Torture, Not Aid. posted by Richard Seymour

The Observer seems to be intent on assassinating its own reputation by doing some actual news reporting. Today, it discloses that UK and US aid intended for "Iraq's hard-pressed police service" is actually being diverted toward "paramilitary commando units accused of widespread human rights abuses, including torture and extra-judicial killings":

The Observer has seen photographic evidence of post-mortem and hospital examinations of alleged terror suspects from Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle which demonstrate serious abuse of suspects including burnings, strangulation, the breaking of limbs and - in one case - the apparent use of an electric drill to perform a knee-capping.
The investigation revealed:
· A 'ghost' network of secret detention centres across the country, inaccessible to human rights organisations, where torture is taking place.
· Compelling evidence of widespread use of violent interrogation methods including hanging by the arms, burnings, beatings, the use of electric shocks and sexual abuse.
· Claims that serious abuse has taken place within the walls of the Iraqi government's own Ministry of the Interior.
· Apparent co-operation between unofficial and official detention facilities, and evidence of extra-judicial executions by the police.

This 'aid' comes from the MoD, the Foreign Office, and the Department for International Development, which looks more like government subsidy than charity if you ask me. If I were to take a cynical view - and okay I will - I'd say that this money was intended for the death squads .

As for the torture chambers ? Well:

To add to HRW's allegations of beatings, electric shocks, arbitrary arrest, forced confessions and detention without trial, The Observer can add its own charges These include the most brutal kinds of torture, with methods resurrected from the time of Saddam; of increasingly widespread extra-judicial executions; and of the existence of a 'ghost' network of detention facilities - in parallel with those officially acknowledged - that exist beyond all accountability to international human rights monitors, NGOs and even human rights officials of the new Iraqi government.

What is most shocking is that it is done under the noses of US and UK officials, some of whom admit that they are aware of the abuses being perpetrated by units who are diverting international funding to their dirty war.

They certainly know how to have fun in the New Iraq. In fact, they've got some bottle:

'Abu Ali', a 30-year-old Sunni scooped up in a mosque raid in central Baghdad, was taken to [a torture centre in the Shoula district] for a week in mid-May where he says he was beaten on his feet, subjected to hanging by his arms and, when he angered his guards by refusing to confess, threatened with being sat on 'the bottle' - being anally penetrated.

In Gillo Pontecorvo's film The Battle of Algiers, which was shown to US war planners before the assault on Iraq, the trajectory of occupation and resistance is described - one which has extraordinary resonance today. The National Liberation Front (FLN) begins its campaign against the occupation with a communique that says "People of Algeria, the colonial administration is responsible not only for the misery and enslavement of our people, but also for the brutalization, corruption and degrading vices of many of our brothers and sisters, who have forgotten their dignity.... Starting today, the FLN has assumed responsibility for the physical and moral health of the Algerian people and has therefore decided to forbid the use and sale of all types of drugs and alcoholic beverages, as well as prostitution and pimping. All offenders will be punished and habitual offenders will be executed".

War ensues: French police officers are shot, and retaliate by bombing Arab areas. FLN bombs are planted in bars and residential areas. The French beef up their own operations with tanks, torture, and severe crackdowns on movement. Colonel Matthieu announces that it is just a minority against the occupation, and says that the trick is to isolate these few who rule by terror, and eliminate them.

Then, there is a remarkable moment where Colonel Matthieu addresses a press conference with a captured FLN official. A journalist asks the official: "Isn’t it a dirty thing to use women’s baskets to carry bombs to kill innocent people?" To which the official answers, "And you? Doesn’t it seem even dirtier to you to drop napalm bombs on defenseless villages with thousands of innocent victims? It would be a lot easier for us if we had planes. Give us your bombers, and we’ll give you our baskets." When Colonel Matthieu is asked about the allegations of torture against suspected FLN members, he says "I’ll ask you a question myself: Should France stay in Algeria? If the answer is still yes, you’ll have to accept all the necessary consequences."

Shall our foolish, bellicose, fevered rulers continue to have Iraq? Will we allow them to treat the Middle East as a play-thing for their imperial subventions, in which they can 'change the balance of power' in the area, as if it were a game of Risk? If the answer is yes, then kindly ignore the message in that bottle.