this blog is anti tortue

communists have tortured in the name of...

baathists have tortured in the name of...

americans have tortured in the name of...

christians have tortured in the name of...

jihadists torture in the name of...

israel tortures in the bame of...

need i go on?


"Next month is Torture Awareness Month. To help NGOs like Amnesty and Human Right First with their campaign, I've created a blogroll called Bloggers Against Torture. To add yourselves to the blogroll, all you need to do is help promote Torture Awareness Month by mentioning it on your blog. You can simply talk about it, you can use the graphic and link above, or you can grab the blogroll script from Bloggers Against Torture for some reciprocal linking goodness."

24, thank you for telling his story. one man, thank god he lived to tell the world. to all the victims who have sufferd, to all the victims yet to suffer. redemption. resolution. peace.

Wow, sounds just like the U.S. prisons in Iraq and Cuba and all over Europe. The prisoners are hanging themselves with their bedsheets and pillows.
And if you ask Iraqis they will tell you that this time was better than it is now under the U.S. occupation. Now that is scary.

act of war

"The camp commander said the two Saudis and a Yemeni were "committed" and had killed themselves in "an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us"

there's more than one way to skin a cat. after being tortured and held without trail for 4 years you are comminting an act of war by killing yourself! wonder if the public is going to be able to wrap their sheep brains around that concept.

Thank you for the touching post Omar.

Please stay safe my friend and please accept my apology for my following words to your other commenters.

anonymous cowards.

Annie could you please provide proof of the Christians torturing people today, and the Americans torturing people today.

300,000 dead Iraqis under Saddam in his prisons and death squads. Over 1 million dead in his wars. The single biggest killer of Arabs in the 20th century.

Over 100 million killed in the USSR alone. Not in war but citizens starved to death by their own country, imprisoned, and tortured. That is more people killed than all wars fought in the name of religion in all of man kinds history.

You have no idea what you are talking about. You are a fool. The worst kind of fool. Fools like you allow killers to justify their acts of murder. Shame on you.

Anonymous

Were they tortured? I do not think so. They may have been kept without contact with other prisoners and kept for a long time, but they were in contact with lawyers.
Unfortunately you and others equal torture with Guantanamo.
I have not heard of many protests when Egipcian police tortured prisoners.
If americans did what egipcians did to their prisoners and kept in the same conditions as prisoners are kept in Egypt I would say "americans tortured them", however americans did not do the same.
On the other hand I do oppose keeping so many people for so long without trial, even if many are jihadists.
On the third hand..........saying about "act of war" is a little strange.

Annie

I am suprised, I have not heard that jihadists tortured so many people, they usually kill them.
Hmmm perhaps you are thinking of some of their co-religionists.

Taking the story of a man brutalised by the Saddam regime and turning it into an indictment of America...priceless.

Good luck with these knuckleheads Ugly. Arguing with this...

"Wow, sounds just like the U.S. prisons in Iraq and Cuba and all over Europe."

and

"if you ask Iraqis they will tell you that this time was better than it is now under the U.S. occupation."

...is like trying to convince someone who believes the sky is green that it is really blue.

Obviously things like "facts" would just confuse these people. America is the most vicious and vile institution ever to exist in human history...and they don't want anything to get in the way of that notion.

------------------

Good for you 24 for showing people what real torture and true evil is. In this day and age when "panties on head" and "dog barking in face" is considered torture we obviously need reminders like this to snap us back to reality.

Good riddance to Saddam and once again good luck to all Iraqis who are trying to prove that they don't need a regime like this rule them. They have made progress in the face of horrible death and destruction (not to mention all the naysayers practically praying for their failure).

Keep these stories coming 24. People need to remember where Iraq is coming from as Iraqis press forward building a better future.

as i recall we just recently had a anti torture ammendment in congress. obviously i am not the only person who thinks this topic is relevant to america and americans. cheney objected to it, i would assume for a purpose. bush added a signing statement as an alternative to a veto, probably for a reason.. 24's post was not about today, and neither was my response. i can easily provide you w/instances of both americans and christians thru history involved in torture. you may want to google school of the americans. just google negroponte/ torture, you can read the senate hearings regarding el salvador..

i'm not sure if they were jiadist but there was a story of the torture chamber in iraq in the last year. not everyone was killed, some said they were tortured. there are also numerous reports of people showing up dead w/holes in them from screwdrivers, i assumed they were place their before they died.

you can construe anything you want from my post, won't make it true.

i wonder where krypto is?? you guys have so much in common, the MO, the style, i'm rather amazed, what a coincidence. shall i address you as rendon? or perhaps lincoln corps?

"Taking the story of a man brutalised by the Saddam regime and turning it into an indictment of America...priceless."

those are some fighting words there infowarman. i do believe i was turning it into an indictment of...... torture.

perhaps you should go back to school for a brush up on reading comprehension.

btw, can either of you answer a question for me?

whay was sadam a threat to the united states?

after you actually provide proof of your claims. I would be happy to answer any question you have.

bare in mind there are aproximately 420 individuals in Guantanamo (minus 3 today). Which now makes a total of 4 deaths in Guantanamo. None of them at the hands of their captors.

The Soviet Gulags killed tens of millions of people.

There is no comparison. none.

The world being full of fools like you doesn't make you any less a fool.

what claims, the anti torture legislation, the signing statement, cheneys not supporting the ammendment, school of the americas, negroponte 's senate hearing re torture, christians re torture, americans re torture, guys w/holes in the showing up on the streets of iraq?

i'm not your friggin librarian.!

i'm quite certain you will never answer the sadam question, i can direct you to 93 comments that prove it!

The world being full of cowards like you doesn't make you any less a coward.

bummer

tsk tsk tsk ... never learning, always demeaning, always using labels ...

much more needed for growth ...

Always amazed to hear "our heroes are dying for freedom and democracy" from the same people who go to great lengths to bar others from their freedom of expressing their opinions because they find them irritating.

The American Constitution - a nice display in a museum, but little else, right?

Great example guys - keep showing the rest of the world that patriotism overrides liberty and democracy.

Always amazed to hear "our heroes are dying for freedom and democracy" from the same people who go to great lengths to bar others from their freedom of expressing their opinions because they find them irritating.

Since I am the only one contesting outragous claims I assume you are talking to me TAI?

How did I bar any freedom or opinion of yours?

It certainly wont be Americans bashing down your door and shooting you in your bed for what you post on the internet TAI.

The American Constitution - a nice display in a museum, but little else, right?

You are also a fool and have no idea what you are saying. If you wish to actually add some form of subtance to your statement please feel free.

I welcome the debate. particularly reasoned debate backed with facts.

Thank you for your post. I think it is a good idea to chronicle these events.

It is also good to show these ignorant partisan idiots what torture actually is.

Would you people please stop with that tired old diatribe about torture in Guantanimo etc. It's just not true.

Get over it.

You are also a fool and have no idea what you are saying.

Good one, so this is what you call "reasoned debate"?

Man, you're cracking me up. Do you guys even re-read what you write?

Foot-in-mouth routine.

I was talking about how you jumped Annie, not me, because you couldn't debate her. You have no debate.

It is simply four letters - F o o l. That's what you have been calling everyone you disagree with.

Keep it up.

Bon air, we will stop the tired old diatribe about Guantanamo, Haditha, Hamdaniya, Tal Afar, Salhiya, Ramadi, Falluja, Baquba and dozens of other places when you stop the tired old diatribe about 911 being perpetrated by terrorists.

It's just not true, right?

Get over it, right?

Smarts, don't it?

If we can condemn the barbaric acts committed against the US on 911, why can't you take your head out of the patriotic hole and just consider that all the things they say about Guantanamo are true.

Consider them. Remove the red, white, and blue blinders and join the rest of the world.

Wouldn't it be great to turn on the tv and see any u.s. president, democrat or republican give the following speech---

"My fellow americans, as you all know the defeat of the Iraqi regime has been completed.Since congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our mission in Iraq is complete. This morning I gave the order for the complete removal of all troops from Iraq. This action will be complete within thirty days. It is now to become the reckoning. Before me I have two lists. One is a list of the countries that have stood by us during the Iraq conflict. This list is short. The United kingdom, spain, bulgaria, and poland are some of the countries listed there. The other list contains everyone not on the first list. My press secretary will distrubute copies of both lists later on. Let me start by saying that effective immediately foreign aid to those listed on list two will cease indefinitely. The money saved during the first year alone will pretty much pay fore the cost of the Iraqi war. The american people are no longer going to pour money into third world hell-holes and watch those government leaders grow fat on corruption. Need help with a famine? Wrestling an epidemic? Call France. In the future, together with congress I will work to redirect this money toward solving the vexing social problems we have here at home. On that note, a word to terrorist organizations. Screw with us and we will hunt you down and eliminate you and all of your friends from the face of the earth. Thirsting for a gutsy country to terrorize? Try france or maybe china. I am ordering the immediate severence of diplomatic relations with France, Germany, and Russia. Thanks for all your help comrades.We are retiring from NATO as well, bon chance, mes amis.
"I have instructed the mayor of NY city to begin twing the many UN diplomatic vehicals in manhattan with more than two unpaid parking tickets to areas where they will be stripped and sold for parts. I don't care whatever treaty pertains to this. You creeps have tens of thousands of dollars worth of unpaid parking tickets. Pay those tickets tomorrow or watch your precious Benzes, beamers, and limos be turned over to some of the finest chop shops in the world. Gods, I love New york!
"A special note to our neighbors. Canada is on list two. Since we are likely to be seing a lot more of each other you all might want to try not ******* us off for a change.
"Mexico is also on list two. President fox and his entire corrupt government really need an attitude adjustment. I will have a couple of extra tanks and infantry divisions sitting around. Gues where I'm going to put them? YUP, border security. So strt doing something with your oil.
"Oh, by the way, the united states is abrogating the NAFTA treaty starting NOW. We are tired of the one way highway. Immediately we will be drilling oil in Alska which will take care of this countries oil needs for decades to come. If you are an environmentalist who opposes this then I refer you to list two. Pick a country and move there.
"It is time for america to focus on its own citizens and its own welfare.Some will answer this by calling us isolationists. I answer them by saying "Darn Tootin!"
" Nearly a century of trying to help folks live a decent life around the world has only earned us the undying enmity of everyone on the planet. It is time to eliminate hunger in america. It is time to eliminate homelessness in america. It is time to eliminate WORLD CUP SOCCOR in america.
" To the nations on list one. We thank you and we will forever stand by your side. For the nations on list two__ you might want to learn to speak arabic. Thank you and good night.
If you can read this thank a teacher. If you can read it in english thank a SOLDIER!

anonymous,
No, it's not!

Annie,

Saddam Hussein (Iraq from 1990 to 2003) was a danger to the US because he established a pattern of totally reckless, erratic, violent, and irrational behavior through his Iran/Iraq war, invasion of Kuwait, senseless use of chemical WMD on Kurds, his extremely outrageous torture techniques used against those who disagreed with him politically, his establishment of a totalitarian, dictatorial government, his corruption with respect to the oil-for-food program, his financial support for terrorists in palestine, his general oppression of kurds, marsh arabs, shiites, non-baath party members, his propaganda machine which equated Saddam with god, and the US with Satan...oh, and of course his failure to engage in good faith negotiations to terminate his WMD programs after Gulf War 1. There are, of course, many other factors that contribute to Iraq being a threat to the United States. Any one of these factors render Saddam (and Iraq) a threat to the United States - all of them combined made his immediate removal an outright necessity. While the dynamics of the relationship and the threats are different, the same kinds of threats existed in Afghanistan and Libya and still exist in Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Somalia.

This is really interesting, 24.

Remembering is the fundamental action necessary to keep the Ba'athists from returning.

Thanks for this.

thanks for your response bob

OT, a must read

Annie,

Your link is not an appropriate response to my post. You seem to believe that Saddam was not a threat. back up your claim.

You seem to believe that Saddam was not a threat.

huh? i read 24's post, what would give you this impression?

as for an inappropriate response, i don't think it is. i did appreciate your response.i may not agree w/it and apparently i am not alone.my question was in regards to his presumed threat to the US. not his threat in general.

if the pnac crowd truly believed sadam posed a threat to the US and was worthy of invasion for this reason, they would not have gone to such lengths to lie to congress and the american people about the pretext for going to war. y'know what i'm talking about. the supposed connection to 9/11, the lie of the uranium from africa, the creation of the iraq group and chabali etc.

they wouldn't have drumbeated the WMD meme for umphy umph times.then switched to bringing democracy to iraq (which just happens to be located strategically in the ME for those loverly permanent bases, check my last link)

yet while i don't agree w/you and apparently cheneyco didn't think the US public would either i respect your opinion and the way you communicated it free of snark which seems to be a little unusual for most of the flaming rightwingers around this site.

also, while you did list all these reasons i fail to see why this would lead one to the conclusion he would pose a threat to the US. maybe to US global elite interests in the world for sure, but there are many that do not feel turning iraq into a hotbed for terra playground is worth protecting the interests of the US global elite.

so, does that answer your question?
my link was prefaced by OT. that means off topic fyi. it is not entirely off topic because i happen to think the link provides ample evidence to back up my theory of why we invaded iraq, but that is not a debate i care to continue on this thread. we obviously share a different viewpoint. you are btw in the global minority w/your. i am certainly not the best qualified to answer why what you posit is less likely than the position i(and the global majority)hold. but it's a widely held theory. if you follow all the links provided @ billmons and still think it's an illogical conclusion, well, so be it. we will no doubt have plenty of time to ruminate on the topic since

"Mr. Bush on Friday(6/10/06) made clear that the American commitment to the country will be long-term. Officials say the administration has begun to look at the costs of maintaining a force of roughly 50,000 troops there for years to come, roughly the size of the American presence maintained in the Philippines and Korea for decades after those conflicts."

annie,

if you don't see the threat in a torturous dictatorship, what would you consider a threat? obviously, saddam was so weak that he couldn't have presented the threat of invading the united states and taking it over, but there are other sinister threats that every dictator poses to the world at large, including the united states. iraq would be much safer and more stable if it were more like the phillipines, or korea. if us military presence is required to establish that stability, then what is wrong with it? so you're upset that some politicians lied about the degree of the specific threat to the united states to garner support for a complicated war. such exaggerations have been around since the dawn of statehood - it does not vindicate saddam, or render him less of a threat to the world at large, or to the iraqi people. furthermore, bush and cheney receive intelligence information from the CIA and other agencies. They don't have the resources to create it themselves, and there are numerous checks and balances to prevent them from doing so. of course, mistakes can be made, and certain information can be miscommunicated, or misconstrued, or, at times, interpreted in ways to suggest a particular end. But, again, so called "lies" about WMD, or links to 9/11, or whatever, do NOT establish that saddam should still be in power. no one else was willing to remove, so the US did for the betterment of the world - whether America's reasons for doing so were altruistic or not is beside the pont.

A comments section spinning it's wheels.........not a pretty sight!

But wait, what is this........CMARII??

Ahhhh, so that's what you look like! lol! The black turban matches your eyes.

Btw, nobody, but nobody, had a voice like Elvis.

24,

I'm sorry, I was off topic. But I couldn't resist. Yes, it is very important to bear witness. Lest we forget.

Btw, are you ever going to stop being mad at me?

Annie

It seems that you do not know what americans call torture. From what I heard even a prisoner sitting with a hood over its face is considered a torture. That's far cry from what the torture means in ME countries. It is also a far cry from what KGB was doing to enemies of communism and what FSB is doing now to some people.

It is really funny that you, living in the USA, are accussing Chrisians in other lands of torturing others. Do Europeans torture people? Do Christians in Egipt? Do Christians in Sudan? Or are they being tortured?

