Kidnap Nation
One document in particular contained references to both the detention of suspects’ relatives and the use of torture by US interrogators. In a November 2003 rebuttal to charges that he improperly supervised interrogators at a facility in Tikrit, an Army staff sergeant wrote, “Personnel at the ICE [Interrogation Control Element] regularly see detainees who are, in essence, hostages.”
The sergeant, whose name was redacted from the released documents by military censors, explained that the detainees “are normally arrested by Coalition Forces because they are family of individuals who have been targeted” by US forces. He added that many such detainees have been transferred to Abu Ghraib prison where they “become lost in the Coalition detention system” regardless of whether their targeted relative “surrenders himself.”
The rest of the story is just a bunch of ho-hum! torture details, like
Other documents released Monday by the government included a report investigating the mock execution of a teenage Iraqi boy conducted by US soldiers in front of the boy’s father. Another report included a medic’s detailed description of two Iraqis who were severely beaten by US soldiers. That account is contrasted with a statement by an Army captain who reported those same Iraqis were only “roughed up a bit.”
I remember when the first hostage-taking stories broke a year and a half ago, and hawks fell all over themselves to assure us there must be more to the story. Indeed there was: more hostage-taking. I don’t think that was what they meant.
But hey! Syrian troops are pulling out of Lebanon! (Via Obsidian Wings.) And all we had to do was sacrifice everything that made our country great. You may think that the soul of your nation is a steep price to pay to reverse a situation that caused it no actual harm (the Syrian-Lebanese war machine seems to have left our shores on the unmolested side), but that’s just you. And me. And whoever else. The point is, Freedom! In doses.
Comment by matthew hogan —
April 24, 2005 @ 10:19 am
C’mon Henley. Arresting relatives is not torture, it doesnt even leave a mark, nor is losing them in a bureaucratic maze — hasn’t the government lost your paperwork at times? Mock excution, no one gets hurt. (But it’s different from when Saddam did it; there were no elections.) And yes, war is rough, so sure some guys get roughed up (as the Army itself admitted), but where are the details, it’s tough to second-guess these guys in the field.
I think I’m getting good at this, and it is starting to scare me.
Comment by Frank —
April 24, 2005 @ 1:40 pm
I have decided that my previous belief that the US was basicly a good country was simple naivete.
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Really this country never had a soul to lose, the fine words in the constitution were always just for decoration.
Comment by the talking dog —
April 24, 2005 @ 2:52 pm
Well, there are lines beyond which we just won’t cross… like that one… or, no… THAT one… no, no… THAT ONE… yes, yes… THAT ONE…well… Surrender now, and we’ll let your wife and kids go… perhaps…
Imagine that: just 19 Arabs with box-cutters made 300,000,000 people forget everything they supposedly stood for… Now that’s what I call leverage. This really isn’t the same country my grandparents fled totalitarian Eastern Europe to come to… I just wish it took something more than an hour and a half long event that I stood a block from to do it…
Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
April 24, 2005 @ 6:53 pm
Well, talking dog, not all 300 million forgot. Just 150 million. And actually, those people always did approve of torture, so they didn’t really forget anything. They just got what they wanted. It’s not like torturing people is anything new in American history; the torturers from the last Central American round are now running this one, empowered by the descendents of the torturers who stood around having their pictures taken at lynchings before that, and still using the Army manual written by the torturers who worked in the Phillipines from a century ago.
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Remember that the next time some hawk pretends to be shocked.
Comment by Brian C.B. —
April 24, 2005 @ 8:14 pm
Does anyone cling to the expectation that some of these (American) guys would make the distinction between taking brown-skinned foreigners hostage and taking (any skin color, but I’m guessing the darker ones quicker) Americans hostage?
Comment by Hesiod —
April 25, 2005 @ 12:00 pm
Umm….Syrian troops have been withdrawing from Lebanon for 5 years! They had 60,000 troops there in 2000. And, after Ehud Barak’s much-critricized decision to pull Israel out of Lebanon (reviled by the very same Neocons who are now trumpeting the Syrian pull out), the Lebanese independence movement started in earnest.
As a result, there were more opposition candidates for Lebanon’s parliamentary elections. [Opposition to Syrian occupation!]. And, the Syrians reduced their troop contingent down to about 15,000 as of the assasination of Rafik Hariri.
So, in essence, it was Ehud Barak’s WITHDRAWL OF ISAREALI TROOPS FROM LEBANON, whih is the ultimate cause here. Not our invasion of Iraq.
If The Neocons had their way, the Lebanese would NEVER be clamoring for Syria to leave.
Here are a couple of recent blog posts I wrote on the subject.
Here, and here.
Trackback by Brad DeLong's Website —
May 4, 2005 @ 1:57 pm
Web Clippings–20050503
What I would write about if time were infinite: http://juliansanchez.com/notes/archives/2005/04/project_much.php: Notes from the Lounge: Project Much?: I should be beyond surprise of this story, but it’s still a little striking to see self-righteous d…