Democracy Now calls it "New Order, Same Abuses": Amnesty Condemns Iraq for Holding 30,000 Prisoners Without Trial.
"Amnesty International is condemning Iraq for holding an estimated 30,000 prisoners without trial, including 10,000 prisoners who were recently transferred from US custody. In a new report, Amnesty documents that Iraqi prisoners are being arbitrarily detained and often beaten to obtain forced confessions."
I have read a few of Amnesty's reports on Iraq before 2003. Some reports are quite gruesome. I remember reading an Amnesty report in 1984 about Saddam's henchmen using snakes to threaten the children of prisoners, so that the parents would talk. Some pre-2003 Amnesty reports are still available online, like this one, which documents the beheading of an Iraqi woman in front of her home. Is the new order engaged in that kind of torture and murder? Is the new order really as bad as Saddam's? Really? How sad, if true.
10 comments :
The invasion was never about democracy or human rights. It was always about getting rid of an intractable government and replacing it with a government friendlier to America. Amongst other things.
If torture and arbitrary detention are needed to "accomplish the mission", then so be it.
Our hearts ache at the startling figures that echo through the pages of reports from Amnesty and other organizations. Violence and torture is always unacceptable, regardless of the grand motives of security and stability that underlie them.
We all know that America did not invade Iraq for altruistic reasons, yet to believe that torture and violence carried out in the name of national security will bring about peace is to subscribe to a moral and intellectual deafness, and to disregard the harsh lessons of history in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Do you think the teabaggers at the protest care about this abuse in Iraq? No. If anything, they enjoy it.
And those are the people who voted for Bush and his wars.
We conclude that the war was never about advancing human rights, but rather it was always about abusing them
Where were you three bleeding hearts when Saddam was in charge?
Likely quiet as church mice or mosque mice.
Of course it is a disappointment how Iraq turned out with its transformation from a genocidal maniac totalitarianism regime to a Shia pet theocratic government.
But that's the backwards Arab world for you self denial kiddies. LOL. )))
Keep imbibing those conspiracy theories, reading those four pages of literature per year and blaming everything on the US and the Jews, rather than accepting personal responsibility for the thievery, corruption, Sharia Law nonsense
and Arabic traditions, many of which seem inimical to the 21st century.
[mg] "Of course it is a disappointment how Iraq turned out with its transformation from a genocidal maniac totalitarianism regime to a Shia pet theocratic government."
Yeah, those damn Iraqis. It's all their fault. All of it.
[mg] "But that's the backwards Arab world"
Yeah, Goddamn, you can't trust them to do the American thing, eh?
[mg] "Keep imbibing those conspiracy theories"
... those WMD are there, somewhere. Anytime soon, they will be found.
[mg] "blaming everything on the US and the Jews"
... it wasn't America that invaded Iraq. No, it was the Underpants Gnomes.
[mg] "rather than accepting personal responsibility for the thievery, corruption"
You're joking, right? The Americans imported the same corrupt politicians now in power in Iraq, supported them and nurtured them ... and now the Iraqis are to blame for the consequences?
Mister Ghost needs to get a grip.
His alternative reality is deeply disturbing.
MG,
Some of your posts on IBC seem to long for the days of Saddam.
Get him, CH! There's little more that I like more to see two warmongers going at it hammer and tongs. :)
"Violence and torture is always unacceptable, regardless of the grand motives of security and stability that underlie them."
Yes. Torture was wrong when Saddam's regime did it, it was wrong when Americans did it, and it is wrong now when Iraqis are still doing it.
It is wrong in Zimbabwe, in Burma, in North Korea and in Iran.
The only thing one can say is that probably fewer people are being tortured now in Iraq than under Saddam. But the number should be zero.
Violence is a bit different: when police arrest a burglar, they are applying violence. Any kind of law enforcement has an element of violence - ultimately, if you disobey the law, you will be picked up, put in a cell, and the door locked. So you can't say that all violence is wrong; but all torture is wrong.
I define torture as "Deliberately inflicting suffering on a prisoner."
[cox] "The only thing one can say is that probably fewer people are being tortured now in Iraq than under Saddam."
Excellent! Now we are truly scaling the pinnacle of psychic ability - when an American in America, who has never visited Iraq, much less the secret prisons that infest it - is able to give us his opinion on the quantity of torture occurring there since the 1970's.
Do you do shows too, Don?
[cox] "So you can't say that all violence is wrong; but all torture is wrong."
But ... but ... but what about the "ticking bomb scenario"? You are losing "warmonger credits" if you don't include a sop to the "ticking bomb scenario"! What will CH and Aton and Maury and the rest of the gang say?
Tsk! Tsk!
"'Father' of Iranian blogging faces death penalty: watchdog"
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.8c6af335ad23242a5a07eb5f62acacef.7e1&show_article=1
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