If somebody tortured someone in Latin America, then it was not done in the name of Christianity. There are checks and balances in all western contries, sometimes they fail, but usually they do not.

Even Israelis have strict legal guidances(not always followed) on how to behave towards prisoners, however none of these guidances are available in other countries in the ME and other, so called, muslim countries.

You mentioned you heard there was a torture chamber in Iraq. It is strange, were these who were torturers a jihadists, fundamentalists or simply bandidts. You should know by now the differences between jihadists, fundamentalist muslims and bandits, bloggers and others have been talking about the differences often enough.

24

I appreciate your post.
I do hope your country one day will be like Finland or Ireland, forgotten by all newspapers and prosperous. It may take a long time, it may seem now impossible, but it may come true.

if us military presence is required to establish that stability, then what is wrong with it?

oh, let me ponder this a milisecond. let's assume for a minute that some country, thought the US was a threat to world peace. and they thought a little invasion might ad to stability in the world. what if they just decided to establish that stability. then what would be wrong with that?just a little pre emption because they thought we might eventually become a threat to them, or one of their allies.

iraq would be much safer and more stable if it were more like the phillipines, or korea.

you mean the way a cat is more stable after you have it spade?

so you're upset that some politicians lied about the degree of the specific threat to the united states to garner support for a complicated war.

no, that isn't why i'm upset. (and cut w/the 'some politicians' meme, just say it, PNAC). i believe that was the explanation i gave regarding why we know cheneyco knew he would never get permission from congress to preemptively invade. the reason i am upset is for other, more serious reasons. btw, it wasn't the degree of the specific threat they lied about. i do believe they created the threat out of whole cloth. there is no degree wmd's were in iraq. there was no degree iraq was involved w/9/11. you catch my drift.

bush and cheney receive intelligence information from the CIA and other agencies.

yes they do.and the intellegence they got overwhelmingly confirmed sadam was not a threat to us. that dog is not barking anymore bob. by all means read this very simple article that wraps up what many many investigators have been confirning for quite awhile to read the great lengths cheney went to contort evidence to get the cia , who they subsequently tried to blame for getting the intellegence wrong, to twist their conclusions about faulty evidence to drag the middle east into war.

please, forget the 'you're upset' meme, the understatement of the 'liberation of iraq'

btw, i notice you didn't address the obviousness of cheney knowing congress would not allow a war under such weak and faulty pretext of threat

of course, mistakes can be made, and certain information can be miscommunicated, or misconstrued, or, at times, interpreted in ways to suggest a particular end.

oh, gag me. know one falls for this line anymore.

annie,

would you prefer iraq be more like the phillipines or more like somalia? I'd think the Iraqi people would be much happier with a phillipines or korean style government - just my hunch.

you are great at addressing problems with the administration, but you fail to make the logical connection that the "lies" you love to talk about render the removal of saddam wrong. obviously, if he was a threat to world peace, than he should have been removed, by SOMEONE. No one, but the US, was willing to do it.

To suggest that Iraq under Saddam is the same as the US under Bush is, well, crazy. One country was a threat to world peace, and the other country reluctantly polices the world to maintain world peace...not quite the same thing.

From what I heard even a prisoner sitting with a hood over its face is considered a torture.

gee, i'm curious who your talkin to ella, provide a link to someone calling this torture , please (i dare ya)

i know what torture is. if you follow the bummer link you can kill two birds w/one stone, not only will it provide you w/the answer re torture chamber in iraq, it also provides a link to evidence of real torture by following the negroponte link.

as for christians w/god on their side... where do you want me to start? the Inquisition?
comeon guys, you know this stuff.

bob, you neither read wht i linked to or addressed my point. i'm not answering your questions for a little while. you provide no links, you ignore my points and you sound like a broken record.

while i stated i respected your position without agreeing to it, you apparently cannot see any of the contradictions in it, nor respect my view long enough to even read the article or respond to it. g'day to you for now, its futile. besiade what difference would it make. they were determined to go in no matter what and they will stay no matter what. so you win, doesn't mean you you're right only means your side has the might, and everybody know it too.

Hey Annie, remind me not to come out defending you next time. You kick ass totally on your own!

More power to ya! Drive the stake through the pro-war, pro-Xenophobix heart.

annie,

oh, no you don't. stick with the issue presented. i presented you with an answer to your question. you disagree with my position that Saddam was a threat, but never argue why...and then cite a vanity fair article (very objective news source) that rambles on about yellow cake. again, so there was no yellow cake material purchased from niger. SO WHAT? This does not mean Saddam is not guilty, or that he was not a threat, whether to the US or any other country.

annie,

don't you get tired of having your simple caveman notions of "America bad" / "Terrorists good" being ripped apart every five minutes. you obviously have very low self esteem to be so easily brainwashed by vanity fair articles.

Lynnette in Minnesota,
was the question about being mad to me? because i dont remember ever being mad at you or any other commenter and reader. i like you all and wish you all the best. i always appreictae that you sepnd time reading my post.
Omar

TAI, you cannot imagine how much your having my back lifted my spirits earlier in the thread. you totally rock! please, whenever, however, just keep on keepin on, i'm getting swamped by the hired spin machines!your voice is valuable beyond what you may anticipate. muchas gracias forever and ever, my heart is w/you.


no, actually my response was not to disagree w/you b spin, i acknowledged you and thanked you for your views.
there is no requirement, yet i very much did present my view which you predictably ignored because they are not to your satisfaction. there is not one piece of news in that VF article that was new to me. it can be supported by numerous sources and has been available to anyone w/a search engine for most of the last year or more. the convinience of the article in the simplicity, even a dunce can understand w/out having to reference numerous sources. it is also noted that there has been no rebuttal in the press thus far, wonder why? because it is thorough and accurate the point IS NOT that "there was no yellow cake material purchased from niger". the point was that fact was established and concurred, ignored and spun, repeatedly. you FAIL TO ADDRESS the contradiction of this w/regards to your claim "there are numerous checks and balances to prevent them from doing so. of course, mistakes can be made, and certain information can be miscommunicated, or misconstrued, or, at times, interpreted in ways to suggest a particular end." this had nothing to do w/MISTAKES ,MISCOMMUNICATION, MISCONSTRUING,or INTERPRETATION and everything to do w/EVASION and LIES and SUBTERFUGE! your assertions are old hat spin that no longer have any credibility and clearly unites you w/the subterfuge of which you are complicit.

kyrpdik, contrary to your dribbly broken record rhetoric i am a true american, i love my country, i have no problem separating my country from the evil regime controling our agenda. i also love my constitution and the geneva convention and the whole rest of the friggin global consciousness our current regime has disrespectfully maligned while dragging our reputation thru the mud in this illegal war contributing to untold thousand of dead including our own. you think vanity fair is not credible, i dare you, find evidence supporting your cockemammy theory. ESADMF. can you figure out what that stands for? coward.

Annie, hey am just one of many, and its people like you who inspire Iraqi bloggers.

And contrary to what many of the racists here believe, I honest to God love the United States of America.

I wish some of its people loved it as much to realize how it is going wrong these days, how its foreign policy - undeclared and undisclosed to the voters - is spreading chaos.

The illegal invasion of Iraq has forever tarnished US image in the world.

And believe me, where the US loses, China wins.

In a few years, these words will prove prophetic.

But honestly, the pro-war crowd have no arguments left. Even their god has grown weary and old.

christians having fun

'Convert or Kill' videogame scandal grows, lawsuit looms

i guess that's one way to raise a kid, evangelicals get their rocks off, by all means enlighten me why programming a child to kill those who don't believe in christ is any different than....

I honest to God love the United States of America.

awesome! me too!!

I wish some of its people loved it as much to realize how it is going wrong these days, how its foreign policy - undeclared and undisclosed to the voters - is spreading chaos.

have faith TAI, we are here and our numbers are strong. you just don't hear about us because we don't own the media.

speaking of foreign policy...

"“combating global terror” and ensuring U.S. energy security required that the United States increase its commitments to Africa and called upon “coalitions of the willing” to generate regional security arrangements on that continent. Soon after the U.S. European Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany—in charge of U.S. military operations in Sub-Saharan Africa—increased its activities in West Africa, centering on those states with substantial oil production and/or reserves in or around the Gulf of Guinea (stretching roughly from the Ivory Coast to Angola). The U.S. military’s European Command now devotes 70 percent of its time to African affairs, up from almost nothing as recently as 2003"

“By the end of the decade sub-Saharan Africa is likely to become as important as a source of U.S. energy imports as the Middle East.”14 West Africa has some 60 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. Its oil is the low sulfur, sweet crude prized by the U.S. economy. U.S. agencies and think tanks project that one in every five new barrels of oil entering the global economy in the latter half of this decade will come from the Gulf of Guinea, raising its share of U.S. oil imports from 15 to over 20 percent by 2010, and 25 percent by 2015. Nigeria already supplies the United States with 10 percent of its imported oil. Angola provides 4 percent of U.S. oil imports, which could double by the end of the decade. The discovery of new reserves and the expansion of oil production are turning other states in the region into major oil exporters, including Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Principe, Gabon, Cameroon, and Chad. Mauritania is scheduled to emerge as an oil exporter by 2007. Sudan, bordering the Red Sea in the east and Chad to the west, is an important oil producer."

At present the main, permanent U.S. military base in Africa is the one established in 2002 in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, giving the United States strategic control of the maritime zone through which a quarter of the world’s oil production passes. The Djibouti base is also in close proximity to the Sudanese oil pipeline."

one more thing, this is for 24, TAI and the other iraqi bloggers out there.


"When the House and the Senate pass similar but not identical bills, they create a conference committee to work out the differences. When they both passed amendments to the "emergency supplemental" spending bill stipulating that none of the money could be used to build permanent bases in Iraq, the conference committee, behind closed doors this week, resolved that non-difference by deleting it.

This would appear to be a blatant violation of the rules of Congress and an unconstitutional voiding of the will of the people as expressed by their Representatives and Senators. But it can't appear that way to a people that knows nothing about it. And it does not appear that way at all to the journalists who inform the public of its government's doings. Even the minority members of the conference committee and the leaders of the minority party in Congress seem entirely comfortable with this course of events, although Congresswoman Barbara Lee has denounced the Republicans for it.

The House was the first to pass the "no permanent bases" amendment, back in March. Only one media outlet in the nation reported on the matter, the San Francisco Chronicle, which wrote:"... follow the link

Annie

I did read article.(bummer).
I especially liked the anonymous source from washington that said "The Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy.............from El Salvador" and a statement that article makes "It's apparent .....that the U.S. and U.K. embassies have been aware.........[of]death squad central."
Unfortunately linked HRW report did not mention anything about US or multinational forces in Iraq, neither did it say that US knew anything about torture of detainees.

So, from anonymous source in washington and HRW report which did not mention USA or multinational forces author of the article found that the american's had a knowledge of tortures in Iraq. Fantastic.

"American war-mongers, producers of steel, gum and cans because of their politics of misery and fear helped undecided to choose the right way, way of fighting for peace. Government of USA helped to understand undecided the evident truths that only XXXX stands for truth" (with complements to you from CCCP)

Regarding games for children..............do you like me to send you a couple of Iranian ones, with terrorists fighting in the name of Allah?
At least producers of american game may face law-suit, producers of Iranian ones will not.

Now if you start on Inquisition I can start with the life and dealings of some prominent figures from some non-Christian religions, however, I do believe that such Your/other-religion-got- better-torturers and murderers-in- the-past-then-my- religion-does does not lead to anything. On the other hand if you really would like a good examples just say so and I will gladly accomodate you.

bob,
Don't you think China is about 1,000 times the "threat" to the United States that Iraq was before the invasion, militarily, economically, politically, and in terms of potential hostile intentions? Or Russia still, for that matter? Which, out of the several things you listed as constituting Saddam's "threat" against the U.S., had he actually engaged in on any scale in the last 8 or 10 years, and which of them actually constituted a threat against the U.S.? Or for that matter, against world peace? The regime was boxed in to a fare-thee-well. Of course, the Iraqi people were suffering a lot more from the sanctions than the regime. But even the great crimes against the Iraqi people dated back more than a few years for the most part. The last time Saddam was out of his box was ended in 1991! Payments of $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers? If the Israelis hadn't made a regular practice of destroying the homes of their families (collective punishment in my book), these payments might never have started. And do you really think any young Palestinian ever embarked on that course of action after having told his family, or even had the thought, "Hey, I'm going to do something great for the family, blow myself up! Then, after the Israelis bulldoze or blow up the house three (or four)generations of us live in, you'll get $25,000! Maybe you can put a down payment on one of those houses in a settlement on the West Bank!" (Sorry, I do get carried away into sarcasm now and then.)
My reason for bringing up China? What was Tien An Men, tidying up after a picnic? Have they stopped torturing political prisoners? Do they make threatening noises against Taiwan periodically? Did they hold one of our planes and its crew hostage after one of their idiot pilots forced it down? Have they made threats against the U.S.? Do they bully their neighbors on a fairly regular basis? And what about all the other torturing, barbaric regimes we've supported over the years, and some of which we still do, for similar reasons? Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iran under the Shah, Iraq under Saddam Hussein!, Panama, Uzbekistan, etc. Marriages of convenience with Brides of Frankenstein.
I'm not saying Iraq is not better off without Saddam, or Uday, or Qusay, but at what cost???

ella , i'm not grasping your point. the first post in this thread represents varying factions all torturing. hence, your 'team' objects to the inclusion of american and christians. hence, i demo those for you, hence you stipulate by your pathetic comment that i am claiming one over the other.

"
Now if you start on Inquisition I can start with the life and dealings of some prominent figures from some non-Christian religions"

go for it ella. by all means knock yourself out. that's what this thread is all about. maybe we can even come to some conclusion that one's torturing is more or less than anothers, thereby justifying one of the torturers. is that what you would like? are you all set to cast me as the great defender of the islamic torturer, or the communist torturer?

oh, very cool, since you ask and 24's post is about the torture of a percieved communist, and you are a true victim of communism perhaps it would be appopriate for you to link to some communist torture. you seem so eager. certainly more eager than me.

ps. does this qualify as torture would it be to your liking to attribute it to someone.

it is occuring to me this focus of blame and who the perp is, has become the focus of the thread, instead of the victim.

please show me some torture ella, not any authorized by gonzales, not any made possible by the reconstruction of our definitions w/the approval of cheney via addington, but everyone else. from the beginning of time.start w/stalin. why not. finish w/the arab version, your specialty of course. enlighten us, we are all waiting w/bated breath...

and yes, i would very much like you to link me to comparable links of iranian video games for childrenthat call for the slaughter of all souls who have not accepted allah into their hearts. that word you use, accomadation, so generous of you...
but to truly give them credibility, please , if you can, illuminate the makers and promoters that have strong affiliations to the official presidency of iran, the way dobsen has the ear od bush. i really think that adds so much to the story, don't you.

truly, your generosity shines thru w/these offers. since 24 is doing a series, perhaps you he/she could devote a whole thread to your focus on whose torture is the worst. we could all compare, and justify.

bob,
Don't you think China is about 1,000 times the "threat" to the United States that Iraq was before the invasion, militarily, economically, politically, and in terms of potential hostile intentions? Or Russia still, for that matter? Which, out of the several things you listed as constituting Saddam's "threat" against the U.S., had he actually engaged in on any scale in the last 8 or 10 years, and which of them actually constituted a threat against the U.S.? Or for that matter, against world peace? The regime was boxed in to a fare-thee-well. Of course, the Iraqi people were suffering a lot more from the sanctions than the regime. But even the great crimes against the Iraqi people dated back more than a few years for the most part. The last time Saddam was out of his box was ended in 1991! Payments of $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers? If the Israelis hadn't made a regular practice of destroying the homes of their families (collective punishment in my book), these payments might never have started. And do you really think any young Palestinian ever embarked on that course of action after having told his family, or even had the thought, "Hey, I'm going to do something great for the family, blow myself up! Then, after the Israelis bulldoze or blow up the house three (or four)generations of us live in, you'll get $25,000! Maybe you can put a down payment on one of those houses in a settlement on the West Bank!" (Sorry, I do get carried away into sarcasm now and then.)
My reason for bringing up China? What was Tien An Men, tidying up after a picnic? Have they stopped torturing political prisoners? Do they make threatening noises against Taiwan periodically? Did they hold one of our planes and its crew hostage after one of their idiot pilots forced it down? Have they made threats against the U.S.? Do they bully their neighbors on a fairly regular basis? And what about all the other torturing, barbaric regimes we've supported over the years, and some of which we still do, for similar reasons? Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iran under the Shah, Iraq under Saddam Hussein!, Panama, Uzbekistan, etc. Marriages of convenience with Brides of Frankenstein.
I'm not saying Iraq is not better off without Saddam, or Uday, or Qusay, but at what cost???

oh, ella, while were at it, lets not forget israel,

ok, or would you feel more comfortable defending them at this juncture?

we wouldn't want to be accused of being anti semite, now would we??

ps, don't forget the links!

