Posted on 03/29/2005 6:31:39 AM PST by Stultis
LYNCH-MOB “JUSTICE” ENCOURAGED BY U.S.-FINANCED IRAQI TV
Tonght’s evening vignews broadcast on French public television carried an account of “Terror in the Hands of Justice,” a series that is running twice a day on Al Iraqiya, the state-controlled television financed by the U.S., and operated under a contract to a major Republican party contributor. This is one of the most appalling TV shows one could possibly imagine, for it blatantly encourages lynch-mob justice and individual acts of revenge against alleged “terrorists”-<>who are presented as such without benefit of any trial or judicial proceeding. The alleged “terrorists” are shown on this Iraqi TV show in videotapes mouthing “confessions”-but the provenance of those tapes is never specified. One does not know whether torture has been used to extract the “confessions” or not—certainly some of those making the alleged admissions bore clearly visible traces of physical violence on their faces in the extracts broadcast by France2.
One of the most hate-inducing aspects of this TV series: the confrontations between alleged victims of the “terrorists” or their families, and those who are supposed to have committed the crimes against them. The alleged victims cry for vengeance—”Do with him what you will, kill him, crush him,” cries one hysterical woman into the camera. This highly manipulative (and manipulated)TV series is intended to whip up a lynch-mob mentality among viewers—and it does so to great effect.
(The segment on this horrible series appeared on “Le Journal de 20 Heures,” France 2, March 27—carried in the States by satellite on the international francophone network TV5. Since it is Sunday, the segment has not yet been posted in either video or text versions on the France 2 site—but I imagine it will be tomorrow.)
The Financial Times three days ago carried an article on this show-<>but the show is, in fact<>when one can actually see excerpts from it<>much, much worse than the F.T. report suggests. The F.T. article relates that the word mujahid—meaning “holy warrior”-has become street slang for homosexuals “after men claiming to be captured Islamist guerrillas confessed that they were holding gay orgies in the popular Iraqi TV programme.”
Says the F.T. ,”The insurgents’ confessions have become increasingly at odds with the movement’s reputation for stringent Islamic austerity. Many Iraqis believe that the stern-faced officers of the ‘Wolf Brigade’, the Iraqi security unit that arrested most of the alleged terrorists, may have pushed the suspects – some of whom appear on the programme sporting bruises – to embellish their ‘confessions’...One long-bearded preacher known as Abu Tabarek recently confessed that guerrillas had usually held orgies in his mosques, secure in the knowledge that their status as holy warriors would win them forgiveness of their sins. Another guerrilla commander had a somewhat unusual nomme de guerre for an Islamic insurgent – ‘Abu Lahab’, an enemy of the Prophet Mohammed singled out in the Koran for special opprobrium….more mainstream Sunni leaders want the programme taken off the air, claiming it polarises an already divided country. Some human rights activists, meanwhile, say that the programme encourages police to abuse insurgent and ordinary criminal suspects by implying that it is desirable to extract as outrageous a confession as possible.”
However, it is the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund a TV show that encourages violent, extra-judicial revenge on people who have not been tried or convicted of any crime that stands in sharp contradiction of the Bush administration’s claims to have successfully exported “democracy” to Iraq. CorpWatch detailed in December how Al Iraqiya TV is financed by the U.S. as part of a $96 million grant to the Australian-based Harris Corporation—a high-tech defense contractor that has been a huge contributor to the Republicans:
“According to campaign contribution records, Harris is a big Republican supporter. During the 2004 election cycle, for example, Harris donated $263,570 to GOP political action committees and candidates, versus a mere $8,200 to Democratic candidates or causes. In 2000—President Clinton’s last year—Harris had won $265 million in prime contracts. By the end of 2003, prime contracting had nearly doubled, reaching $517 million at Harris. In fact, for fiscal 2003, Harris received $1.47 billion in total U.S. prime contract and subcontract government work—fully 70 percent of the company’s annual revenue.”
The display on television of prisoners without their consent violates their rights under the Geneva Convention—all the more so when individual and mob violence against those prisoners is incited by the TV show on which they appear. But a defense contractor who got its contracts from pay-to-play contributions to the Republicans is hardly likely to be susceptible to such civilized niceties. “Terror in the Hands of Justice” constitutes another dark chapter in the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
P.S. My transatlantic correspondent Richard Seymour pointed out, after reading this, that homophobic overtones in reporting on Iraq are a recurrent theme in the British media. For another example-<>this time from the BBC-together with Richard’s always-literate commentary, click here.
