Greg Rucka on "Private Wars"

NEWSARAMA.COM: GREG RUCKA ON PRIVATE WARS:

"...I get it all from research. Everything that I say is going on in Uzbekistan – it’s all going on in Uzbekistan. The names have been changed, but I’m not making anything up. Torture is endemic in that country. There are three fontice piece quotes in the novel, and all three are form this year – they’re all about the use of torture and brutality in Uzbekistan. I think the most recent one is from the New York Times in May of this year, so it’s stioll an ongoing problem. The Uzbekistan in the novel is, with only a few names changed, the Uzbekistan in our world. The story is a fiction, but the backdrop for the story is real.

We live in the United States, and we are very, very fortunate. Now matter how down, or frustrated you may be about the state of this country right now; we live in a society that is so far beyond what these people could even imagine. We live in a country where we have freedoms – a lot of these countries in Central Asia, they have no idea. There is so much history, and so much pain, and so much graft, extortion and torture, and it’s just the way things are. It’s the way things were when people’s parents were growing up, and the way things were when their grandparents were growing up, and more than likely, the way things will be when their children are growing up. I mean, the concept of me being able to say, for instance, “I hate George Bush” and not being shot – that’s a fundamental right in this country. I can say that, and I know I’ll wake up tomorrow, and it will be another day, and I’ll go on with my life. There are places in the world where you say the equivalent statement about your rule, and you will be shot, without a doubt, and pretty quickly."