Ella, why are you upset about "anonymous sources"?

Did the US media not quote dozens of anonymous sources who said Iraq had this and Iraq had that?

Or anonymous sources who linked Iraq to Al-Qaida.

Or anonymous sources who let Rumsfeld know exactly where the weapons were?

By the way, when he was asked in 2003 he said around Baghdad north of Baghdad up in Tikrit, west of Baghdad, south of Baghdad. He basically said they were everywhere - some precision huh? - and the media did not question him one iota?

How about Curveball? Was he not an anonymous source?

Heck there were even declared sources. Remember Khidhir Hamza?

Come on! Surely, you do! The man who claimed to be "Saddam's Bombmaker". The man who was quoted, requoted, interviewed and re-interviewed by the media till he became Khizi Hamza.

Well, turned out he was a mid-level physicist in Iraq, who left in 1993 and yet could make analysis in 2002, amazing, right?

Did you hear how he went to Iraq and then left? Guess he didn't like the liberation or maybe there was no room for him.

How about Kanan Makiya, Iraqi genius extraordinaire who told us how rosy Iraq's future would be?

You trusted all these anonymous sources and the declared ones too.

So, why you upset now?

hey ella, i apprecite you reading the bummer link. re you inquiry about how it relates to iraq, thanks for bringing that up.

interestingly cheneyco chose to import our very own torture specialist to iraq , negroponte. actually he has now been promoted ! he's our United States Director of National Intelligence! but before that he served as ambassador to iraq.prior to that he was the ambassador to hondur! if you like i can provide an excellent newsweek article about the importing of the death squad stratedgy used there and now implmented against the sunni's but i thought that might be redundant as i posted it in an earlier thread here @24 steps. but if you haven't read it i can provide it for you, just say the word.

hey, good of you to for the cherrypick of the anon sources. i guess some people worry about keeping their jobs! out of curiousity, what did you think of these links from CIA Inspector General’s Office,U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and CIA Working Group Stipulations Released by the Senate Foreign Relations, respectively??

"The DNI [National Directorate of Investigation] maintained a secret unit – the Honduran Anti-Communist Liberation Army (ELACH), a rightist paramilitary organization which conducted operations against Honduran leftists. According to DELETED, during the period ELACH operated (1980-1984), ELACH’s operations included surveillance, kidnappings, interrogation under duress, and execution of prisoners who were Honduran revolutionaries."

"Intelligence Battalion 3-16 was also created in the early 1980s with the help of the CIA. Together with the DNI, Battalion 3-16 is blamed for the repression, capture, interrogation and disappearance of about 180 people, generally popular movement leaders."

" Battalion 3-16 counter-terrorist tactics included torture, rape, assassination against persons thought to be involved in support of Salvadoran guerrillas or the Honduran leftist movement. Information available to the United States Government in the 1980s indicated that named individuals were abducted and killed by Battalion 3-16 and the FUSEP Special Unit."

wowza!

so much to learn so little time

In 1984, Nicaragua responded in a way appropriate to a law-abiding state by taking its case against the United States to the World Court in the Hague. In Nicaragua vs. United States, the court ordered the United States to terminate the 'unlawful use of force' -- in lay terms, international terrorism -- against Nicaragua and to pay substantial reparations. But Washington ignored the court, then vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions affirming the judgment and calling on all states to observe international law. To this date, the United States is the only nation to have been condemned for international terrorism in the World Court, for the actions performed under Negroponte's oversight

uh oh...big bad, maybe not if ella can spin it just right...

in a 1996 interview with The Baltimore Sun, Negroponte's predecessor, Jack Binns, said that a group of Salvadorans, among whom were the women Bordes had been looking for, were captured on April 22, 1981, and savagely tortured by the DNI, the Honduran Secret Police, and then later thrown out of helicopters alive.

ouch! is that torture ella? more than bags over the head? hey, if negroponte can train the honduras secret police to torture, just imagine what he could do w/a group of arbas! what, no canibals? want more links?

come on , tell me how much groovier he is than sadam, please. ps, our shit don't stink

wassa madda ella, cat got your tongue?

sorry, it's late, no excuse.the text of that last tirade was copied from the previous link. sorry for the misspellings. the late hr, still no excuse. g'day 'ella' or whoever you are.

have you guys considered getting computer generated responses? save lots of time.

testing, is this working?

I hate blogger. Everytime I try to post it goes down. Hmmm, is it me? No, don't answer that.


24,

Ahhh that's nice to know. I enjoy reading your posts. And your comments, unlike some others, are usually measured and well thought out. At least I very seldom see you shout.

You are a generous man when it comes to your readers. Some of them tend to give me a headache and I start scrolling through the repetitive parts.

Cheers!

24 Thank you for the remembrances of those who suffered so greatly. As you can read in the various reponses there is a lot of variety of opinion among Americans. Freedom of thought and speech is one of our basic rights and we do take advantage as you see. Time will eventually prove which of the claims is true, partially true or blatantly false. Most of us whether or not we supported the war want only to see Iraq prosper and regain security. That is what brings all of us to blogs such as yours. It is good to read the various perspectives of Iraqis who have and are living through this time. My hopes for Iraq remain.

Jon from Maryland,

Of course China and Russia are greater threats to the US - they have more resources and more people. But China and Russia are more or less practical countries. War with the US would serve no purpose for them, so they don't seek it out. Further, both countries, at face value, denounce terrorism and play by the modern rules of international relations. Additionally, it would be more or less impossible for the US to invade, occupy and initiate regime change in those countries through brute force.

Iraq, on the other hand, while not the same kind of threat as China or Russia, is a much easier country to invade, occupy, and change. Saddam's stubborn, stupid, and crazy desire to confront America left the country totally vulnerable to US attack. He had no military. He thwarted any efforts of reproach with the US. He allowed sanctions to continue for years further weakening public support. He also allowed the US to play off Saddam's rants about "evil America" and his irrational behavior to create the impression that Saddam was on the verge of launching a nuclear or terrorist strike against the US. Of course, now we know he was probably incapable of a nuclear attack, he didn't do much to assure the US that he wasn't planning it. And, of course, he was a egomaniacal dictator, like Hitler, Stalin and others, with a irrational sense of self esteem. I don't know, but crazy Saddam in control of one of the most oil rich countries in the world scared me to death. Would you feel safe if Charles Manson became governor of California?


It would be impossible for the US to invade and occupy either of those countries.

Annie

First of all I am not a team, I am me, alone. Furthermore as I did mentioned I am not an american so your internal politics do not concerns me.
Second I do not have time, as it seems you do, to write the posts which some people would just scroll down i/o reading.
Third, I did mention recent tortures in Egipt (sand monkey) you may also read on Iran (rooz on line) or Saudi Arabia (religious policeman). It seems to me that you are really fixated on "crimes of Bush" and crimes of americans, well that's perhaps because you are an american.
Fourth, I do not need to see your links, even w/o reading I can say that they are talking about baaad Bush, crimes of american military and goood behavious of others. (have I guessed right?). I did, though, checked one of your link, and the author of the website accuses administration of inviting Zarkawi to Iraq. Furthermore what the hell Serbia have to do with Iraq, the only thing I can think of is the mujahadins taking over Kosovo.


TAI

It seems that you are talking about a person who does not exist. I am not an american, in 2003 I did not read all the staff about war. I did, though, read Salam Pax and Baghdad Burning. I did not, nor do I, watch Fox, CNN etc. I do not even know who are these people you are talking about. Finally I did not nor do I trust most of anonymous sources, so get a grip, and stop accusing me of immaginary viewpoint.

Bob

I would agree with what you wrote, however, Russia stopped being a communist country long time ago so regime change in Russia is rather not on the cards. It also stopped being threat to USA. It does have their own policy but the times of Russian Imperium are gone without possibility of return. Some russians and Putin do dream of its return but it is only a dream.

China is bigger threat, with large economic base and their constant quest for oil. However, as you mention , chinese policy is quite realistic and they would not initiate a war without a good possibility of winning it (well, perhaps over Taiwan). Their policy is usually predictable, in contrast to politics of Iran or Iraq under Sadam.

US military makes songs about killing Iraqi girls:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ameri...cas/ 5077858.stm

I have the vid on my blog ...

Do you also have the links to those beheading videos and propoganda videos showing IED attacks?

(I mean on the website, not just your personal stash)

If the American's are the bad guys then these must be the good guys right?

Day after day after day of horrible terrorist attacks in that country and some of you obsess about some obscure story of a small group of callous GI's.

The level of whining on this sight is deafening.

So is the whining about 911 used to justify the illegal invasion of my country and the attacks on civilians in Iraq.

Here are the lyrics.

I was out in the sands of Iraq
And we were under attack
And I, well I didn't know where to go
Then the first thing that I could see
Was everybody's favorite Burger King
So I threw open the door and I hit the floor

THen suddenly to my surprise
I looked up and I saw her eyes
And I knew it was love at first sight
And she said 'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa bakala
Haji girl, I can't understand what you're saying
And she said 'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa bakala
Haji girl, I love you anyway

Then she said she wanted me to see
Wanted me to go meet her family
But I, Well I couldn't figure out how to say no
Cuz I don't speak Arabic, so

She took me down an old dirt trail
And she pulled up to a sod shanty
She threw open the door and I hit the floor
Cuz her brother and her father shouted:
'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa bakala
They pulled out their AK's so I could see

And they said
'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa bakala
So I grabbed her little sister
And I put her in front of me
As the bullets began to fly
The blood sprayed from between her eyes
And then I laughed maniacally

Then I hid behind the tv
And I locked and loaded my M-16
I blew those little fuckers to eternity
And I said:
'Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad, sherpa sherpa bakala
They shoulda known they were fuckin' with a Marine

Ella,

Yes, you are correct. Between china and russia, china is likely more of a threat. although, russia is a strange country, with remnants of stalinism still left. historically and right now, i would argue that russia is more nationalistic and anti-us than china, although china is more likely to get into a hot war with the US over something like taiwan, than russia. sort of contradictory, but hopefully you understand what i mean.

like you said though, although weak, iraq was truly irrational and unpredicatable, which is the best way to get on america's bad side. and, like i said, it's one thing to have to invade a country like russia or china, compared with a small, weak country like iraq.

of course, dealing with the "america is evil" propaganda is annoying, its a small price to pay for the long term benefits of establishing democracy in the middle east.

Interesting interpretation of the song. Actually, its a song about the betrayal, and how we can't trust the Iraqi people, who claim to be our friends, and then stab us in the back. Quite depressing...

Iraq is not your country. You came uninvited. If Iraqis stab you in the back or shoot you in the face, it is their country.

Resistance to foreign occupation is sancrosanct. There would be no USA had people in the colonies continued to accept the tyranny of King George.

There would be no France had the French not resisted the Nazis. Yes, the Nazis set up the Vichy gov't and said all was good, too.

Or the Partizani (Tihi i Prle) in Yugoslavia.

The Nazis also told the Soviet people they were there to protect them from the evil of dictator Stalin.

The Soviets paid 25 million dead for their liberation.

I bet the Nazis felt they were being stabbed in the back by their Soviet "friends".

Or in the Ukraine when the Ukrainian people welcomed the Nazis as liberators at first until they started to feel the brunt of one brutality after another and then "stabbed in the back" the Nazis.

When you say you can't trust the Iraqi people - the inhabitants of a country you invaded - you are really telling us you advocate the mass murder of all of us.

Right? Or are you selective?

The Nazis were selective, too. They picked out who was Aryan looking and who wasn't. And they also lined men up naked to see who was circumcised and who wasn't.

You know why they did that, right?

TAI: the song lyric's that you posted, maybe I read that differently than you do. Maybe you should watch the movie containing the song to help you understand it. It was ment as a comdy on the movie Team America: World Police. The film tells the story of an overzealous gang of anti-terrorist "global peace" enforcers known as Team America. "Much of the film is a parody of the Bush Administration's War on Terror. Most of the heroes and villains represent extreme caricatures of both conservative and liberal attitudes towards the war, and American foreign policy in general. The film also heavily parodies the cliches of other action movies (including a song about having a montage, a modified form of which appeared in South Park).

Despite the teaser trailer's boast that George W. Bush and John Kerry (along with a whole slew of celebrities) are "going to be really, really mad when they see Team America: World Police", neither Bush nor Kerry are actually seen or mentioned, although puppets that look similar to them (and their wives) can be seen in the audience of LEASE, a parody of Rent. While the protagonists are fictitious, the real names of several Hollywood celebrities and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il, are used. None of them approved the use, nor were asked for their approval, of their names and likenesses in this movie, for obvious reasons. (It should be noted however, that since they are Public Figures, their permission need not be sought.)"

As I follow it (not the first time I heard it)I hear a soldier talking about seeing a beautiful Arabic girl, feeling love at first site. She tried talking to him but the language was confusing, he followed after her to her home, where her father and brother shouted and bared their arms. The soldier not understanding them was confused having no idea if his presence was accepted or denied. Knowing not friend or enemy. The soldier pulled the sister in front of him, thinking that would spare his life, but in a furry, bullets flew from the father and son's gun, killing the sister, who saved his life. Then he states that he wasnt stupid or fooled by the trick they gave him. He says he is a Marine, trained to see through luring games.

Id like to say also, u said "Iraq is not your country. You came uninvited. If Iraqis stab you in the back or shoot you in the face, it is their country." Why does a country belong to anyone? Its our world as it is yours, just because you are born in a place dosent make it yours.
If I want to be an American, ill live in America, if I want to be Iraqi, ill live in Iraq, if i want to be Egyptian, ill live in Egypt.

It seems to me that you are really fixated on "crimes of Bush"(ella)

of course, dealing with the "america is evil" propaganda is annoying(kryptdik)

bummer, blame the ugly american

Annie could you please provide proof of the Christians torturing people today, and the Americans torturing people today.

the purpose of my post that leads the comments of this thread is that torture is an equal opportunity offender.

in the last thread ella emphasized the torture of communists, then 24 posted about the torture of a communist.

inferring my posts exampling the US as complicit in torture as "america is evil" is shallow, especially as they were posted on request.

since my initial post made no reference to americans torturing today, i did not fullfill ugly's request (tho i could) and linked to evidence from past senate investigation hearings.

you may consider these investigations propaganda.i prefer to think of them as proof.labeling as evil, now that is in the eye of the beholder krypto. always easier calling names than facing culpability. that's what cowards do.

ella , i believe you made me an offer i accepted Regarding games for children..............do you like me to send you a couple of Iranian ones, with terrorists fighting in the name of Allah?

do please link

TAI

I understand that you are Iraqi, but do you live now in Iraq?

