As average Americans, on most ordinary days, we wake each morning in a far away place. There might be a transvestite singing gospel right outside our window, there might be an unfortunate day ahead of us—we might lose our jobs or miss old lovers, we might be alcoholics or cripples, we might be sad or broke, hungry, heart-broken, lost, but these kinds of troubles all seem internal luxuries when held up to the government sanctioned horrors that inhabit many faraway worlds. Rarely do we imagine that a bad day might entail a band of revolutionary guards walking into our offices as we are sitting over our coffee, and taking us away to be tortured or killed.

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