Pope Urban II sent the first Crusaders off to fight "the Turk," 321 years after the Ottoman army besieged Vienna, Turkey and Europe are approaching a historic encounter. In December, leaders of European Union countries will vote on whether to begin negotiations that would lead to Turkey's joining the EU. Every day it seems more likely that they will say yes.
Nailed!
By Daniel Mendelsohn
On Hatchet Jobs: Writings on Contemporary Fiction by Dale Peck.
The Lost Art of Eating
By Ingrid Rowland
On Feast: A History of Grand Eating by Roy Strong.
Street Arab
By John Updike
On Childe Hassam, American Impressionist, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 10-September 12, 2004.
Photo: Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, General John Abizaid, and Major General Geoffrey Miller preparing to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee about Iraqi prisoner abuse, Washington, D.C., May 19, 2004. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
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