You write so well about nazi and russians.

It is funny, russians first signed Ribbentrop/Molotow agreement, then fought with nazis and then they "liberated" others. Some of your co-religionists want to do just that.

Oh, and you mentioned Tito and his partizants.............Tito died and the Yugolavia disintegrated.

You may take that also into consideration.

Bob

I do not think so. I read somewhere poll on anti-pro-american sentiments. I think that chineese were the most anti american from the people polled.

In russia there is pro-stalin sentiment, that is true. It is particularly strong in small towns and the differences in living conditions between moscow or "peter" and small towns are still enormous. The end of communists era did not change much in that respect. Even in large towns books on stalin or books gloryfying communist era are quite popular. But that is I think gloryfication of the times where Russia was strong and powerfull and in a way quite understandable.

Annie,
Please justify qouting the Islam Memo, while at the same time complaining of American propagnada, or at least show me a tap dance.

do please link

Ella,

Maybe I'm wrong, but I see China as more orderly and cohesive than Russia right now. It appears more likely that a dictator could rise up in Russia, compared with China. You obviously know more about Russia than I do, however, and I defer to your opinion.

Annie,

You are truly amusing. Keep up the good work, links and all.

TAI,

By your definitions, any war is unjustified. If you are truly a pacifist, I accept and admire that. But seeing as how you continue to encourage the killing of Americans, I hardly believe that is your agenda. What the Nazis were trying to do in Europe is THE OPPOSITE of what the US is trying to do in Iraq and the Middle East. By your account, the Nazis had every right to kill Americans as they fought their way to Berlin. Likewise, Frenchmen had a duty to kill the Americans who landed at Normandy because, after all, they came to "take" France. Nevermind, that the Americans came to fight against dictatorship, naziism, and totalitarianism in Europe. They were occupying European land, so Germans, French and Italians had the RIGHT to stab them in the back - correct?

Annie, you’re doing an outstanding job here. Looks like you took on the whole 101st Fighting Keyboarders solo.

Impressive!

Here’s an excerpt that seems relevant right about now:


Torture at Abu Ghraib followed CIA's manual
By Alfred W. McCoy - May 14, 2004 - Boston Globe

“THE PHOTOS from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison are snapshots not of simple brutality or a breakdown in discipline but of CIA torture techniques that have metastasized over the past 50 years like an undetected cancer inside the US intelligence community. From 1950 to 1962, the CIA led secret research into coercion and consciousness that reached a billion dollars at peak. After experiments with hallucinogenic drugs, electric shocks, and sensory deprivation, this CIA research produced a new method of torture that was psychological, not physical -- best described as "no touch" torture.

The CIA's discovery of psychological torture was a counterintuitive breakthrough -- indeed, the first real revolution in this cruel science since the 17th century. The old physical approach required interrogators to inflict pain, usually by crude beatings that often produced heightened resistance or unreliable information. Under the CIA's new psychological paradigm, however, interrogators used two essential methods to achieve their goals.

In the first stage, interrogators employ the simple, nonviolent techniques of hooding or sleep deprivation to disorient the subject; sometimes sexual humiliation is used as well.

Once the subject is disoriented, interrogators move on to a second stage with simple, self-inflicted discomfort such as standing for hours with arms extended. In this phase, the idea is to make victims feel responsible for their own pain and thus induce them to alleviate it by capitulating to the interrogator's power.”//end excerpt

Anybody who has read the Charriere classic “Papillon” will realise just how devastating sensory deprivation and forced isolation can be. Many of the inmates went insane from the treatment. (French, btw. Never let it be said the US has the monopoly on sick behaviour.)

[bob] “Saddam's stubborn, stupid, and crazy desire to confront America left the country totally vulnerable to US attack. He had no military. He thwarted any efforts of reproach with the US. He allowed sanctions to continue for years further weakening public support.”

That’s incorrect. He never did seek a policy of confrontation with the US. He even checked with April Glaspie to OK the invasion of Kuwait. And it was the US that explicitly stated that sanctions transcended the question of Iraqi disarmament and would remain in place for as long as Saddam was the head of the Iraqi state. The US wanted confrontation all along, as demonstrated by the clear violations of Iraqi sovereignty via the illegal no fly zones.




[TAI] “Iraq is not your country. You came uninvited. If Iraqis stab you in the back or shoot you in the face, it is their country. Resistance to foreign occupation is sacrosanct.”


Yeah, but Hussein was eeevil. He killed lotsa Eyerakees so the US can kill lotsa Eyerakees. It’s nice being killed by the US because they don’t behead you - they just blow you up, or incinerate you or shoot you or asphyxiate you or drown you or liberate you to death. Wallah, it will be the most considerate and humane death you could ever experience. Wow, are these Eyerakees whiners or what?


[TAI] “There would be no USA had people in the colonies continued to accept the tyranny of King George.”

Actually, I’ve been reading about the behaviour of the tyrannous King George, and it does not sound a fraction as bad as what the US is doing in Iraq right now. If we accept the baseline of British behaviour in the US as the acceptable limit for revolution, well, then Iraqis are justified many times over in taking the fight to the American invaders.

[TAI] “When you say you can't trust the Iraqi people - the inhabitants of a country you invaded - you are really telling us you advocate the mass murder of all of us. Right?”

That IS what they are saying. They just can’t admit it. To themselves or to us. 87% of Iraqis want them out. Are they going to kill ALL those Iraqis?

Geez, how hard is it to understand? The US revolutionaries had way less support than that.

"You came uninvited." TAI

On the contrary, we were late in accepting the invitation.

But looking at how things have went in the south, perhaps that time lag had to happen. Because it did allow the Kurds to get a head start on working out the many problems that the south is only now starting to deal with.

Bob and Ella,

Interesting discussion on Russia and China. From where I am sitting it has looked like Russia has backslid a little on some of the freedoms it had established since the iron curtain fell. The Russian government seems intent on curtailing freedom of the press and private business.

I think China is certainly in line for a superpower position. The only thing that may hurt their quest is the internal problems they haven't yet dealt with. Such as their pollution, health care and income disparity issues.

It's true we have similar problems. But I think we may have a leg up on dealing with these kind of issues, in that we have a more flexible form of government. We also do not have the population to care for that China does. Everything has to be done on a massive scale for them.

It will also be interesting to see how they handle the desire of their rising middle class for more political power.

I don't think either one at this point is a threat to us in the way you might think.

Russia is still in transition and only time will tell if it actually makes it to a completely free society.

China's economy is so tied to ours that for our countries to become involved in open hostilities would hurt both of us.

But that having been said, we will certainly be in competition with them.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. I could be totally off base.

Sorry, 24, for being off topic. But I found those comments on Russia and China interesting.

Annie -

Here is a link to an Iranian children’s cartoon promoting suicide bombing:

http://memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=906

Here is the transcript from a discussion on how Tom & Jerry is a "Jewish Conspiracy to Improve the Image of Mice, because Jews Were Termed 'Dirty Mice' in Europe":

http://memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1049

TAI -

Man I try to cut you some slack being an Iraqi and all but seriously...this video is hardly some indictment of American cruelty in Iraq. It is some guy jamming with his band. If it is really meant to be a song about killing an innocent Iraqi girl than it is in bad taste and the guy is an a**hole. If it is about something else than it's just a song. Either way it is this one guy and his band. You really seem to be grasping at straws in your attempt to paint American troops in this bad light.

So now Nazis are a good comparison to Americans? Nazi foreign policy is comparable to America's? Better yet insurgents that snipe some 20 y/o GI as he is handing out candy is a "minuteman" or a revolutionary throwing off the chains of a tyrant king? These comparisons do more to point out your vicious anti-Americanism (or your poor grasp of history) than to offer any insight.

But I suppose there is some universal code that says if foreigners are in your country then you set off roadside bombs. There is some god-given commandment that says "Thou shalt blow thyself up in the presence of your occupiers-and if you kill a few dozen of your own people in the process, no problem." This is the 21st Century and these archaic ideas about jihad, resistance and "death before dishonor" are leading to this horrible violence or at least to a placating attitude towards it.

So cast your lot with the coalition and the Iraqi government or with the Islamic Army. Or better yet claim that you support the Iraqi government but also the Islamic Army, or some other insurgent group, but only when they attack the "occupier," not when they behead journalists. This seems to be real winning strategy so far. I understand that BT is rally enjoying his “minuteman” infested neighborhood where folks can’t sell falafels or wear shorts without fear of being shot in the head.

But then again the government does the same thing right? There are Islamists within it that abhor alcohol and want all women wearing burqas. Death squads operate in government vehicles and wear badges. So what to do?

Well either you choose more violence to confront the violence or you work to build a democratic and civil society. A society where the security forces are fully under the control of a government accountable to the people. Don’t want burqas? Vote out the party supporting them. Interior Ministry supporting death squads? Demand that your local representative do something about it or feel the wrath of the voters come election day.

Things certainly aren’t that simple yet and the environment is far from being conducive to it anytime soon. But the way to get there isn’t roadside bombs and beheadings. It isn’t resistance and jihad. It is a semi-functioning government and a relatively peaceful country. If American’s left tomorrow which way to you think would prevail in the near future? Would these noble minutemen lay down their arms and embrace peace?

Please toss out these ancient ideas about machismo and the “right to resist” and start focusing on a realistic modern way forward.

Again I really don’t like these internet spats and especially when they really have nothing to do with what the original posting was about. But you make it awfully hard to keep quite and increasing hard to be sympathetic!

To all those who are defending the video of a US soldier singing about killing Iraqis - using racial slurs and so on, shame on you.

Just listen to the cheering and boister in the background.

If someone in Afghanistan made such a song, you would all be at arms. Some of you would demand the US nuke the entire country.

So, please, cut the self-righteous bullshit you are all trying to sell through here.

If you really want to understand how it feels, empathize, put yourself on the "other" side. See how it feels.

Many of you can. Most of you can't. You have been conditioned to believe that the outside world beyond the Entertainment Tonight, Wheel of Fortune and CNN Headline News is run wrong and you do everything right.

Ethnocentricism is the word.

Now, let us dissect and toss out:

Anon 12:36 says Why does a country belong to anyone? Its our world as it is yours, just because you are born in a place dosent make it yours. Tell that to the Mexicans, please and all the Minutemen just waiting to pull the trigger and kill someone.

Bobby K wrote But seeing as how you continue to encourage the killing of Americans, I hardly believe that is your agenda.

I am not a pacifist nor do I encourage the killing of Americans.

I have said it here many times, if Americans come to my country as visitors, as guests, as tourists, as friends, as businessmen, as teachers, as builders, as aid workers I and all Iraqis would welcome them with open arms.

We would invite them into our homes, share food and stories with them, and perhaps one day, we would visit them in the US.

But the US military came with its F-16s, Abrams, killing maiming, occupying, dictating who and how should lead, how Iraqis should hold elections, how the electorates should be divided.

Did France do that when it saved your hides during the Revolutionary War?

What the Nazis were trying to do in Europe is THE OPPOSITE of what the US is trying to do in Iraq and the Middle East. Not in the eyes of the Nazis. I am sure many Europeans (not all) condemned and detested what the Nazis were doing.

But you can't see that you feed on self-deluding manufactured news just like the Nazis did.

My country is occupied, your country is the occupier. It does not matter what the reason was.

By your account, the Nazis had every right to kill Americans as they fought their way to Berlin.

Your interpretation of things is bewildering. The Nazis invaded Europe and Europe (with the US, invaded back). For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In 1943, German generals had been trying to find ways to sue for peace and ally with the Americans against the Soviets who they perceived as a greater threat.

Likewise, Frenchmen had a duty to kill the Americans who landed at Normandy because, after all, they came to "take" France. Nevermind, that the Americans came to fight against dictatorship, naziism, and totalitarianism in Europe. They were occupying European land, so Germans, French and Italians had the RIGHT to stab them in the back - correct?

Incorrect, your understanding of the word logic is numbing.

The countries you mentioned had been occupied by Foreign nation A. Foreign nation B came to liberate those countries from Foreign nation A.

In Iraq, it is different, we were not under any occupation before 2003. There is only occupier and occupied.

Lynnette said On the contrary, we were late in accepting the invitation.

Habeebti, go read about the London Conferences of December 2002 when the same people you see in power today, met in London and tried to hammer out a government in the post-Saddam era.

There were walkouts, there were fights, and virtually no consensus.

The people who invited you were all the ones who attened the conference. Da'awa Party (a known terrorist entity in Iraq which had killed civilians and was fiercly allied with Iran) headed by Jaafari and his deputy Maliki.

Then you had Chalabi. And you had Allawi.

The people who invited (in addition to the Kurds because they realize foreign invasion and occupation is a surefire way to disintegrate Iraq, wage ethnic cleansing against Turkmen and declare independence) you were all living abroad wearing Rolex watches, frolicking the finest hotels in Europe while Iraqi civilians (1.7 million of them) died under the sanctions.

The US is today trying to do the same thing using Syrian exiles claiming these exiles speak for Syrian vox populi and want US troops in Damascus.

Fortunately for Syria, the US does not have the resources nor will to go anywhere else after the Iraq quagmire.

But, Lynnette, I would also ask you to brush up on the Nouri Said coup of 1941 against Rashid Aali Al Geilani, the siphoning of oil by British Companies then, and how British forces landed in Basra (were resisted by the Iraqis) and installed Said in power.

Tex, you are a pure genious. You use the cartoons of a nation you termed Evil and anti-Semitic literature to JUSTIFY the song?

Is that how low the US has sunk? What happened to it as a beacon of freedoms? A nation championing liberties? Why can it not be judged by the very principles upon which it was founded rather than looking for what Iran or someone else did?

Come on, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

I would support the Iraqi government if it went after the militia. Four weeks later, it has done none of that.

I would support the Iraqi government if it went after the death squads. Four weeks later, it has done none of that.

I would support the Iraqi government if it supported the rights of its people. If it protected the rights of its people.

If it said "Muqtada, tell your people to stop killing athletes or we will go after you".

If it said, "women are equal to men in the workplace, in school and so on".

But this government has done none of these things.

Why? Because the people perpertating many of the crimes against the Iraqis, the people leading the death squads are all run by people IN THE GOVERNMENT.

So, how can I throw my lot in with them? Hmmm, would you?

What kind of "democratic" government shuffles an interior minister who has been directly implicated in the death squads and militia and offers him the finance ministry instead?

Just tell me which "democratic" country would do that?

Hmmm? Why was no official inquiry opened into this? Why?

Surely, accountability comes with democracy does it not?

Why wasn't he put on trial? Okay, maybe he was innocent (let us falsely assume that for the sake of argument), how on earth coule he receive yet another ministry?

Is Iraq devoid of people who can lead ministries?

Or is it because a gang is in government, playing musical chairs because it was put in place by a foreign occupier and influenced by Iran?

You people have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You don't care. You only want the US to be proven right and then you turn around start cheering for the invasion of Iran or Venezuela next.

At the end of April 2003 I hoped that Bush knew what he was doing. I hoped, despite the cultural ignorance that rules the US and its foreign policy, that Iraq would become something to be proud of.

