[modéré]Goulag à La Mode De Washington

[Ronnie Hayek]

Un bon résumé des atteintes aux droits de l'homme au nom de "la guerre contre la terreur". Il en ressort que ce n'est pas en employant des techniques dignes de tchékistes que les autorités américaines rendront le monde plus sûr ni redoreront le blason de leur pays. Margolis a raison d'insister sur le caractère proprement anti-américain, car contraire aux valeurs fondatrices du pays et à ses lois, de ces tortures.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/T…/04/765847.html

Uncle Sam has his own gulagBehaving like the Soviet secret police won't make America safer, Eric Margolis says.

By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor

The Lubyanka Prison's heavy oak main door swung open. I went in, the first western journalist to enter the KGB's notorious Moscow headquarters -- a place so dreaded Russians dared not utter its name. When they referred to it at all, they called it "Detsky Mir," after a nearby toy store.

After interviewing two senior KGB generals, I explored the fascinating museum of Soviet intelligence and was briefed on special poisons and assassination weapons that left no traces. I sat transfixed at the desk used by all the directors of Stalin's secret police, on which the orders were signed to murder 30 million people.

Descending dimly lit stairs, I saw some of the KGB's execution and torture cellars, and special "cold rooms" where naked prisoners were beaten, then doused with ice water and slowly frozen.

 

Other favoured Lubyanka tortures: Psychological terror, psychotropic drugs, prolonged sleep deprivation, dazzling lights, intense noise, days in pitch blackness, isolation, humiliation, constant threats, savage beatings, attacks by guard dogs, near drowning.

Nightmares from the past -- but the past has returned.

According to a report leaked to the New York Times, the Swiss-based International Red Cross has accused the Bush administration for a second time of employing systematic, medically supervised torture against suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, and at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The second Red Cross report was delivered to the White House last summer while it was trying to dismiss the Abu Ghraib prison torture horrors as the crimes of a few rogue jailers.

According to the report's allegations, many tortures perfected by the Cheka (Soviet secret police) -- notably beating, freezing, sensory disorientation, and sleep deprivation -- are now routinely being used by U.S. interrogators.

The Chekisti, however, did not usually inflict sexual humiliation. That technique, and hooding, were developed by Israeli psychologists to break resistance of Palestinian prisoners. Photos of sexual humiliation were used by Israeli security, and then by U.S. interrogators at Abu Ghraib, to blackmail Muslim prisoners into becoming informers.

All of these practices flagrantly violate the Geneva Conventions, international, and American law. The Pentagon and CIA gulags in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan have become a sort of Enron-style, off-the-books operation, immune from American law or Congressional oversight.

Suspects reportedly disappear into a black hole, recalling Latin America's torture camps and "disappearings" of the 1970s and '80s, or the Arab world's sinister secret police prisons.

The U.S. has been sending high-level anti-American suspects to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and, reportedly, Pakistan, where it's alleged they are brutally tortured with violent electric shocks, savage beatings, drowning, acid baths, and blowtorching -- the same tortures, ironically, ascribed to Saddam Hussein. Protests over this by members of Congress, respected human rights groups, and the public have been ignored. President George W. Bush just named Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general, his nation's highest law officer. As White House counsel, Gonzales wrote briefs justifying torture and advised the White House on ways to evade or ignore the Geneva Conventions.

Grossly violating the Geneva Conventions undermines international law and endangers U.S. troops abroad. Anyone who has served in the U.S. armed forces, as I have, should be outraged that this painfully won tenet of international law and civilized behaviour is being trashed by members of the Bush administration.

Un-American behaviour

If, as Bush asserts, terrorism suspects, Taliban, and Muslim mujahedeen fighters not in uniform deserve no protection under the laws of war and may be jailed and tortured at presidential whim, then what law protects from abuse or torture all the un-uniformed U.S. Special Forces, CIA field teams, and those 40,000 or more U.S. and British mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan euphemistically called "civilian contractors"?

Behaving like the 1930s Soviet secret police will not make America safer. Such illegal, immoral and totally un-American behaviour corrupts democracy and makes them no better than the criminals they detest.

The 20th century has shown repeatedly that when security forces use torture abroad, they soon begin using it at home, first on suspected "terrorists," then dissidents, then on ordinary suspects.

It's time for Congress and the courts to wake up and end this shameful and dangerous episode in America's history.

[Chitah]

Aaaahhhh, ça y est, je ne voulais pas crééer de nouveau fil, il y en a déjà beaucoup sur l'Irak.

Dans la série comportements craignos, je demande l'armée US.

US accused of seizing Iraqi women to force fugitive relatives to give up

Rory Carroll in Baghdad

Monday April 11, 2005

The Guardian

American forces were yesterday accused of violating international law by taking two Iraqi women hostage in a bungled effort to persuade fugitive male relatives to surrender.

US soldiers seized a mother and daughter from their home in Baghdad two weeks ago and allegedly left a note on the gate: "Be a man Muhammad Mukhlif and give yourself up and then we will release your sisters. Otherwise they will spend a long time in detention."

It was signed Bandit 6, apparently a military code, and gave a mobile phone number. When phoned by reporters an American soldier answered but he declined to take questions and hung up.

Salima al-Batawi, 60, and her daughter Aliya, 35, were blindfolded, handcuffed and driven away in a Humvee convoy on April 2, leaving the Arab Sunnis of Taji, a suburb north of the capital, incandescent.

