What could possibly make a human being torture another human being?

That’s a question that, as a young boy, I recall asking my grandparents—Holocaust survivors—after they described to me in vivid detail the torture they and other members of my extended family were subjected to by the Nazis during World War II.

It’s a question I returned to earlier this year when I had the opportunity to interview a veteran of the US Army Reserves who was torn up about the torture he says he witnessed and participated in against some “war on terror” detainees while serving as a guard at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. [That guard, Pfc. Albert Melise, has since been barred from reenlistment for speaking to me.]

Barry Steven’s documentary Prosecutor focuses on the efforts of Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, as he begins to try the ICC’s first case ever against Thomas Lubanga, the Congolese leader who stands accused of conscripting and enlisting children into his army. A warrant has also been issued for the arrest and trial of Sudan’s leader, Omar al-Bashir; but with no police force to enforce the warrant the ICC must rely on member states to cooperate. Today Reuters reports that:

It looks like South Sudan already has the necessary votes in hand to secede from Sudan and become the planet’s 195th country. Some regions are showing 99% of the vote for secession. What will follow after certification is a five-month process that eventually will lead to independence, no sooner than July. This is a great victory for the South Sudanese people (or whatever name they plan to come up with). But among the many outstanding issues includes the status of the troubled Abyei region.

Despite being listed on the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism, the CIA is training the security forces of Sudan, who are themselves implicated in a domestic campaign of arbitrary arrests, killings and torture. What gives?

As if China’s genocide in Tibet and complicity in Darfur weren’t reason enough to boycott the Blood Olympics: the Official Hosts selected by the International Olympics Committee for the 2008 Summer Olympics sell human flesh taken from victims of China’s vast, corrupt execution industry. But wait – there’s more. We in the US pay for the anti-rejection drugs taken by Medicare recipients who “visit” China to purchase kidneys from the organ emporium otherwise known as China’s “justice” system.