I was proven wrong, I was let down. From one calamity to another, the US military proved it was a criminal outfit, the Bush White House proved it was run by babies who had to have their way or else.

A golden opportunity was squandered and now your reputation has been tarnished.

And my people die.

You want me to regain faith in the US military and the policies appliled in Iraq?

Make the government (after all, you do make them do things, don't you) amend the constitution.

Make the government bring to trial those it knows are running death squads, militia and so on.

Go after Muqtada. Go after Iran's agents, why are you so afraid of Iran?

But it is too late to do any of that, so we wonder, what was the real plan for Iraq.

Could the US have really fumbled here, or was that its purpose all along?

If the US was occupied, would you toss out these ancient "rite to resist"?

Would you?

If a virus enters your body, would you say "I invited it, so it's okay"?

I don't want your sympathy. The Iraqi people do not want your sympathy.

We learned from the sanctions what you really care about.

Why do you talk about beheadings so much? Because it is a visible death?

What kind of death is it when an entire house falls on its occupants after an F-16 fires its democratic missiles at it?

What kind of death is it when a child's head is split in two after taking fire from a high caliber rifle.

Death is death, murder is murder. You want to feel better, quell your conscience and know that it was a clean death, not messy.

No, sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Anderson Cooper went to interview a middle-class Baghdad family about life three years after the invasion. Instead questions came for him, and most questons were about one subject: What is the U.S. doing here? What did the Americans really come for?

Answers of democracy or a better life without Saddam just don't satisfy them. They weigh their lives in their daily safety, and none of them feel safe. The most simple answer for them has become to blame the United States. Nothing Anderson said could get them to believe the United States is in Iraq as an honest broker to help fix a bad situation.

It's hard to judge what's deep down in people's hearts. Do Iraqi's really believe life would be better if U.S. troops leave? He said "I guess they know things could get uglier. It's not that they don't hope their lives will improve. They do. They hope for it desperately every day. But each morning bring no respite."

A few months ago things started gettinng worse. U.S. Special Operations Force advisers mentoring an Iraqi Special Operations force raid on some of the hostage takers and killers got in a gunfight with the men they came to bring to justice.

Before U.S. military spokesmen could release details of the fight where 16 people were killed, the Al Iraqia television station in Iraq (who were funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars) began broadcasting accusations that U.S. troops had killed Iraqi worshipers inside a mosque. Even after the U.S. military issued a statement to explain what happened, the TV station broadcasted the accusations as initally stated.

Anderson also said "It was the first time this station turned on the very people who helped get it on the air. If this station is so openly hostile to the United States, it begs the question: What can Americans do?"

When I think about this interview, immediatly I think of TAI. I notice more and more how his information is by media and how the media has nothing good to say, good dosent sell as well as the bad stuff does. No wonder Iraqi's are confused when lis are reporteed by the media.

TAI claims to love Americans but cant seem to find a good word for any of them. Cant someone make a list for him? TAI, I also want to say, no matter how much you hate Americans, I still got your back, we Americans dont turn our back on people, we live in one nation under god, with liberty and justice for all. Wee try to makke life the same for you, bu as we can all see, yyou reject that. God created you and also created me, that makes us brothers my friend.

If Iraqis and Americans would pull together and defeat the evil, then you would get your wish of the occupiers leaving, however it is the people who are the same as you, fighting against Americans intead of helping the fight. Your prolonging the agenda.

Annie, Please justify qouting the Islam Memo, while at the same time complaining of American propagnada, or at least show me a tap dance.

link to what? anyone following the thread could understand perfectly why i posted it. but since you are trying to pull it out of context and drag the issue into another thread i will recap the issue. i had heard saturday morning about the siege into ramadi that got completely shut out of the press here possibly due to Z's death conviniently timed between hadith and ramadi. i googled ramadi by news by date and there was absolutely nothing in msm, only one story from italy ukonet or something a source i have had my doubts about. i stated i would 'appreciate' any news of ramadi fallujah'd. then the degenerate response claiming i 'wished' to get news of ramadi fallujah'd. more bs spin. about 5 hrs later a story broke w/la times. i posted 3 paragraphs (8;39 post, last thread). ella jump down my throat (shock!), my response "i purposely chose 3 paragraphs that shed no blame, focusing on the victims". i purposely avaided any text in the article that passed judgement as to the responsible parties. i did not purposely initially post the original source of my information and avoided it because i am not an idiot and well aware the source was biased although i did not assume it was devoid of truth by any means. clearly but shutting out journalists and evading any coverage of an obviously newsworthy event that impacts the war and the community there will be the risk of the story getting out. you cannot hide an entire city under siege, what people want to know they will search for and at the time i originally searched what was available was the islam memo, which again i chose not to link to or repeat as i have no desire contrary to accusations on this thread that i wish to ferment hatred or whatever. but the accusation that i was trafficing in propaganda by linking to the LA times (which i will certainly not defend as devoid of propaganda) as a way of spreading such propaganda instead of wanting to share news of ramadi led me this statement which was clearly printed above the link
i could have linked to much more damaging information. are you daring me. do you really want to go down this road

so , to purposely ignore any reference to why i was posting the info, in a separate thread , taken out of context, accusing me of engaging in the propaganda, without even noting that my earlier request for any info about ramadi was not forthcoming, is so much bs. and the fantasy you have of me ever tap dancing for you??? dream on. tool

my response to the memri video will be forthcoming

news from club gitmo

very shortly i will be addressing the menri video, there is just so much other info on the web i would rather attend to than diving into the bowels of memri which has got to be one of the most biased source of news available on the ME. whatever. at least when i linked to the 'christians killing everybody else' video i used a source that quoted from the horses mouth.

of course its horrible anybody anywhere making violent material aimed at children so i will not defend it but i am a bit curious as to how this was promoted in iran and how wide the distribution.
the left behind ministries is millons and millions and connected to one of the most far reaching evangelical churches on the planet. but at some point i will cover my take on memri

thank you so much bruno, i am giving it my best shot. normally i hang on a website w/people way more qualified than myself (like you and TAI) w/regard to history and facts etc), but you weren't around and i couldn't let this blog get overrun w/ugly american types. just holding down the fort til you and other like minded showed up.

TAI, you are truly amazing the way you patiently take on these outrageous slimers There is some god-given commandment that says "Thou shalt blow thyself up in the presence of your occupiers-and if you kill a few dozen of your own people in the process, no problem." and all that. your expertise blows me away. daily.

if anyone else would care to put memri in perspective, and if you don't i will get around to it.

TAI,

"The people who invited you were all the ones who attened the conference."

No, I wasn't talking about those people. A lot of the ones I was talking about are all dead now.

We were late, you see. We can't help them now, but we can try to help others.

WV, you got my back? No thanks, no Benedict Arnold do I need?

I don't want you or any other pro-war, pro-Iraqi deaths Xenophobic racist pundit to do anything with me.

You watch my back after you destroyed my country? Yes, good one.

I suggest you watch your back when you are in Italy or South Korea or Japan. You're really loved over there.

We don't need you making lives better for anyone. Run and fix up New Orleans which has been quietly ethnically cleansed.

Or look after the 1.3 billion dollars stolen from Katrina reconstruction.

Fix yourself before you attempt to throw your weight around anywhere else.

Your "help" of my country has destroyed it - I would hate to see what you would do if you were at war with all Iraqis.

Or are you?

So, in conclusion, I do not hate Americans, visit my site and read up on what I have to say. I lived in the US and I know that there is much warmth and compassion among the common American person.

I have personally experienced it.

Have you lived in Iraq? hmmm ...

But I do hate stupidity, cultural ignorance, racist bigotry, prejudice, Islamophobia, ethnocentricity.

And you win, you have all of 'em running through you.

I notice more and more how his information is by media and how the media has nothing good to say

ah, your tearing me up. maybe the media doesn't have anything good to say because nothing good is happening.nah, how silly of me even to consider such a thing.

how about this,

in an attempt to kill some really bad guys the hero marines entered a house and liberated some civilians of the hell of iraq by sending them to heaven. then in a their generosity they cleared the area so the next home builders could avoid the demolition costs involved with the new construction. wishing to save lots of time and money for everyone involved, especially the little babies who's liberation came so early in life.

the military should rethink keeping the journalists out of ramadi, i'm sure if they were allowed in they could write about all the wonderful transformations going on there.

and those pesky rendon spin machines, we really must slap them on the wrist. 300 million last year alone and they couldn't complete the simple task of reporting the liberation.hey, i have a good idea. why don't they start coming onto the blogs and talking about how wonderful the occupation is, then some of the posters on this blog could rest peacefully knowing the truth was getting out there.

the case of the missing 21 BILLION

more bad news, what were they thinking, its probably not true anyway. can't someone write a story about how strong iraq's economy is?

TAI

You did not answer my question: Do you live in Iraq?

And that are your words on your blog about Americans
"Imperialism. Racism. Xenophobia. Islamophobia. Death cult. Bloodthirsty. Nazi. Nazi. Nazi.

Is anyone beginning to see the pattern here? How do Iraqis get justice for the crimes perpetrated against them?"

TAI, I think in your blog you said everything about yourself. Iraqi bloggers talk about their own experiences of war and what is happening in Iraq (yes, Baghdad Burning too), you can only comment on articles from newspapers. That says everything about you.

[ella] "TAI You did not answer my question: Do you live in Iraq?"

If you look at TAI's blog he has made it clear that he is an Iraqi expat currently residing in the US but still travelling regularly to the middle east. There is nothing to hide here.

[tex] “this video is hardly some indictment of American cruelty in Iraq. It is some guy jamming with his band. […] Either way it is this one guy and his band..”

It’s also about revealing the complete lack of empathy that people like him have for Iraqis. It’s about the support for him by the cheering spectators. It’s about the 50000 hits the site took from all the people wanting to watch the video. It’s about the mental baseline that the troops start with … and Haditha is where the finish line is.

[tex] “Better yet insurgents that snipe some 20 y/o GI as he is handing out candy is a "minuteman" or a revolutionary throwing off the chains of a tyrant king?”

An Iraqi sniper killing a GI as he tries to lure Iraqi children with candy to act as human shields? Damn right he is justified.

[tex] “I understand that BT is rally enjoying his “minuteman” infested neighborhood where folks can’t sell falafels or wear shorts without fear of being shot in the head.”

I understand that BT is also really enjoying the US sponsored death squads that routinely try to enter his neighbourhood in order to round up a bunch of residents to use as drilling material. I understand also that these religious crazies were unleashed by the US invasion. I understand also that things were better before your “liberation”.

[tex] “Interior Ministry supporting death squads? Demand that your local representative do something about it or feel the wrath of the voters come election day.”
ROTFL! I can see it now: “ Hey, look, the interior Ministry people just killed Omar! Goddamn it, I’m going to write them a really stern letter. That’l show them, ha ha!”

THERE IS *NO* ACCOUNTABILITY IN IRAQ, GET IT ?

[tex] “Please toss out these ancient ideas about machismo and the “right to resist” and start focusing on a realistic modern way forward.”

You know, that’s not what I remember the US doing when Al Qaeda hit you. I remember much bombing and slaughter of the Taliban and AQ. It’s not what I remember the US doing when the Iraqis first started resisting. I don’t remember Americans saying, “well, let’s discuss this”. I remember “bring it on, we’ve got plenty of tough force at hand”.

How times change, eh?

[TAI] “Because the people perpertating many of the crimes against the Iraqis, the people leading the death squads are all run by people IN THE GOVERNMENT. So, how can I throw my lot in with them? Hmmm, would you? […]Surely, accountability comes with democracy does it not? […] You people have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.”


That, in a nutshell, is the exact problem.

There is no accountability and they war junkies don’t understand anything. That’s the truth. I mean, “contact your local representative” !?

Just out of interest, and if any Iraqi like BT or 24 or Zeyad or whoever reads this, please answer: do you HAVE a “local representative” Do you know who he is? Can you “contact” this person? Does this person have ANY influence at all? Does this person EXIST?


Annie –

Thank you for your words. You do a fine job on your own. And don’t sweat the MEMRI thing. They are paid to comb through thousands of articles everyday with a microscope and highlight a few nutcases in the worst possible light. If they were doing the same to America they would focus on the far right whack jobs and try to present them as mainstream opinion. People like the KKK and what have you would be the official face of America. Everybody knows what MEMRI is about.

This is what Iraqis think of Bush and the “Liberation” he has brought:


Iraqis March Against Uninvited Bush
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies - June 14, 2006

BAGHDA/WASHINGTON — Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad on Wednesday, June 14, to protest uninvited US President George Bush, as leading US dailies took issue with the visit dismissing it as a publicity stunt.

"Iraq is for Iraqis" and "No, to the occupation," chanted the protestors who marched through the northern neighborhood of Kazimiyah. They raised Iraqi flags and pictures of young Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, demanding the withdrawal of US-led occupation forces. "This visit is a brazen violation of Iraq's sovereignty," Abdel Hadi Al-Daraji, a senior aide to the Shiite leader, told the Doha-based Al-Jazeera news channel. "He was not invited even the government did not know about the visit."

Bush arrived in Baghdad Tuesday, June 13, on a surprise visit kept secret even from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Expecting a planned teleconference with Bush and top White House officials Maliki and his senior cabinet officials were called to the US embassy in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone. Only after Bush had landed by helicopter in the Green Zone did they find out the meeting with the US leader would be in person.”//end excerpt



What slays me is the manner in which Iraqis are called to and fro like messenger boys. Maliki was given 5 minutes notice to get his polish and shoe-brush ready for Bush’s boots. Is this Maliki the president of a sovereign country? God, I’d die of embarrassment before calling a shoe shiner like him “Mr President”. I like the way that Bush doesn’t even trust his own lackey to warn him in advance that he is on the way. Or bother asking permission before waltzing into a foreign country.

Anybody who thinks Iraq is “sovereign” is smoking crack.

Where are the crowds of cheering Iraqis, grateful for ‘liberation’?

Don’t see those, do we?

And you know what the saddest thing of all is?

People like the Sadrists and the Sunnis both want the same thing – Americans out – yet they have been so manipulated and so antagonised against each other that they can’t even give each other the time of day. That’s the worst thing about this invasion – witnessing the planned implosion of a people against itself.

Holy Shit!!
TAI- You live in the Great Satan!!!
ROTFL
Wow!
So do you pay taxes?

TAI

You wrote about Chalabi who was an expat.
LOL, you are an expat too.

Ella, my entire family is in Iraq, git?

Everything that happens in Iraq, happens to me, git?

I write of their experiences, their tears as they write to me, I hear those on the phone.

You think that just by being outside the country renders everything null and void?

Sometimes, I can hear gunfire in the backgroound when I speak to them. Most of the time I can't get through because mobile network is down or landlines aren't working. You have no idea how it is.

Furthermore, by your logic, every single US citizen should NOT have voiced their opinions on 911 IF they lived outside the country?

They should not have cried. They should not have spoken. They should have merely shut up, right?

No, am not in the Great Satan as you so pathetically say. My works compel me to travel often - my home base is in the Mideast. But yes, I was in the US recently attending the wedding of a middle school buddy.

Second, Chalabi took power in Iraq. I did not, nor do I seek it.

Chalabi has his own private army in Iraq. I do not.

Chalabi wheels and deals at the Pentagon and the CIA.

I do not.

Chalabi wanted to rule over the Iraqi ministry. I do not. I want the Iraqi people to rule over the natural wealth of their country.

Chalabi said he would have fabricated any lie at all to see Iraq invaded. I am here to defeat those lies and yours.

Chalabi is for Chalabi. I am for the people of Iraq. All of them. I have said that many times.

