The coercive apparatus of a state, its police, military, and intelligence agencies, are the carriers of the ideology of the state in its purest form. By its nature this apparatus becomes a magnet for sadistic personalities which are present in every human society. When especially barbaric aspects of the state's ideology are inadvertently revealed through the inevitable incompetence and stupidity of this apparatus, the public political component of the state, including its propaganda apparatus, quickly acts to contain and isolate the incident rather than to acknowledge its centrality and thus to enable the state to continue in its amorality and even, paradoxically, to proclaim itself as a defender of the highest human virtues.

March 5, 2006

In This Issue:	Under Ruins: Willi Sitte A 1955 painting in the style of Picasso's 1937 'Guernica'. Where are the pictures of Falluja, Mr. Bush? Are you afraid to show our "tax dollars at work?"
About the Cover Pic The bombing of Dresden, February 13-15, 1945.
Featured Essay 'Human Rights' as a strategic weapon.
Featured Graphic Josef Goebbels spooks Condoleezza Rice. The art of political photomontage pioneered by John Heartfield lives on in the digital age.
Political Cartoon A German view of complicity in 'Extraordinary Rendition'.
Worth Reading The NY Times spills the beans on German covert support to the US invasion of Iraq, official denials notwithstanding.