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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:32
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quote:
Arrian: Short of death squads, do you have any ideas about a reasonably just solution to this problem of the minority not settling for their proper share of power? |
Focus on local elections, rather than national elections, rebuild a nonsectarian civil society, through supporting, i.e. labor unions, etc. In the national election, I'd look at a few possibilities: give the Sunnis a default 10-15% of Parliament if they boycott the election as expected (to keep them from feeling more marginalized) or have people vote for individual candidates, rather than top-down party lists (so the election would be more about local, pragmatic concerns, rather than sectarian rivalres). The bottom line is that democracy is a process, not an event, and that pinning all our hopes on a single national election, coming far too late, after we've alienated the Sunni population through that idiocy in Fallujah in addition to all the other incompetence we've beeen involved in for the past year and a half, ain't going to work.
Death squads are morally despicable and not an option for a just soicety. Period. And practically, they're not going to rebuild a democratic culture, and they almost certainly would make the problem worse (see collective punishment in Fallujah).
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St Leo
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Member of the Apolyton Social Democratic Party
Jul 2005
time: 00:32
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quote:
It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK. |
Excuse me? Why is deporting innocents to be tortured in Syrian prisons Maher Arar-style being presented as the sunny alternative?
quote:
Maher Arar Timeline
October 10, 2002
Early in the morning on October 10 Arar is taken downstairs to a basement. The guard opens the door and Arar sees for the first time the cell he will live in for the following ten months and ten days.
Arar calls the cell a “grave.” It is three feet wide, six feet deep and seven feet high. It has a metal door, with a small opening which does not let in light because of a piece of metal on the
outside for sliding things into the cell. There is a one by two foot opening in the ceiling with iron bars. This opening is below another ceiling and lets in just a tiny shaft of light. Cats urinate through the ceiling traps of these cells, often onto the prisoners. Rats wander there too.
There is no light source in the cell. The only things in the cell are two blankets, two plastic bowls and two bottles. Arar later uses two small empty boxes – one as a toilet when he is not allowed to the washroom, and one for prayer water.
October 11 to 16, 2002
Early the next morning Arar is taken upstairs for intense interrogation. He is beaten on his palms, wrists, lower back and hips with a shredded black electrical cable which is about two inches in diameter. He is threatened with the metal chair, electric shocks, and with the tire, into which prisoners are stuffed, immobilized and beaten.
The next day Arar is interrogated and beaten on and off for eighteen hours. Arar begs them to stop. He is asked if he received military training in Afghanistan, and he falsely confesses and says yes. This is the first time Arar is ever questioned about Afghanistan. They ask at which camp, and provide him with a list, and he picks one of the camps listed.
Arar urinated on himself twice during the interrogation.
Throughout this period of intense interrogation Arar was not taken back to his cell, but to a waiting room where he could hear other prisoners being tortured and screaming. One time, he heard them repeatedly slam a man’s head on a desk really hard.
October 17 to 22, 2002
During the second week of the interrogation, Arar is forced into a car tire so he is immobilized. This was used to scare him, but he is not beaten while in the tire, as with other prisoners.
The intensity of the beating and interrogation subsides after October 17. Interrogators start using a new tactic, taking Arar into a room blindfolded so he can hear people talking about him, saying, ”He knows lots of people who are terrorists,” “We will get their numbers,” “He is a liar,” “He has been out of the country.” They occasionally slap him on the face.
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Americans.
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DRoseDARs
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"My god, it's full of peas..."
Jul 2002
time: 21:32
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Compliments of Mother Jones.com:
January 10, 2005
3:24 PM
More on death squads
Over at Whiskey Bar, Billmon has a short round-up of links and quotes on what the "El Salvador" option really means. Here's one such passage, from Raymond Bonner's groundbreaking account, Weakness and Deceit:
One [Salvadoran] death squad member, when asked about the types of tortures used, replied: "Uh, well, the same things you did in Vietnam. We learned from you. We learned from you the means, like blowtorches in the armpits, shots in the balls. But for the "toughest ones" — that is, those who resist these other tortures — "we have to pop their eyes out with a spoon. You have to film it to believe it, but boy, they sure sing."
- Bradford Plumer
...
There are more lovely snippets at the second link. In addition to a : puke : smiley, we need a : jaw drop : smiley.
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MRT144
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Seattle Washington
Oct 2002
time: 21:32
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anything to protect OUR freedom from terrorsists. 51% of the country scares me.
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Apolyton Time is 00:32. |
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10-01-2005 21:42
) so the religious zealots there couldn't prevent the spread of culture and ideas. If had to live thru the Khomeni regime and I learned the US tried to stop it, I'd view the US more favorably. But that ignores what the Shah was like.
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