Come on, how desperate are you getting? Could it go any lower. It's not a game here, and its not funny.

Right now, one of my cousins is preparing to leave Iraq for good having received threats for working in one of the new television stations in Mosul. He has been in hiding for the past four months. He is only 23 years old.

Would you like to air your sentiments to him, too?

TAI,

Curious to who has scared your cousin enough to leave the country?
Is he leaving because of "Haiji Girl"?

So what made your cousin so yellow TAI?

Was it the U.S? Iraqis? or let me guess U.S. trained Iraqis?

Oh Anon, you are so brave.

Do you feel good having said that? Hmmm ... ?

You pro-war anti-Iraq xenophobic crowd never learn.

Keep talking because I love the way you show how racist and hateful of the Iraqi people you truly are.

TAI,

I'm trying to figure out what I said that makes me an anti-Iraqi racist?

It's a simple question, TAI.

Who is scaring your cousin enough to leave? Is it because of the U.S. soldiers exemplified in "Haiji Girl", or is it from other Iraqis?

If it was other Iraqis that are making Iraq unlivable for him, then I am sure they were trained by the U.S. to behave that way, right.

Help me out here.

Why ask a question of me and mold it to appear legit when you then proceed to assume the answer?

Not buying it.

TAI

Again you are mixing me with others. I did not said you live in Great Satan. I asked where do you live however you did not answer.

Secondly
If you do not live in Iraq you are an expat, regardless of where you live. Families of people who where expats before fall of Sadam also had their families in Iraq, and also, like you now, thought they knew what would be best for them and for Iraq.

Thirdly

Nobody is preventing you from expressing your opinion on war, you also have more rights to do that than non-iraqi. However you think that just because you are an iraqi your opinion is more valid or you understand what is going on more then other people, some of them Iraqis living in Iraq. You also think that people, outside or inside Iraq, who do not agree with your views on Iraq, on future of Iraq or on Americans are wrong and/or not-patriotic.
You also mention sacrosant resistance.
But TAI, tell me, who is the sacrosant resistance in Iraq?
Those former baathists who fight Americans and at the same time kill anybody who do not agree with their view on future of Iraq?
Those Shia who kill americans but also kill others?
Those Sunni, who kill americans but also want everybody to follow their salafi brand of Islam.
Resistance might be sacrosant as you are saying, but not the resistance who also kill all who do not agree with their views on future of Iraq.

TAI , i am so sorry to hear about your cousin. ever since i heard about Yasser Saliheebeing assasinated in 7/05 i realized how life threatening telling the truth is in iraq

"an Iraqi special correspondent for the news agency Knight Ridder, was killed by a single bullet to the head as he approached a checkpoint that had been thrown up near his home in western Baghdad by US and Iraqi troops. It is believed that the shot was fired by an American sniper. According to eyewitnesses, no warning shots were fired. "

"�there�s no reason to think that the shooting had anything to do with his reporting work�. In fact, his last assignment gives reason to suspect that it was. "

"Over the past month, Salihee had been gathering evidence that US-backed Iraqi forces have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of alleged members and supporters of the anti-occupation resistance. His investigation followed a feature in the New York Times magazine in May, detailing how the US military had modeled the Iraqi interior ministry police commandos, known as the Wolf Brigade, on the death squads unleashed in the 1980s to crush the left-wing insurgency in El Salvador. "

"�Their hands had been tied or handcuffed behind their backs, their eyes were blindfolded and they appeared to have been tortured. In most cases, the dead men looked as if they�d been whipped with a cord, subjected to electric shocks or beaten with a blunt object and shot to death, often with single bullets to their heads.�

salihee was the first reporter to break the stories of the us trained death squads in iraq. after his death, a couple months later, it became common knowledge, before that aside from the warning in newsweek 1/05 ,i had not heard, but of course we worried when negroponte was transfered. a very strange way to make peace, don't you think.

i also read an article Building a Home-Grown Counterinsurgency that related the iraq war to el salvador

"
The template for Iraq today is not Vietnam, to which it has often been compared, but El Salvador, where a right-wing government backed by the United States fought a leftist insurgency in a 12-year war beginning in 1980. The cost was high -- more than 70,000 people were killed, most of them civilians, in a country with a population of just six million. Most of the killing and torturing was done by the army and the right-wing death squads affiliated with it. "

my point i think is clear. unless you tell the news they want you are as good as dead.

"A journalist who helped Iraq form a new broadcast network in 2003 testified Monday that U.S. occupation officials were more interested in airing their own activities than stories essential to Iraqis."

"Don North, who served as a U.S. government adviser to the Iraqi Media Network, said the network became an irrelevant mouthpiece for the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority."

"North testified at a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, a party organization. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., head of the panel, said Democrats had asked Republican-led Senate committees to conduct hearings on U.S. waste and missteps in Iraq but the GOP chairmen refused."

"In addition to North, another former U.S. adviser in Iraq -- Frank Willis -- testified he thought he was in the Wild West in 2003 as he watched colleagues pull $2 million in fresh bills from a vault and stuff them in a contractor's gunnysack."

Curious to who has scared your cousin enough to leave the country?

If it was other Iraqis that are making Iraq unlivable for him, then I am sure they were trained by the U.S. to behave that way, right.

you got it. you are so smart

y'know in case some of the lazy infowarriors out there are to lazy to follow my links(ella, i know you pass over them ;) i thought i would quote a few choice lines from the newsweek article. (damn them we can't be putting bullets thru there brains unless they come to iraq!!) w/biline The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq

"The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists," he said. "From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."

with the U.S. Army strained to the breaking point, military strategists note that a dramatic new approach might be needed�perhaps one as potentially explosive as the Salvador option.

so come on guys , let's give credit where credit is due, ya think?

The future is . . . molten, like lava. Attitudes formed now, decisions made now, could endure after the lava cools. But the coalition is not, as yet, on the ground in the Sunni belt in sufficient strength to influence that pattern.

Elites driven from power usually have much to fear. Fearful people need protection. If the invaders are seen as fundamentally hostile or worse yet, allied with a domestic enemy . . . well, the Reconstruction Era KKK wouldnt be the first terrorist organization to flourish under such circumstances.Or the last.

it's not like they weren't warned

so the question is, really, why did they srew it up? was it planned


�Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize.� [ Wall Street Journal, 9/4/2002 ]

you guys know who michael leeden is right? he served as a consultant at the Pentagon and the State Department and on the National Security Council. big time neocon, writer at NRO. big cheney, rummy buddy. republican, your kind of guy.

y'know, i'm sorta on a roll here , feeling inspired from the leeden link, i thought you might want some more quotes from the pentagon consultant of this loverly administration some of you think can do no wrong, no doubt?

“No stages. This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq ... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war ... our children will sing great songs about us years from now.” [ American Enterprise Institute, 10/29/2001 ]

so start singin you guys, lead the choir for all the little racist children. they grow up, sing, and make videos about blowing away the young virgins

but, they really won't mean to offend, will they?

Wow Annie,
I didn't know that all Iraqis are just puppets for the U.S. to handle anyway they want. Hey if we want them to terrorize each other we just pull a string there. Hand over their oil pull another string there.

It amazes me how you and Bruno and TAI can scrounge up ways to blame the whole worlds woes on the U.S. and never make any other group accountable.

You all claim to like americans, but you hate what they do. So why don't you really come out and say it instead of beating around the bush. Americans voted these people into power, they enjoy their freedoms, they like the money they get, they like the lifestyles they can lead. Bring it out, it's ok.

it's ok?? it's ok because here in america know one will drag me out of my home in front of my family and murder me? or because you are just letting me know it's ok w/you? that you can handle it?

the part about americans voting these people into power is a lie for one thing. they were placed into power by the supreme court. i have no intention of turning this forum into a testimonial on the inaccuracies of the 04 election.

lets be clear. the american majority do not approve of the lies that lead to the atrocities of the people in power. nor tdo the people in power represent the will of the people.

hate is the only word we don't use at our house. hate is something i don't wish to carry in my heart. but it does make it very hard when i read about all the injustices. it never occurred to me that anyone here would accuse me of beating around the bush.

the power in the white house the majority of americans did not vote into office i feel the most extreme negativity for. and i am not alone, not by any means.

the implication that the US is doing anything other than 'handle' iraqis 'anyway they want' is a farce.

and for any idiot dipshit out there who wants to interpret my use of 'the US' as to mean all americans, instead of the current policies being implimented by the US military
as ordered by the neocons in power whose policies have been disputed and rejected and protested against far and wide including high ranking members of said military, go for it, you have my permission, it's ok, but it will never make it so.

can scrounge up ways to blame the whole worlds woes on the U.S.

could you please provide me with a quote? or perhaps direct me to a particular post by time you disagree with? is it the leeden quotes? well, you will have to take that up w/mr. leeden. or by all means if you disagree w/mr leeden, as i do, just say it. i am a little confused about this 'whole worlds woes' part. please, elaborate, then i will try to address you corcerns, it's ok, just ask or "bring it", as you and mr bush like to say.

and don't forget to provide the evidence this time, (by post date preferred) that way i can address your accusations more directly.

Professional trolls*

The scariest group reading my blog may be THE RENDON GROUP. And they keep coming back, over and over again. Here's what SourceWatch writes about this organization:

"The RENDON GROUP is a secretive public relations firm that has assisted a number of U.S. military interventions in nations including Argentina, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo, Panama and Zimbabwe. Rendon's activities include organizing the Iraqi National Congress, a PR front group designed to foment the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

So why are these people reading my blog so religiously? I mean, they can't very well prepare to invade my backyard. Or can they? Or worse?

In a 1998 speech to the National Security Conference (NSC), company founder John Rendon described himself as "an information warrior, and a perception manager."

Clients of the RENDON GROUP have included a number of foreign nations, as well as major corporations. Known specific clients have included the Colombian army, Indonesia, Kuwait, Monsanto Chemical Company, Russia, U.S. Strategic Command, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), U.S. Pentagon, and even Uzbekistan.


People are reporting that they're getting these comments from … [a] company called Netvocates.

I wish that certain world leaders hadn't instituted a "genocidal" (in the words of UNs Chief Humanitarian Coordinator) Sanctions regime that strengthened Saddam's stranglehold on his population.

Thank you for this touching post, maybe in the future we can work to see that those who commit crimes against humanity are quickly punished.

Bad, bad administration, american military, itd., itp.
Good.......Al Jazira, "muslim street"??

Here is an article for your delectation. Enjoy.

http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?
edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=73164

"hate is the only word we don't use at our house. hate is something i don't wish to carry in my heart."

hmmm...

"and for any idiot dipshit out there who wants to interpret my use of 'the US' as to mean all americans, instead of the current policies being implimented by the US military
as ordered by the neocons in power whose policies have been disputed and rejected and protested against far and wide including high ranking members of said military, go for it, you have my permission, it's ok, but it will never make it so."

----

Your sarcastic vitriol flows quite easily for someone with so much love in their hearts.

Typical left-wingnut BS. "Peace and Love man," unless your a right-wing, Christian member of the Cheneyco conspiracy then fu** you!

The American's need to be peaceful because they're the root of all evil in the world. So when someone blows themselves up in a resturaunt or decapitates someone they are just reacting to America's imperial arrogance.

Right...peace out man!

Annie,

"the part about americans voting these people into power is a lie for one thing. they were placed into power by the supreme court. i have no intention of turning this forum into a testimonial on the inaccuracies of the 04 election."

As far as I know there were no inaccuracies in the 2004 election and the Supreme Court was not a deciding factor in it.

However the Supreme Court was involved in the 2000 election. Which was required under election rules. If you have a problem with our electoral process, then I suggest you take it up with your representative. And just so you know, I did not vote for George Bush in 2000. But as a citizen of the US I will abide by the Supreme Court's decision because that is the law.

Grow up.

P.S. I did vote for George Bush in 2004.

"P.S. I did vote for George Bush in 2004."

Ah...another member of the unwashed masses! Thank god there are professional moonbats like Bruno and Annie to set retards like us straight. I mean how else would we know about the neocon consiparicy to invent Zarqawi in order to institute an El Salvadorian system of genocide!

The whole idea that the election was "stolen" or that Bush was appointed is consistent with leftie inability to operate in reality. They have to create conspiracies and delusions in order to make the world conform to their own version of reality. Good lord all you have to do it read the comments on this blog or if you want a real brain bender go to KOS.

Keep it up though gang! One day we will all understand, one blog at a time right?

More to the point of this actual entry: Sorry you had to live through that bastard Saddam 24. CMAR is right that these stories are necessary to get everyone through the current turmoil in Iraq. I look forward to hearing more stories.

As far as I know there were no inaccuracies in the 2004 election

i have no intention of turning this forum into a testimonial on the inaccuracies of the 04 election."


here go educate yourself, try googling electionfraud 04, and get your head out of your rear end.
'as far as you know' is a very short distance.

grow up? haha! is that ms lynnette the great defender of all things americana. go ahead little girl, chastise me like my mother would. you don't fool me for one little itty bitty second.

Your sarcastic vitriol flows quite easily for someone with so much love in their hearts.

make no mistake, i have no love for you in my heart.
i am perfectly capable of recognizing smear and spin, you make claims against me about hating my own country, my own fellow americans and then criticize the form in which i reject your insulting accusations. ha! nice trick. first you use hate. now you use 'F**ck you', attributed to me. gutless! it is you w/the potty mouth.

because you are anti peace and love you seek to color me w/ a wide stroked brush. you have been advised, i am a fighter to the end. i will seek justice for the abused, we will not forget, nor forgive until there is redemption, resolution then we rest for peace.

won't work. i will never carry hate in my heart for you, you are not worth one ounce to me, certainly not corrupting my heart or soul for. you are worthless to me. hatred is something reserved for those who have experienced true pain, i am only an observer on that boat.

yo lcb, you can't take the heat get out of the fire, go complain to newsweek, get the senate hearings about el salvadore and the current regime cohorts names scrubbed from all records, don't blame me reality is not syncing w/ your rose colored glasses.

ps, btw, i read all the drizzel @freeper land, thats where i learn how to talk to you unhingedrightwingers, thank your own rabid sites for teaching me the lingo, i don't get to practice it anywhere else. this is my training ground.you guys are doing me a service. tool

Annie, dear, there are all sorts of allegations out there. Proof of intent to commit malfeasance would be nice. There might actually be a reason that The Associated Press says there is nothing new in the Rolling Stone article.

And don't worry about my head and my ass. They are perfectly fine. Oh, and believe me, I have no desire to be related to you.

No, I don't think 24 will be shocked by my language if he reads this. *shrug* He's used the same term.

i have no intention of turning this forum into a testimonial on the inaccuracies of the 04 election.

if 24 wants to start a thread on elections i will discuss this topic further

Proof of intent to commit malfeasance would be nice.

we agree on something!

I call you a fool TAI because you say fooling things with no facts to support them. If that offends you then you need to be offended.

If we can condemn the barbaric acts committed against the US on 911, why can't you take your head out of the patriotic hole and just consider that all the things they say about Guantanamo are true.

Two planes flew into the World Trade Center on 9/11 and one flew into the Pentagon. Do you dispute this?

All of what things? as of today 3 men have died in Guantanamo and they killed themselves in coordinated suicides.

Do you dispute this?

There are 420 men imprisoned in Guantanamo. Do you dispute this?

What do you think we are doing to them TAI?

When you stop offering the rantings of a fool, I will stop calling you a fool.