Yes, a dark day for the left, but we call that darkness "victory"!
| Television Helps Break Mystique of Holy Warrior (72 dark-eyed virgins need not apply) ^ |
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| Posted by quidnunc On News/Activism ^ 03/24/2005 11:14:40 PM CST · 26 replies · 849+ views The Financial Times ^ | March 24, 2005 | Steve Negus and Dhiya Rasan Say the word mujahid — or holy warrior — these days and many inhabitants of Baghdad are likely to snigger. An appellation once worn as a badge of pride by anti-American insurgents has now become street slang for homosexuals, after men claiming to be captured Islamist guerrillas confessed that they were holding gay orgies in the popular Iraqi TV programme Terror in the Hands of Justice. For Iraqis opposed to the predominantly Sunni Islamist insurgency, Terror in the Hands of Justice, which airs twice daily on Iraqi public television, has broken the mystique of a force that used to strike... |
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BWAHAHAHA. I gotta clean my keyboard now.
>>>>>guerilla news network (terror-symp moonbat site)<<<<<
I never heard of this outfit , but I would say encouraging Iraqui's to kill people who are car bombing them is good news.
Dude, the Iraqis, logically enough, do not appear to consider those blowing up women and children as qualifying as POWs under the Geneva Convention.
Which, of course, they don't.
Where is all the concern that the US not impose its standards on another culture go?
ping
Good, good...
About effing time.
Terrorists aren't protected by the Geneva Convention.
Leftists are morons.
Rule of thumb: When they complain about something, it's working.
See what kind of high-quality television your taxdollars are buying in Iraq: a program that encourages vigilante- style revenge against alleged terrorists.
YES!!!
This is probably the leftists' real problem with this... it's the anti-homosexual bent...
The display on television of prisoners without their consent violates their rights under the Geneva Convention
As non-signatories to the Geneva Convention the terrorists in Iraq have no rights under the Geneva Convention. They also make no pretense to adhere to the Geneva Convention as they behead their prisoners.
Anybody who isn't a complete moron understands this.
Counter-terror TV show draws praise from Iraqis
PHILIP SMUCKER
IN BAGHDAD
SCENES of carnage are common in Iraq these days. You can catch them in the back alleys, on the highway from the airport, and now in your own living room.
A new state TV show targeting terror opens with an Islamist group preparing to execute an American hostage in an orange jumpsuit. It stops short of showing the severed head.
Cut to two Iraqi children holding up a sign - ‘No to Terrorism’ - and you have the lead in to an effective, US-funded propaganda campaign.
Al Iraqiya television is running a wildly popular series highlighting what it claims are the true confessions of the terrorists wreaking havoc across the nation.
The show is the new Iraqi state’s answer to the growing number of al-Qaeda and Islamist websites that show summary executions and slaughter.
Most Iraqis have greeted the show with applause. They see it as evidence that their new security forces are capturing the bad guys and turning up the heat on them. Most viewers are not disturbed by the apparent human rights violations that almost certainly accompany the production of the show.
But the police show, whose ‘perps’ appear bruised and battered, is also reminiscent of an era of kangaroo courts which characterised Iraq’s legal system during the reign of former president Saddam Hussein. It reflects Iraq’s new justice in its rawest form.
Though the Ministry of Interior, which produces the show, insists the confessions are not physically coerced, it seems unlikely followers of Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi would volunteer to explain their deeds to a nationwide audience in Iraq.
The US government, which funds the Al Iraqiya station, has sidestepped questions from reporters that it is paying for tortured confessions by pointing out that the station is actually run by an American contractor, not Washington.
One US official said he had tried to suggest programming changes but had been ignored. Nevertheless, the show, Terrorists in the Arms of Justice, is clearly an effective tool in the hands of the police.
Interrogators hear from terrorist suspects that they work for money, sometimes only $150 or £80 a hit, and that they engage in homosexual acts. Many admit to being alcohol drinkers - a clear contradiction of their alleged Islamist aims.
An Iraqi journalist, who is a fan of the show, says that any human rights violations that take place to produce it do not disturb him in the least.
"We have a dire situation here," said Alaa Al-Safar, a reporter for Al Da’awa newspaper in Baghdad. "The US does more to its own prisoners without giving them human rights than we do. Why would this be allowed for the US and not for us?
