November 22, 2006

The Death Squads

The blog Healing Iraq points us to a BBC Channel Four special on Death Squads, which is available here on GoogleVideo. It's a very interesting report, running about 45 minutes. There's a bit of mandatory front-line reporter theatrics, but overall, very interesting.

What do you readers think?

Written by Chester at 12:17 AM | Link | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Print Article

October 25, 2006

The Autumn of the Patriarch

Frederick Turner has written a brilliant piece in TCSDaily that offers a reinterpretation of the "death squads" so frequently mentioned in the press coverage of Iraq:

When there is a significant fraction of the population that will not join in political compromise, whether because of ideological idealism, addiction to supernatural power, or the passion for revenge, civil society is faced with a diabolical paradox.

It wishes to form legal and political institutions that are transparent, correctable by debate, and under the control of the people (with protections for minorities), where people can make good money in the marketplace and raise families in peace. But the reality is that even after all possible compromises have been offered to the refuseniks, civil society is faced with a small but absolutely hostile minority that will be content with nothing but total victory.

How to deal with this minority?

Continue reading "The Autumn of the Patriarch"

Written by Chester at 11:09 PM | Link | Comments (20) | TrackBack (0) | Print Article

October 3, 2006

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Suppose you are a member of Britain's security services and are faced with a dilemma: you can either arrest a terror plotter and lose the opportunity to continue rolling up his network, or know that if you don't, the US will swoop him up and send him to a secret prison (aka, "render" him)? Which is worse?

Such is the scenario reported in the Guardian on Sunday [via the CS Monitor's Terrorism and Security Brief]:

Continue reading "Good Cop, Bad Cop"

Written by Chester at 3:13 PM | Link | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) | Print Article

February 9, 2005

Brits Create Guantanamo Reality Show

An Alert Reader notes that a story in The Guardian: C4 lines up Guantanamo-style torture show.

Channel 4 is to broadcast what it is styling a Guantánamo Bay-style reality show that will examine the effects of mild torture on seven male volunteers.

The Guantánamo Guidebook will recreate some of the practices used at the US naval base where hundreds of so-called "enemy combatants" have been held without trial or access to lawyers for nearly three years.

Using an east London warehouse and declassified internal documents obtained from US sources, programme-makers mocked up conditions as they are inside Guantánamo, before subjecting seven volunteers to some of the milder forms of torture alleged to have been used by US authorities.

The programme exposed the volunteers, three of whom are Muslim, to 48 hours of "torture lite" including sleep deprivation, the use of extreme temperatures and "mild" physical contact.

As at Guantánamo and more vividly in Abu Ghraib, the volunteers were also subject to periods of enforced nudity and religious and sexual humiliation.

The seven male volunteers, one of whom withdrew after just seven hours suffering from hypothermia, were recruited initially by adverts asking how "hard" they were.

After psychological testing there were then told what the programme was about and the list whittled down to seven. All were offered counselling after filming was finished.

The programme is part of a four-pronged investigation into the modern-day use of torture practices, in and outside the Cuban island base which Amnesty International has described as an "icon of lawlessness".

It is part of an upcoming season of films examining the use of torture in the "war against terror".

Written by Chester at 9:29 PM | Link | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Print Article