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Predictable Torture of Iraqi Prisoners

Gary Sudborough | 04.05.2004 04:35 | Anti-militarism | World

The torture of Iraqi prisoners of war is a part of a strategy of US counterinsurgency warfare and not due simply to a few deranged, sadistic American soldiers.

I wonder just how long it will take until the images of US torture of Iraqi prisoners disappear from the television screens of American viewers, compared to the months and months of seeing a dirty, bearded, disheveled and disoriented Saddam Hussein undergoing his degrading dental exam. They are still showing video clips of this exercise in humiliation every time a television commentator wants to relate a story about Saddam Hussein. Unless there is a lot of public pressure, the corporate media will eliminate this torture story very rapidly. It is not conducive to building public support for these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The corporate media are a bunch of propagandists, although they will arrogantly claim they are objective, fair and balanced.

This torture of Iraqi prisoners of war will probably be portrayed mainly as the isolated acts of a few deranged, sadistic American soldiers. This is definitely not the case. Torture is an integral part of a strategy of counterinsurgency warfare, which the United States has been following for decades. Guerrilla warfare depends on popular support for its success, since the guerrilla fighters can't compete with the superior weaponry and technology of the occupying power or the government against whom they are revolting. The objective of torture and other methods of low-intensity warfare is to be so savage and shocking that people will be intimidated enough that they will no longer support the resistance.

A prime example of this counterinsurgency strategy was the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. This program involved torture, assassinations, mutilation of corpses, pushing prisoners out of helicopters, etc. In Guatemala the severed heads of guerrilla fighters were placed on pikes to intimidate anyone who might have thought about supporting or joining the guerrillas. In Argentina leftists were pushed out of airplanes over the Atlantic ocean. Presently, right-wing death squads in Colombia are using chain saws to slowly dismember peasants that they suspect of being guerrillas or guerrilla supporters. These are not just ideas that popped into the heads of these torturers. The CIA and the Office of Public Safety have been training the police and militaries in Latin America and supplying them with the torture equipment for a very long time. The CIA supplied the Contras with a counterinsurgency manual advocating assassinations, kidnappings, extortion and torture. An OPS officer named Dan Mitrione captured beggars off the street in Montevideo, Uruguay to use as subjects for torture techniques to be applied to the Tupamaros guerrilla fighters. All these beggars died as a result of these demonstrations of torture techniques to the Uruguayan police. Political analyst Michael Parenti has a chapter in his book The Sword and the Dollar giving all the gruesome details of the various types of torture employed in Latin America and the US role in their perpetration.

I knew when the war in Iraq started that various types of low-intensity warfare like targeted assassinations and torture were definitely going to be employed. What was surprising to me was that someone had the courage to reveal this information, while the war was still occurring without a successful resolution for the United States. Often, embarrassing events like this only come to light years later and are revealed on page 25 or so of your local newspaper and in one paragraph in small print at the bottom of the page. The undeniable desire by the corporate media is that few people will notice or become outraged. As an example of their biased coverage, I would venture to say that the vast majority of Americans have never heard of anything called the Phoenix Program in Vietnam.


Gary Sudborough
- e-mail: IconoclastGS@aol.com
- Homepage: http://www.theblackflag.org/iconoclast

Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

The photos of torture were exposed as fakes!

04.05.2004 13:29

You are a bit slow aren't you! Those photos were exposed as fakes a couple days ago. There were loads of mistakes in those photos. At least 20 inconsistancies were found in them.

quick off the mark


Thick as Fark

04.05.2004 15:20

The article is describing the pictures screened by C.B.S.in the U.S. which have not been
proved to be fakes. Why not try reading the article before issuing your illinformed and irrelevant comments.

Mick


Thick off the mark, more like

04.05.2004 15:27

No they weren't.

A bunch of highly suspicious Miltary Establishment figures (to whom cover-ups come as second nature, as "protecting the good name of the Regiment" is the Number One Priority) were wheeled out to pour suspicion on the photos, citing a number of petty things, almost all of which were refuted WITH EVIDENCE by the Mirror itself and by the soldiers who exposed the truth ot the occupation of Iraq.

This has happened in virtually all US/UK wars since the last Big One. Rather than face the horrible truth - that "our" armies are no better than Saddams/The Viet Cong/whoever - the establishment tries to rubbish the context or throw up enough squid ink to obscure the real issue; in this case that the "liberators" of Iraq are in fact a bunch of thugs, rapists and torturers.

And its no use going "well at least Saddam was worse". He never claimed to be liberating the Iraqi people from human rights abuses, didee?

Wakey wakey.

not thick or prone to believe hired killers


Plastic guns

04.05.2004 15:44

The 'gun' in the pictures is an air replica SA80 - it's made of plastic... it fires little plastic pellets...

I suppose the pictures could still be genuine... Her Maj's 'finest' are rather short of equipment these days

scoop


Yeah, but...

04.05.2004 17:41

a escapee
a escapee

...Saddam Hussein was operating in the interests of small penguins everywhere a course!

cs
mail e-mail: cockneyslapper@hotmail.com
- Homepage: http://www.pinguinoslocos.blogspot.com


Amazing

05.05.2004 12:08

I am amzed that people can be so gullible. Even a quick look at the pictures shows them to be fakes at yet because there are those so desperate to believe they are true we have to see postings like this garbage.

I for one wouldn't be surprised to see US and UK soldiers abusing Iraqis but these pictures are not the proof they did. I'll offer good odds that a couple of TA lads rigged them up for the £20,000 paid by the Daily Mirror.

Stuart


Amazingly stupid

05.05.2004 13:44

No, YOU are the gullible one my friend.

Gullible for believing the Sun, which has a track record of lies and deceit (all in the interests of the ultra-rich, natch) second to none

Gullible for believing "military experts" who are no more than a mouthpiece for the establishment who would have you believe that the armed forces some sort of a glorified Red Cross, rather than a collection of thugs and killers.

Gullible for believing what you're told by those in authority. Always.

And fucking stupid if you think the Mirror hasn't libel-proofed itself up the arse by checking out its sources vigorously.

One last question, my dim-witted chum. Why is it so "obvious at first glance" that the pics are fake? Even our pro-war government seems reluctant to dismiss this out of hand.

Duh.

not stupid and NEVER believes the Sun


Photo

05.05.2004 17:25

The pictures are fake.

The equipment is not of a type used in Iraq, the rifle for example has the wrong barrel and is probably the SA80-12/T training rifle which doesn't fire. The boots are French Para types, not issued to UK forces. The truck is the early TK Bedford, these were never sent to the Gulf as they are only used in the UK by TA Units. The Army shipped AWD and ERF trucks to Iraq.

The Daily Mirror was touting for a story like this around a month ago at various barracks in Southern England (a DM jouro was thumped in the Pegasus Arms in Aldershot on March 9th) the going price was 10K or 20K with pictures, looks like someone (probably a TA soldier) got greedy. The Daily Mirror will claim it printed the pictures in good faith as it had recieved them from soldiers and so will avoid any claims against it. As it doesn't name any individual there is little chance of a libel claim. The Mirror has been cynical but then that's tabloid journalism for you.

crl


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