"When we restore peace and order, yes, human rights will be a good idea. But right now this is a good thing.
"People had the impression before this show appeared that nothing was being done to fight terrorism."
One recent suspect, who confessed his crimes on the TV show, was later delivered to his father’s home as a corpse.
And most certainly when it's French public television leading the whining.
Gloat ping!
[U.S. News] By ROLAND FLAMINI, Chief International Correspondent WASHINGTON, March 24 : Looking cowed and frightened, a bruised young man looks into the television camera and stammers replies to questions from an unseen interrogator. Yes, he says, he was paid to kidnap foreigners in Baghdad.No, he was not a mujahid (holy warrior); just a common criminal cashing in on Iraq's climate of fear.
The man, described as a captured insurgent, is making a public confession on a TV program on Iraq's government-run al-Iraqiya television station called "Terror in the Hands of Justice."Twice daily, Iraqis watch fascinated as a procession of alleged Islamist guerrillas reveal the details of terrorist operations on what can be described as an Iraqi variation on "America's Most Wanted."One man said he had stalked 10 college girls who were translators for the U.
S. Army, then raped them and killed all of them.Another described how he had beheaded several hostages after first practicing on animals.The program has a double aim of showing Iraqis their tax dollars at work: in other words, Iraq's security services making headway in combating the mainly Sunni Muslim insurgency.The second aim is to undermine the mystique of a sinister force that had spread terror among ordinary Iraqis, and to embolden people to come forward with information.In the early shows the prisoners were non-Iraqi mujaheddin from other Arab countries who claimed to have crossed into Iraq from Syria to fight in the insurgency.But more recently "Terror in the Hands of Justice" has focussed on Iraqis, showing mostly petty criminals who claimed to have been lured into the insurgency with promises of payment for taking part in kidnappings and guerrilla operations.A report in Thursday's Financial Times said the television program has discredited the mujaheddin and their professions of religious fervor by showing captured insurgents who said they were homosexuals -- still not a socially acceptable group in much of the Middle East.As a result, the word mujahid "once worn as a badge of pride by anti-American insurgents has become street slang for homosexuals," the paper reported.Some of the captured guerrillas confessed to holding gay orgies.Recently, Abu Tabarek, a preacher, confessed that insurgents had held morally deviant parties in his mosques.
Few Iraqis seem to doubt the program's authenticity.Iraqis have actually recognized individual prisoners as their attackers, or even as former friends and acquaintances.Western reporters who have watched the filming of segments of the show noted that several of the prisoners were badly bruised, and some observers have suggested that members of the tough "Wolf Brigade," the newly formed Iraqi anti-terrorist unit, were not too gentle in their interrogation and may have encouraged the insurgents to color their stories.The practice of parading prisoners to make public confessions that may have been extracted with the use of force is way out of line with international standards of justice.The fact that televised confessions are familiar to Iraqis from the Saddam Hussein regime makes some Iraqis uneasy, but also -- ironically -- makes the shows more plausible.It is also compulsive viewing.Simon Haselock, a British media expert who is helping the Iraqis set up broadcasting systems, told the BBC, "We have to understand where they're coming from."It was important, he said, "to draw the right balance between the independent, professional public approach that we would be familiar with, and the understandable urge by people here to see retribution for things that have been done to them."One indication of the program's effectiveness is the anger of many Sunnis at the way "Terror in the Hands of Justice" holds up the insurgency to public ridicule.Even Sunnis who are not necessarily supporters of armed opposition to the United States and the fledgling Iraqi government object to the insurgents being portrayed as bloodthirsty, corrupt, venal, morally deviant, and religiously hypocritical.Some senior Sunni politicians are pressing the government to take the show off the air, claiming that it is divisive.Reports say the producers are sympathetic, but put forward two arguments for keeping it on.Firstly, it has made Iraqis less fearful of retaliation if they come forward with information about insurgent suspects.Secondly, it has something television executives dream of: it's a hit.
Mods took this off the sidebar. Please ping any who might be interested (or amused).
EXACTLY!
And an excellent point.
The Geneva Convention can NEVER apply to folks who behead their own prisoners.
Anybody who isn't a complete moron understands this.
That's a large club, Code Pink, MAMM, ANSWER, Not In Our Name, Move on.org, Ted Kennedy, DNC....
I don't understand the thinking(?) of these people.
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