Erm ... bubbles? Ugly American:

How US hid the suicide secrets of Guantanamo

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1800218,00.html

After three inmates killed themselves, the Pentagon declared the suicides an act of 'asymmetric warfare', banned the media and went on a PR offensive. But as despair grows within the camp, so too does outrage mount at its brutal and secretive regime

In Guantanamo Bay's Alpha Block, the night was like any other: sweltering and seemingly endless. Although the temperature was down to the high 70s outside, the block's steel roof and walls were radiating heat, and in the two facing rows of 24 cells it felt little cooler than it had at midday. 'The nights are worse than the days,' the British former prisoner Shafiq Rasul recalled yesterday. 'You hear the rats running and scratching. The bugs go mad and there's no air. Especially where that block is: there's no breeze whatsoever.'
According to Guantanamo's rules, a six-person team of military police should have been patrolling constantly, and as usual the bright neon lights stayed on. A guard should have passed each detainee's cell every 30 seconds. 'From the landing, you can see right into every cell,' said Rasul. 'They don't have doors, just gates made from wide-spaced mesh. There's no privacy. If you hang up a towel because you want to go to the toilet, they make you take it down.'

The high degree of surveillance has foiled dozens of previous attempts by prisoners to take their own lives. 'It happened in front of me several times. The soldiers would see what was happening and they were in the cell in seconds,' Rasul said. But somehow, in circumstances that the Pentagon has succeeded in keeping totally obscure, late on Friday, 9 June, three detainees, all weak and emaciated after months on hunger strike and being force-fed, managed to tease bedsheets through their cells' mesh walls, tie them into nooses and hang themselves. With the cells little taller than the height of a man, they stood no chance of breaking their necks: the only way they could die was slowly, by hypoxia.

'That would take at least four or five minutes, probably longer,' said Dr David Nicholl, consultant neurologist at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, who has been co-ordinating international opposition to Guantanamo by physicians. 'It's very difficult to see how, if the landing was being properly patrolled, they could have managed to accomplish it.'

Accomplish it, however, they did. And virtually simultaneously. A little before midnight the bodies of Manei Shaman Turki al-Habadi, 30, and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, 21, both from Saudi Arabia, and of a Yemeni, Ali Abdullah Ahmed, 29, were found on Alpha Block. How long they had been like that, the Pentagon will not disclose. Their mouths were stuffed with cloth, apparently to muffle any cries.

As often before in its four-and-a-half-year propaganda war over Guantanamo, the US military and its masters in Washington decided that the best means of defence to what looked - at best - like a case of criminal negligence was to go on the offensive. The dead men, said Guantanamo's commander, Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, when the news broke last Saturday, had 'no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own. They are smart, they are creative, they are committed. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare against us.'

Colleen Graffy, a senior State Department official who recently visited London to make the case for Guantanamo with the UK media, called the suicides a 'good PR move' and 'a tactic to further the jihadi cause'. The US government tried to distance itself from Graffy's remarks. But early on Sunday The Observer talked to the camp's top Washington spin doctor, Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey Gordon, an official in Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office and the Pentagon's chief press officer. According to Gordon, whatever the outcome of the investigation now being conducted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, there was no need to regret the deaths. All three men, Gordon said, had been dedicated terrorists: 'These guys were fanatics like the Nazis, Hitlerites, or the Ku Klux Klan, the people they tried at Nuremberg.'

He went on to make specific allegations against each: Ahmed had been a 'mid-to-high-level al-Qaeda operative' with key links to Abu Zubaydah, an al-Qaeda leader captured in 2002; Habadi had been a 'militant recruiter' who worked with a second tier group called Jama'at Tabligh, and knew of operations in Qatar and Pakistan. As for Zahrani, he was a 'frontline Taliban fighter' who had played a prominent part in the November 2001 prison uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif, in which a CIA man died.

All this may be true. On the other hand, they had not been charged with anything. Questionable as it often is and consisting of statements made after torture or coercion, the Pentagon has disseminated some evidence against more than 300 Guantanamo detainees, in federal court filings and at internal camp boards that reviewed their detention. Against the three suicides, it has presented nothing.

Meanwhile, the information available suggests that the explanation of the deaths rejected by Harris - that the men tried to kill themselves through despair and succeeded through the incompetence of his staff - remains more plausible.

Rasul said: 'I was shocked by what happened, though not surprised, because I saw it almost happen so often. It was always scary: I would see people deteriorating mentally in front of my eyes until they tried to take their own lives, and you always thought: "That could be me". There were even times when I thought about it myself, but I wanted to be strong for my family. When I did, believe me, it wasn't because I was trying to hurt the United States, but on days when I'd just been told I'd never see England again, and that I was a terrorist, and when I denied it they wouldn't listen.'

The suicides triggered new calls to close Guantanamo, from the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, the European Union and others. But the Pentagon will go to considerable lengths to block any independent scrutiny of what happened.

News of the suicides broke while I was flying to Washington from London, in order to travel to Guantanamo on a military flight next day and cover a military commission tribunal. A message on my mobile phone - from a fellow reporter, not the Pentagon - said that both had been cancelled. Thus I made the first of many calls to Jeffrey Gordon. At first, he could not have been more helpful. To enter Guantanamo, he said, one needed an 'area clearance', and because mine had been issued for the tribunal it was no longer valid. However, the press office at Guantanamo or Southern Command in Miami might be able to issue a new one, Gordon said. Clearance was not, he pointed out, the only problem. Now that the military plane had been cancelled, the only way to reach Guantanamo was on scheduled 18-seat flights from Florida and Kingston, Jamaica. They tended to be fully booked well in advance.

I teamed up with another British journalist, David Jones of the Daily Mail, to organise clearance and investigate flights. By the end of Sunday, we thought we were on our way. Jones found a private charter firm willing to fly us to the camp from Kingston. Guantanamo's head of public affairs, Commander Robert Durand, explained in an email he was seeking authorisation from Harris. 'He's a pretty open sort of guy,' Durand said, 'and I can't see any reason for not granting you clearance since you were coming already.' At 7.30pm one of Durand's staff phoned to say there were new clearances. He faxed them a few minutes later.

Next day Jones and I got up at 4am to fly to Miami, where we checked with Guantanamo one last time that everything was in order and got on a plane to Kingston. There, at check-in for our private flight, the manager was apologetic. 'Guys, I'm so sorry. Jeffrey Gordon called me from the Pentagon five minutes ago. Your clearances have been revoked.' Over the next 48 hours, I had several heated conversations and email exchanges with Gordon. At first he was apologetic: the new clearances had been 'a mistake' and he would try to get us a refund on the plane costs. Later he became more aggressive: forgetting that he had advised me to approach Durand at Guantanamo, he claimed that we tried to 'get round' the Pentagon by obtaining clearance from a clerk. His last email stated that our conduct had been 'ethically questionable, at best'. It was left to Durand to shed a little light. For the time being, he said, his ability to issue clearances had been removed and assumed by Rumsfeld's office alone.

Meanwhile, three US reporters at the base were ordered to leave. According to a Pentagon spokesman quoted by the US media, the reason was that two barred British reporters - us - had threatened to sue if the Americans were allowed to stay. This was, of course, untrue.

Closing Guantanamo to the media meant there were no reporters there as the Naval Criminal Investigative Service team went about its work; none when pathologists conducted post mortem examinations; and none last Friday when, after a Muslim ceremony conducted by a military chaplain, the first body - Ahmed's - was prepared to be flown home. It was also impossible to gauge the impact of the deaths on the 460 inmates.

Yet our bizarre experience raises a fundamental question: when it comes to Guantanamo, can the world believe a single word that Gordon and his numerous cohorts say? There is, to say the least, an alternative explanation for the three Guantanamo deaths. Since early 2003, when the Red Cross issued the first of many reports stating that inmates were experiencing high levels of depression, there has been mounting evidence that detention there has wrought havoc on some prisoners' mental health. It is not so surprising: most prisoners get just two 30-minute periods out of their cells - the size of a double bed - each week, except when being interrogated. Some have endured this since 2002, and have no idea when, if ever, they may leave.

By the time of my own visit in October 2003, a fifth of them were on Prozac and there had been so many suicide attempts - 40 by August 2003 - that the Pentagon had reclassified hangings as 'manipulative self-injurious behaviours'. Cannily, perhaps, it has refused to give exact statistics on how many SIBs have occurred, claiming that since the reclassification there have been (until last week) only two genuine attempted suicides.

Tarek Dergoul, another freed British former detainee, knew two of the dead men well. 'I was next to or opposite Manei [Habadi] for weeks, maybe months,' he said, 'and like me his morale was high. He was always up for a protest: a hunger strike or a non-co-operation strike. He used to recite poetry, not just Arabic, but English - he knew chunks of Macbeth and he taught me how to read the Koran correctly. When you go through that sort of experience with someone, you really get to know them. I just can't believe he would take his own life. He would have had to be really desperate.' Likewise, Dergoul said, Zahrani was 'a person everyone loved. It's offensive to me to say he could have killed himself.' Apart from anything else, all three men would have been deeply aware of Islam's prohibition of suicide.

However, the men may well have been so desperate that they ignored the prohibition - even if, as seems likely, they co-ordinated their deaths in the hope of increasing their political impact. Many lawyers who have visited clients at Guantanamo have spoken eloquently of their despair: this year a prisoner tried to kill himself in front of his US attorney, somehow managing to open his veins, covering himself in blood, as the lawyer watched in horror, unable - because of the screen that separated them - to intervene.

Dergoul also suggested how the three may have been able to kill themselves undetected. Sometimes, he said, instead of patrolling the guards 'used to sit in their room at the end. It's a long walk from end to end of the block and some nights they didn't feel like it: they'd sit in their room, smoking and playing cards. You'd need toilet paper or something and you'd yell "MP, MP!" But they wouldn't come - it could be as long as an hour.'

One might, just about, imagine such a scene in a British prison. One can also envisage what might happen if three men committed suicide on the same landing at the same time: public inquiries, sackings, outrage. All three had been on hunger strike, with few breaks, since the middle of last summer. This meant that, four times a day, they were strapped down in restraining chairs so that they could not move their limbs and force-fed through nasal tubes, inserted and removed each time - a process the Pentagon's own court documents state causes bleeding and nausea. It is not hard to see why that may have made them depressed.

According to newly declassified testimony by another prisoner shortly before the suicides, a guard recently told him: 'They have lost hope in life. They have no hope in their eyes. They are ghosts and they want to die. No food will keep them alive right now.' This prisoner, the former British resident Shaker Aamer, told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, that the three dead men and other hunger strikers were so ill whenever their feeds contained protein that it went 'right through them' causing severe diarrhoea.

Last week Rumsfeld got what he wanted: the removal of media scrutiny from Guantanamo's deepest crisis. Potentially embarrassing, perhaps very damaging, headlines have been averted, and tomorrow, with the most sensitive tasks in the wake of the deaths complete, Guantanamo's public affairs office will resume its chaperoned tours. But the bigger costs of shutting out the daylight are making themselves felt.

On BBC1's Question Time last week, Falconer called the camp 'intolerable and wrong', adding that it acted as a recruiting agent for those who would attack all our values. Proving his point next day, some former Guantanamo detainees suggested the three dead men had been murdered, a claim echoed by their families and the government of Yemen next day.

The Pentagon response to the suicides was characterised by panic, smears and blatant obstruction. One might be forgiven for thinking that its vehement denials lacked a little weight.

Also, please read here, Arabic text:

http://www.elaph.com/ElaphWeb/Politics/2006/6/156714.htm

Elaph reported that the body of the Yemeni prisoner who committed suicide [as the US claim] arrived to Yemen with no intestines.

Yemeni health minister “Najeeb Ghanim” said:

Autopsy in Guantanamo removed the heart, kidneys, liver, the vascular system and all the parts that’s provides more informations about the cause of the death.

The families of the three detainees have questioned the circumstances of their deaths, saying the men, all devout Muslims, would not have committed suicide.

- From Beeker -

[larry] “Thank god there are professional moonbats like Bruno and Annie to set retards like us straight. I mean how else would we know about the neocon consiparicy to invent Zarqawi in order to institute an El Salvadorian system of genocide!”

No problem. I consider educating ‘special’ people like yourself a public service.

And I didn’t invent the School of the Americas. I didn’t invent the Phoenix Programme. I didn’t invent lists of Iraqis to be killed on the basis of their political affiliations.

Your country took care of that, the same way as it takes “care” of the Iraqis who don’t want foreign occupation today.

[ugly American] “There are 420 men imprisoned in Guantanamo. Do you dispute this? What do you think we are doing to them TAI?”

I think the article posted above pretty much answers it.

You have taken men that may be completely innocent and tossed them into a gulag for the indefinite duration of an undeclared war on a tactic. You have denied them the right to a trial or a proper POW status by inventing legally nebulous definitions in order to keep them on a piece of land which is controlled by the US but technically is foreign soil where torture is permissible, hence legally exculpating any people involved therein. You have used tactics perfected by the CIA labeled as “no touch torture” in order to break them down mentally. You have, when three of them committed suicide (if that is the case) labeled this as an OFFENSIVE act.

I can only hope that the architects of this abomination may themselves experience it one day.

Then they would have a chance to realise the extent of their evil.

Annie,

"i have no intention of turning this forum into a testimonial on the inaccuracies of the 04 election."

Then you shouldn't have brought up the subject by even mentioning it.

And believe it or not, I want fair elections just like you. We do agree on that.

Then you shouldn't have brought up the subject by even mentioning it.

perhaps you are correct although i do think the issue began with the mention of "americans voted these people into power" which was a premiss i could not let stand unchallenged completely. perhaps i am splicing the issue but it seems reasonable to assert these people in power were in fact originally placed there by the supreme court who did in fact stipulate that their decision was not to be used to set precident which in itself is not only quite unusual but seems rather odd, in my book anyway.

perhaps i shouldn't have called the statement that americans voted these people into power a lie.

i think we can agree this country is divided. there is no unanimousy regarding the fairness of the election process at present. to think we (as a society) shouldn't ever address the issue until there can be some 'proof' will not go very far in convincing a huge doubting public that americans voted these people into power or that the policies they have promoted and implemented represent the will of the vast majority of the american public. at this point there are many issues, many of the most important ones for that matter, that will never represent the will of any vast majority, because the country is so divided.

a "testimonial on the inaccuracies of the 04 election." is a lot different than discussing the will of the people. at this point i would say without doubt that the will is united around ideas like freedon and democracy, just divided around how we achieve them, and how we influence them abroad and domestically, which is at the heart of the matter here on this thread.

so without debating who's side is 'right' w/regards to the fairness of the election process it seems we could at least agree there is a lack of unification fairly evenly distributed between 2 factions within our society and neither of those can claim to fully represent the 'will of the people'.

Bruno?! From Then Some (and many others) ?

On further reading I see it must be you. "No problem. I consider educating ‘special’ people like yourself a public service."

LOL. Good to see you still fighting the good fight!

I see Lynnette still has only two brain cells firing.

Shukran ya talented Annie, this brought a wide grin on a gloomy day :)

Annie,

"at this point i would say without doubt that the will is united around ideas like freedon and democracy, just divided around how we achieve them, and how we influence them abroad and domestically"

This I can agree with you on.

The animosity that is demonstrated in these comments sections and elsewhere does not help us to find a solution to each of our concerns.

My guess is that we can agree that Iraq should have a chance to develop into a free and democratic country as well.

Whether you believe the Iraq war is just or not, we are there now. To simply withdraw willy nilly would not help them to achieve that goal.

Our country is not perfect, Annie, but we have always managed to muddle through together. There was a reason for "United we Stand, Divided we Fall".

It is that unity which the Iraqis must try to find. The sectarian violence is ripping them apart and our arguing does not help.

Another A,

"I see Lynnette still has only two brain cells firing."

