Posted on 08/30/2004 7:12:58 PM PDT by Pikamax
Tigris Tales
Iraqis are policing Iraq now, which means that detainees are being beaten instead of sexually humiliated
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad Tuesday August 31, 2004 The Guardian
From day one of the occupation/liberation, everyone banged on about the importance of handing real power and eventually sovereignty to the Iraqis. Every day in the pre-handover era, a mean-looking politician of one sort or another would come on TV and demand real power for the Iraqis (ie, his political group), especially in security matters. After all, "We Iraqis know better than the Americans how to deal with our fellow citizens and can do a better security job for our country," these characters would articulate.
Well, fair enough when it came to Abu Ghraib prison. After the way the US jailers conducted themselves there, it looked as if the Americans had caught the evil secret-police virus - medical name: the mukhabarat - which you can get from spending too much time under the sweltering sun of the Sunni triangle.
It has been two months since the occupation powers handed sovereignty to Iraqis and appointed a former Ba'athist as a prime minister. What we've had, from everyone from the president all the way down to police chiefs, are pledges that the Iraqi government will not tolerate anyone who is trying to destabilise the "democracy" in our country. And "will crush with hands of steel anyone who would use violence to oppose the state".
Sounds great. For all the Iraqis questioned in every single poll, security is the priority, and people have started to feel the difference. But what happens when you are squeezed between the need to establish security and democracy at the same time? The police/security agencies are feeling power coming back through their fingertips, and most of the people in these services were policemen in the good old days of the father of all democracies. It will take more than a three-week crash course in human rights to rehabilitate a Saddam-trained police force.
Three months ago - that is, before the handover - I and another journalist were sitting in the office of a senior police officer in charge of the anti-kidnapping department, when he got a phone call. Heard from my end, it went like this:
Officer: "You can't give me the suspect for 24 hours and expect me to get a confession."
Caller: "..."
Officer: "Ya habibi, put him in my custody for three days and I will show you the how electricity can work."
At the time this conversation took place, that officer's building was still guarded by three American APCs and Humvees; Italian forensic experts were going in and out of his office.
So what has happened since the handover on June 30? Nothing much, just a reinstallation of the 5,000-year-old tradition of human rights in this part of the world.
In Najaf police station, mid-August: cries of pain and thuds of people getting the shit beaten out of them were coming out of the hall where detainees from the anti-government Mahdi army were kept. A policeman carrying a thick electricity cable went running into the hall after being told that new suspects had just arrived. "I will smash your camera if you go close to that door," he shouted at me.
Ten days after that, with the fighting in Najaf still going on, the police figured it must be those journalists cramped in a particular hotel who were still fuelling the uprising by the Mahdi army under Moqtada al-Sadr. And when they realised that battering a cameraman every two days was not working, they went to plan B.
Plan B consisted of masked policemen storming the journalists' hotel, firing bullets into the ceiling, loading everyone into police and army pick-up trucks, threatening with pistols and shouting: "We will fuck your mothers." We were all delivered to the police chief, who calmly started telling us about the inhumane treatment the police are suffering from the militia. He and his men were trying to summon us for a press briefing.
Two days after plan B, the police started to open fire at any journalist moving around.
When everyone during the Najaf crisis was talking about the importance of ending the uprising of Moqtada and his group, and disarming the militias, uniformed militiamen with nicely trimmed beards and brand new SUVs carried on patrolling the streets - just that these guys, trained in a neighbouring country with a great record on Islamic human rights since late 70s, Iran - are affiliated with parties participating in the new Iraqi government.
But we have to admit things are different. At least detainees in police stations are just getting kicked and beaten and not asked to perform the famous Abu-Ghraib sex-pyramid dance.
Where's the beef?
...and the problem here is...?
Considering how many Iraqi policemen have been slaughtered by the islamists/mahdists I'm like, shocked, shocked.
So, there ARE things we can learn from other cultures.
Hearing about some snotty, eurotrash journalists being given a tenderizing would not exactly tear at my heartstrings either...
Likelyhood Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has seen anything he reported in this story. 1 in 5
Likelyhood Ghaith Abdul-Ahad sympathizes with the former regime. 1 in 3
Likelyhood Ghaith Abdul-Ahad ever saw fit to report on human rights abuses in Iraq prior ro 2003. 1 in 1,000,000
Obviously, I would not condone kicking and beating suspected terrorists (mmmphh) but these tactics represent a huge improvement in human rights over the burning, flaying alive, rape of female relatives, plastic shredders, iron maidens, and other sadistic butchery that prevailed under the Euro-media's beloved Saddam.
I like plan C. It would keep our journalists occupied if not honest.
DAMN, THAT IS FANTASTIC!!!!!
We have got to let everyone hear about this one!!!!!
That's good isn't it? Who has a list of radio station e-mails? Especially drive time shows.
I'll bet either Ron Dog or Doug from Upland would have or would know!
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