Sorry, I must have missed something.
We were the Good Guys back in the Clinton years, were we not? You remember, the years of peace and prosperity? As opposed to war and poverty? Way way back when?
We're wearing the Black Hats now, in case anyone has failed to notice.
British-trained police in Iraq 'KILLED PRISONERS WITH DRILLS'
By Francis Elliott, Raymond Whitaker and Kim Sengupta
20 November 2005
Britain has been dragged into the growing scandal of officially condoned killings in Iraq
British-trained police operating in Basra have tortured at least two civilians to death with electric drills, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, admits that he knows of "alleged deaths in custody" and other "serious prisoner abuse" at al-Jamiyat police station, which was reopened by Britain after the war.
Militia-dominated police, who were recruited by Britain, are believed to have tortured at least two men to death in the station. Their bodies were later found with drill holes to their arms, legs and skulls.
The victims were suspected of collaborating with coalition forces, according to intelligence reports. Despite being pressed "very hard" by Britain, however, the Iraqi authorities in Basra are failing to even investigate incidents of torture and murder by police, ministers admit.
The disclosure drags Britain firmly into the growing scandal of officially condoned killings, torture and disappearances in Iraq. More than 170 starving and tortured prisoners were discovered last week in an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad.
American troops who uncovered the secret torture chamber are also said to have discovered mutilated corpses, several bearing drill marks.
Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, who uncovered the death at al-Jamiyat police station, called for an immediate UN investigation into police torture. "The Government keeps on saying that respect for human rights is a pre-condition of withdrawal. Well, it should be a pre-condition for UK soldiers to continue risking their lives in Iraq," he said.
Mr Reid said: "I am aware of serious allegations of prisoner abuse at the Jamiyat, including two deaths in custody. We take this very seriously. We have been pressing the Iraqi authorities very hard to investigate these allegations thoroughly and then to take the appropriate action."
Ministry of Defence sources privately confirm that the two SAS soldiers seized and held in Jamiyat in September were investigating allegations of police torture prompted by the discovery of the bodies.
British forces in armoured vehicles smashed their way into the station to rescue them, but officers have admitted they are powerless to protect civilians in southern Iraq from militias, and military patrols have been withdrawn from central Basra in the wake of the September clashes.
In the US-controlled districts of Iraq, some senior military and intelligence officials have been accused of giving tacit approval to the extra-judicial actions of counter-insurgency forces.
Critics claim the situation echoes American collaboration with military regimes in Latin America and south-east Asia during the Cold War, particularly in Vietnam, where US-trained paramilitaries were used to kill opponents of the South Vietnamese government.
British-trained police in Iraq 'killed prisoners with drills' Britain has been dragged into the growing scandal of officially condoned killings in Iraq
British-trained police operating in Basra have tortured at least two civilians to death with electric drills, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, admits that he knows of "alleged deaths in custody" and other "serious prisoner abuse" at al-Jamiyat police station, which was reopened by Britain after the war.
Militia-dominated police, who were recruited by Britain, are believed to have tortured at least two men to death in the station. Their bodies were later found with drill holes to their arms, legs and skulls.
The victims were suspected of collaborating with coalition forces, according to intelligence reports. Despite being pressed "very hard" by Britain, however, the Iraqi authorities in Basra are failing to even investigate incidents of torture and murder by police, ministers admit.
The disclosure drags Britain firmly into the growing scandal of officially condoned killings, torture and disappearances in Iraq. More than 170 starving and tortured prisoners were discovered last week in an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad.
American troops who uncovered the secret torture chamber are also said to have discovered mutilated corpses, several bearing drill marks.
Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, who uncovered the death at al-Jamiyat police station, called for an immediate UN investigation into police torture. "The Government keeps on saying that respect for human rights is a pre-condition of withdrawal. Well, it should be a pre-condition for UK soldiers to continue risking their lives in Iraq," he said.
Mr Reid said: "I am aware of serious allegations of prisoner abuse at the Jamiyat, including two deaths in custody. We take this very seriously. We have been pressing the Iraqi authorities very hard to investigate these allegations thoroughly and then to take the appropriate action."
Ministry of Defence sources privately confirm that the two SAS soldiers seized and held in Jamiyat in September were investigating allegations of police torture prompted by the discovery of the bodies.
British forces in armoured vehicles smashed their way into the station to rescue them, but officers have admitted they are powerless to protect civilians in southern Iraq from militias, and military patrols have been withdrawn from central Basra in the wake of the September clashes.
In the US-controlled districts of Iraq, some senior military and intelligence officials have been accused of giving tacit approval to the extra-judicial actions of counter-insurgency forces. [TORTURE]
Critics claim the situation echoes American collaboration with military regimes in Latin America and south-east Asia during the Cold War, particularly in Vietnam, where US-trained paramilitaries were used to kill [AND TORTURE] opponents of the South Vietnamese government.
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All those with an active conscience may start puking right
NOW.
"Spreading democracy?"
Not so much. Spreading Rummy-colored, Cheney-colored political sadism is more like it.
...
Torture
Bush
Blair
Cheney
Rumsfeld
8 comments:
thanks for posting this....I thought my post today was one of the most disturbing of the weekend- and I felt bad about bumming folks out...but you know there is always some worse Truth out there....we have to End this Regime and all that goes with it...and pray the world forgives us...
Regime change is not enough. All these people belong in jail. Big-time.
Oh, sorry I meant to say that as well- Nuremberg please....they are Criminals...ALL of them...And not Corporate Country Club Jail- but kiss your ass goodbye Gitmo jail...
Yes, exactly.
I know it seems like a late response to this, but I just can't understand why it's such a big deal that some blokes that the brits trained tortured some people. Fine, it's bad to torture, but that doesn't make it the brit's fault that it happened. It would be more effective to imprison the personnel involved in drilling holes in prisoner's joints and skulls than to point at the british and say 'you did this!!'. After all, I doubt that power tools were included in the police training they received.
Here's the big deal: if we're saying we've killed 100K Iraqis in order to preserve the charming values of Western civilization, does it make sense that we would forget to teach our political/military students a prime value of Western civilization, e.g., THOU SHALT NOT TORTURE?
You know, sorta like, THOUS SHALT NOT IMPRISON PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT TO, THOU SHALT NOT USE POWER AND CONTROL OVER OTHERS JUST BECUZ YOU CAN. That sorta thing.
let's say you pick up a stray dog. it's lived its entire life on the streets, foraging to eat and doing whatever. You bring it to your home and start teaching it about how much nicer life can be there. it gets fed, has plenty of water, and you start teaching it to go outside to take a crap. So one day your dog is playing outside, and it kills the neighbor's cat and eats half of it. Should the neighbor blame you for not teaching the dog NOT to kill cats?
You don't instil an instant respect for human life and dignity in people. These people havn't had the same kind of LIFE we have. During Saddam's time it was NORMAL to use power tools on people to find information out. The north koreans still perform executions using a 15kg hammer in the basement of the criminal's office, does that sound like a people that are going to instantly become respectful of someone's rights and dignity? They're people that have to be brought around to our way of thinking, and we're not going to accomplish that by tossing everyone who teaches them anything in jail as soon as the people revert to their old ways for a minute.
After all, it's not a black and white world.
Sure. After all, why should we be discouraging others from torturing people when it doesn't seem to bother us much when we do it ourselves?
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