Why and I think you're just so "special" too, dear.

You actually managed to string together a sentence.

It is that unity which the Iraqis must try to find. The sectarian violence is ripping them apart and our arguing does not help.

i agree w/you our argueing doesn't help, although an acceptance of basic premises might. like for instance that more than secretarian violence has led to this ripping apart.

the stay the course meme represents lack of flexibilty. especilly due to the increase in violence.

To simply withdraw willy nilly would not help them to achieve that goal,

i take issue w/your framing here. it is irrelevant how we withdraw as long as we do it. clearly the majority of iraqi's want a timetable, they want more than that they want a withdrawl. they have made that abundantly clear. the situation has not improved, it has gotten worse, much worse.

"United we Stand, Divided we Fall".

funny you should mention this. interesting how the constitution the iraqi's drafted did not include the provisions for separate regions, yet the new one, the one we pushed for did.

i think it's time we had a little more faith in iraqis and allow them to come to their destiny w/out our 'help'.

also, i would like to note that the total lack of adaptation, flexibility, adjustment, the determination to follow thru an implimantation that is not working has hindered the war effort. had the administration at least followed the advice of the military leaders, had they replaced rumbsfeld, had they adapted at all, to follow the same courses of action, of assassinations targeting individuals based on informants,the death squads, and don't even try to say its not happening and we haven't promoted it because i already provided the links and everyone knows now, everyone. this has not led to a unification of the iraqi people. they know it, we know it, to accuse anyone of promoting a 'willy nilly' course of action is a ruse.

We’re spending $8 billion dollars a month, $300 million dollars a day. there is no plan, the people running this war have no military experience.

The public is two-to-one against what we’re doing, and they want a change in direction.

" When we went to Beirut, I, I said to President Reagan, “Get out.” Now, the other day we were doing a debate, and they said, “Well, Beirut was a different situation. We cut and run.” We didn’t cut and run. President Reagan made the decision to change direction because he knew he couldn’t win it."

cut w/the willy nilly bs, we all know whats going on here.we are digging a hole, a great big grave, and everyday we stay it gets worse. and its being filled w/bodies, for what , for who?

name calling, willy nilly, come on

I wonder how the proprietor of this blog feels about everyone here engaging in the same regurgitated left right bickering that seems to be the basis for thousands of other blogs.

How in the world a blog entry about the brutality of Hussein's regime devolved into a debate about the US' 2000 election is beyond me.

[another a] “Bruno?! From Then Some (and many others) ? On further reading I see it must be you.”

Hmm. Obviously we know each other from before. I can only think of two Iraqis who you could be, either one of which I’m glad to see back in circulation!

Yup, that’s me.

Tenacious. Or obsessed.

Take your pick … :)




[lynnette] “My guess is that we can agree that Iraq should have a chance to develop into a free and democratic country as well.”

I have no problem with that.

The real question is whether the US is helping towards that goal or not. The real question is whether the US is fragmenting Iraqi society or not.

Clearly the current government is no more sovereign than the CPA or the Governing Council … except that they have more hands in the cash register. And they and the US are limping along like mortal enemies joined at the ankles by the shackles of a marriage of convenience. Each is trying to use the other to accomplish its goals. Neither has the interests of the Iraqi people at heart; their interests are in cementing their own personal agendas regardless of the costs.

The fear that Iraqis have for each other only helps the parties founded on sectarianism and “strong-man” ism that draw support from this fear. I question whether the US arming the very forces that have been responsible for the sectarian bloodshed is contributing towards peace and trust amongst Iraqis.

“My guess is that we can agree that Iraq should have a chance to develop into a free and democratic country as well.” Lynnette


"The real question is whether the US is helping towards that goal or not. The real question is whether the US is fragmenting Iraqi society or not." Bruno

That's it in a nutshell.

"i think it's time we had a little more faith in iraqis and allow them to come to their destiny w/out our 'help'." Annie

Annie thinks no, we should leave.

I think yes, we should stay for now.

What say you everyone?

24?

What's to say the Shura Council, Al Quada, and Islamic Army (Iraqi resitance) doesn't overrun the Iraqi government? I doubt they will lay down arms when the U.S. leaves, seeing how they are attacking Iraqis more than the U.S.

And if the resitance does take over, I doubt that Iraq would have a chance to develop into a free and democratic country. And I doubt these reporters would be able to tell their story to us anymore.

Well that is the dirty little secret. The "noble resistance" kills a helluva lot more regular Iraqi's than they do Americans. Whether it is the salafist/Taliban types or the shiite militia's they focus a lot more on each other than they do the coalition.
The answer is they would not stop. It would be a bloodbath. That is why as much as most ordinary Iraqi's lament the occupation they know that it is necessary until the rule of law can be re-established.

**

Ps Since I can already see many of your wheels turning, I am still waiting for someone to tell me who the "legitimate" resistance groups are. You see, Muu Ism, a lot of these so called peace lovers tend to agree with the rest of us that killing regular Iraqis is a crime but they tend to also believe that killing young American soldiers is OK (I imagine many of these peace lovers are still breathless from their excitement over two more American deaths today: Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23 and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25).

However said peace lovers have yet to produce for me the list of "legitimate resistance" groups. You know the ones that only have their hands soaked in American (or coalition) blood and not Iraqi blood.

breathless from their excitement

try to contain yourself tex, the glee is showing thru.have you no sense of decency? their bodies are still warm and already you are using them for propaganda purposes.

lynn, maybe if you ad tex to your 'should stay' list he'll get back in his cage.

"try to contain yourself tex, the glee is showing thru.have you no sense of decency? their bodies are still warm and already you are using them for propaganda purposes."

LOL...Annie, you are one dumb cookie. Try answering a question for once. Which group represents the "legimitate resistance" that you've been going on and on about? Tex isn't gleeful, he's just pointing out your hypocrisy and contempt in a very blatant, intelligent way. I guess that one just flew over your head, too.

LOL...Annie, you are one dumb cookie.

LOL...Annie, you are one dumb cookie.

LOL...Annie, you are one dumb cookie.

LOL...Annie, you are one dumb cookie.

think again dipshit.
lynn, one more for your list, back in the cage AH

[tex] “However said peace lovers have yet to produce for me the list of "legitimate resistance" groups. You know the ones that only have their hands soaked in American (or coalition) blood and not Iraqi blood.”

As you are no doubt aware, there are literally HUNDREDS of resistance groups, ranging from mainstream to radical to ‘pop up’ groups that emerge once and are never seen again. To demand a ‘list’ that painstakingly sorts through each and every incident by all of these disparate groups to determine who is who and what their modus operandi is, IS LUDICROUS. In fact, I would say it’s a tactic to waste our time more than anything else.

Furthermore, with our limited access to articles and writing (due to the fact that we DON’T SPEAK ARABIC) we are by necessity limited to what the US - controlled - and - influenced MSM reports … which is, of course, tilted towards sustaining their viewpoints. Thus mostly marginal groups like the Zarqawi group, Al Tawid al Jihad, and Al Qaeda in Iraq are given disproportionate coverage in order to skew the perceptions of the targets – ie – us. That is not even counting the numerous PSYOPS that specific US agencies conduct in order to manipulate public sentiment via disinformation.

Again, I can point out what is and is not acceptable: killing innocent civilians is not. Torturing is not. Attacking political and military targets is. But even here there are exceptions. I regard the Wolf Brigade as a prime target, whereas a person such as a traffic cop, while still in the uniform of the ‘government’, is clearly neutral in the conflict.

As for the groups themselves - The Al Qaedists are the worst … and the smallest, if the US reports are to be believed. Apparently Zarqawi had only 100 men left in the whole of Baghdad before he was liquidated. Mainstream groups are groups like the 1920’s Revolution Brigades and, when they feel like it, the Sadrists. The groups that I feel are the most representative, however, are the really small groups that stick up for their local area and local people. An example was the group led by Abu Theeb. These groups tend to fight more out of patriotism and for themselves rather than for an ideology. This is why I’m a fan of the neighbourhood watches that are springing up everywhere – they are far more likely to be a genuine representation of the popular will than the bigger organizations.



[tex] “Well that is the dirty little secret. The "noble resistance" kills a helluva lot more regular Iraqi's than they do Americans. Whether it is the salafist/Taliban types or the shiite militia's they focus a lot more on each other than they do the coalition.”

To turn your question on its head – how do you know what are resistance attacks, what are US-supported death squad attacks, what are black ops, what are sectarian attacks and what are criminals in operation? How are you able to gauge the accuracy and reliability of the reports you read? How do you parse the original sources and determine their genuineness? How do you understand the nuances of Iraqi Arabic?

Simply you don’t.

What we DO know, though, is that if Iraqis focus on killing each other instead of US troops, the US stands only to gain by it. And as usual the US has done exactly this (its usual modus operandi) – it has invaded a country and set the natives at each other’s throats. Even factions like the Sadrists and the Sunnis, which would otherwise be 100% on each others’s side in getting the Occupier out, have been set at each other’s throats. Thanks in no small part to Zarqawi, who has been described by the US as a very successful psyops campaign.

You talk about a bloodbath if the US leaves, yet I already see a bloodbath. And the US has already proven, through action and word, that it will NOT, repeat, NOT intervene in a “civil war” scenario, which is what is already happening on a low intensity basis.

Your cover for remaining is GONE.

Go home.

"Go home." Bruno

Well, that's one for your side, Annie. But I guess we already knew that.

"Again, I can point out what is and is not acceptable: killing innocent civilians is not. Torturing is not. Attacking political and military targets is. But even here there are exceptions. I regard the Wolf Brigade as a prime target, whereas a person such as a traffic cop, while still in the uniform of the ‘government’, is clearly neutral in the conflict."

It seems like you have given a lot of thought to who deserves to live and who deserves to die. Certainly the mothers of those two young men who died over the weekend can at least take solace in the fact that their sons were legitimate targets as I am sure the mothers of Iraqi soldiers too can sympathize.

I wonder if the wife of the guy standing on the street corner next to a government building who got blown away by a car bomb understands that he was simply a casualty of a war for independence? Or the family driving behind the Iraqi Army patrol? I am sure that they understand that the noble resistance has given a lot of thought to who deserves to die and that they would much rather not have a Shiite government in power than have their children back.

And please spare me these Muslim Cleric Assn. stories about marauding and rampaging US soldiers slaughtering innocent Iraqis. Even the worst case scenario (assuming that the US is guilty of every crime ascribed to it) the innocent Iraqis that have died in “resistance” bombings against “legitimate” targets would far outweigh any deaths caused by the American’s – real or propaganda.

The rule of law and a stable government will create peace in Iraq, not beheadings and roadside bombs.

"What we DO know, though, is that if Iraqis focus on killing each other instead of US troops, the US stands only to gain by it. And as usual the US has done exactly this (its usual modus operandi) – it has invaded a country and set the natives at each other’s throats. Even factions like the Sadrists and the Sunnis, which would otherwise be 100% on each others’s side in getting the Occupier out, have been set at each other’s throats. Thanks in no small part to Zarqawi, who has been described by the US as a very successful psyops campaign"

How cunning of the US to have invented a time machine to go back 1500 years and create animosity between the Sunni and Shiite religious factions(probably a Halliburton project). While I think it is certainly legitimate to argue that the US failed to understand and adequately prepare for the bubbling over of these long simmering hostilities, to say that the US created them is giving us WAY too much credit.

As we see in places like Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi the animosity between Sunni and Shiite religious factions has existed for centuries and still exists today. The violence between them is obviously less pronounced. But the environment there is less chaotic. The only thing even close to another ME democracy is Lebanon and we all know what it took for their factions to settle for peace.

There are hundreds of resitance groups in Iraq, and they fall under an umbrella group called the Mujadeen Shura Council.

[anon] "There are hundreds of resitance groups in Iraq, and they fall under an umbrella group called the Mujadeen Shura Council."

Wrong. The Shura Council represents only 4 or 5 marginal groups. Try again.

[tex] “It seems like you have given a lot of thought to who deserves to live and who deserves to die.”

Uh … you asked, right?

[tex] “the mothers of those two young men who died over the weekend can at least take solace in the fact that their sons were legitimate targets”

Duh! THEY”RE INVADERS. Same as the Germans who invaded Russia were probably nice soldiers with nice families … they were invaders. Gee, I wonder if they were legitimate targets?

[tex] “the noble resistance has given a lot of thought to who deserves to die and that they would much rather not have a Shiite government in power than have their children back.”

It’s not about the Shiite government. It’s about American troops. And its about America setting Iraqi against Iraqi in an effort to divide and rule. If it was about the Shiite government then I would ask you why is the US spending billions of dollars and rivers of Iraqi blood in order to create another Iranian theocracy !

[tex] “the innocent Iraqis that have died in “resistance” bombings against “legitimate” targets would far outweigh any deaths caused by the American’s real or propaganda.”

Even IF that were true, you STARTED the war, remember? YOU bear primary culpability for initiating the violence, and furthermore insisting on fighting your battles in civilian areas. So I occupy America and run my Occupation troops through central New York. When American patriots hit my troops, who is responsible for the violence? Americans? Or the invaders?

But as it turns out, your assumption is incorrect:



More Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. forces than by insurgents, data shows
By Nancy A. Youssef - Knight Ridder Newspapers - Sep. 24, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis - most of them civilians - as attacks by insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder.

According to the ministry, the interim Iraqi government recorded 3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country's 18 provinces from April 5 - when the ministry began compiling the data - until Sept. 19. Of those, 328 were women and children. Another 13,726 Iraqis were injured, the ministry said.
[...]
Iraqi officials said the statistics proved that U.S. airstrikes intended for insurgents also were killing large numbers of innocent civilians. Some say these casualties are undermining popular acceptance of the American-backed interim government.
[...]
American military officials said "damage will happen" in their effort to wrest control of some areas from insurgents. They blamed the insurgents for embedding themselves in communities, saying that's endangering innocent people.
[...]
Iraqi officials said about two-thirds of the Iraqi deaths were caused by multinational forces and police; the remaining third died from insurgent attacks. The ministry began separating attacks by multinational and police forces and insurgents [on] June 10. From that date until Sept. 10, 1,295 Iraqis were killed in clashes with multinational forces and police versus 516 killed in terrorist operations, the ministry said. The ministry defined terrorist operations as explosive devices in residential areas, car bombs or assassinations." //end excerpt


Statistically US airpower has been the largest cause of death amongst Iraqis. These stats are a little dated, though … they don’t reflect the increased use of airpower by the US since then, nor do they capture the numbers of Iraqis killed by the US – created death squads.


[tex] “While I think it is certainly legitimate to argue that the US failed to understand and adequately prepare for the bubbling over of these long simmering hostilities, to say that the US created them is giving us WAY too much credit.”

I wouldn’t say created them.

I would say EXPLOITED them.

Tore open the freshly healed scars of the Iraqi people and let the wounds bleed again.

All for your own gain.

"Statistically US airpower has been the largest cause of death amongst Iraqis." Bruno

God, you're back to that again. And exactly who were these Iraqis?

Combatants or non-combatants?

"Statistically US airpower has been the largest cause of death amongst Iraqis." Bruno

[lynnette] "God, you're back to that again. And exactly who were these Iraqis?"

Funny, when bin Laden hit you on 9-11 I don't recall you separating the victims into "combatants and non combatants". They were all Americans.

Why should Iraqis be any different?

I don't recall that the people in the Twin Towers had on suicide vests filled with ballbearings or were hanging out the windows with AK47's...perhaps I missed something.

Bruno,

Do you even have any idea what your talking about? Dont worry, no one else knows what your saying either!

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