Instead of surrendering, her three sons, Ahmad, Saddam and Arkan, alerted the media. None of them are called Muhammad, but it is believed that the note referred to Ahmad and that the Americans wanted all three brothers.

The brothers have spent time in Abu Ghraib jail, but have never been charged and say they are citrus farmers with no connection to the insurgency.

Lieutenant Colonel Clifford Kent, of the 3rd infantry division, said the women had been seized as suspected insurgents in their own right and not as a bargaining chip.

"We do not take hostages. Sources told us the women were present during meetings to plan attacks against coalition forces and that they had knowledge of terror cell leaders and the location of weapons caches in the area." [bien trouvé l'excuse]

He said there was a separate inquiry into Bandit 6's note, which was handwritten in Arabic.

After six days in a US jail near Baghdad airport the women were released without charge but could be rearrested if implicated in an ongoing investigation, Lt Col Kent said.

Nicole Choueiry, of Amnesty International, said: "I do not think it is the first time. It is against international law to take civilians and use them as bargaining chips."

Detaining women has become an explosive issue in Iraq. A statement purportedly from the militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said a recent rocket attack by insurgents on Abu Ghraib was partly to avenge the incarceration of women.

US officials claim there are no longer any female inmates in a facility made notorious for abuses revealed last year, including evidence of sexual misconduct against women.

Back home yesterday, Mrs Batawi said Americans threatened to hold her until her sons surrendered but treated her and her daughter with respect. "They carried out a professional investigation. We found beds with clean sheets and copies of the Koran and bottles of water in a big room."

However, she felt humiliated being forced to wear an orange prison uniform without a headscarf and resented being asked whether she was Shia or Sunni.

A militant group said yesterday it kidnapped the deputy of the Pakistani chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, Malik Mohammad Javed. A separate group said it had captured and killed Basem Mohammed Kadem, a brigadier general in the Iraqi army.

[Chitah]

C'est ce genre de comportements qui fait que d'une part la guerre est depuis très très longtemps perdue sur le plan moral, car il devient de plus en plus difficile pour les américains d'expliquer aux Irakiens en quoi ils sont "moins pires" que SH, ça devient de moins en moins vrai.

Et d'autre part parce que je crois que c'est typiquement ce genre de nouvelles, en se répandant dans la population, qui fait que certains peuvent être galvanisés ou même tenter de rejoindre l'un ou l'autre groupe d'insurgés (il y a le choix, en plus, en Irak).

[Freeman]

Et favorise l'anti-américanisme chez nous.

[Chitah]

Amnesty USA-'Don't know for sure' about Guantanamo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite highly publicized charges of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, the head of the Amnesty International USA said on Sunday the group doesn't "know for sure" that the military is running a "gulag."

Executive Director William Schulz said Amnesty, often cited worldwide for documenting human rights abuses, also had no information about whether Secretary Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved severe torture methods such as beatings and starvation.

A weeks-long dispute has raged since Amnesty compared the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the vast, brutal Soviet gulag system of forced labor camps in which millions of prisoners died.

There have been a number of accusations of American mistreatment of the detainees and of the Koran, the Islamic holy book, at the base.

The U.S. military on Friday released details about five cases in which the Koran was kicked, stepped on and soaked in water. Top officials say they were among 10 such cases reported among more than 28,000 prisoner interrogations.

Schulz said, "We don't know for sure what all is happening at Guantanamo and our whole point is that the United States ought to allow independent human rights organizations to investigate."

Asked about the comparison, Schulz said, "Clearly this is not an exact or a literal analogy."

"… But there are some similarities. The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons into which people are being literally disappeared … And in some cases, at least, we know that they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed."

"And whether the Americans like it or not, it does reflect how the more than 2 million Amnesty members in a hundred countries around the world and indeed the vast majority of those countries feel about the United States' detention policy," he added.

Il ne semble pas y avoir beaucoup de témoignages, en fait, des conditions de détention à Guantanamo et dans d'autres zones de ce type.

[Invité jabial]

Goulag… Franchement, comme exagération grossière, ils pouvaient pas faire mieux. Ah, si. Camp d'extermination.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Goulag… Franchement, comme exagération grossière, ils pouvaient pas faire mieux. Ah, si. Camp d'extermination.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Je ne suis pas certain que parler à tout bout de champ d' "esclavagistes" témoigne d'un refus de l'exagération.

[melodius]

Je vais vous mettre d'accord, vous vous rendez coupables tous deux de ce type d'exagération assez régulièrement.

[Invité jabial]

Je ne suis pas certain que parler à tout bout de champ d' "esclavagistes" témoigne d'un refus de l'exagération.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Les mots ont un sens. L'esclavagisme consiste à nier l'inaliénabilité de la volonté d'autrui. Un goulag, par contre, est un lieu de travail forcé où les pertes humaines sont énormes.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Les mots ont un sens. L'esclavagisme consiste à nier l'inaliénabilité de la volonté d'autrui.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Je ne connaissais pas cette définition.

[melodius]

Ben merde, je suis un esclavagiste !

[Sous-Commandant Marco]

Les mots ont un sens. L'esclavagisme consiste à nier l'inaliénabilité de la volonté d'autrui. Un goulag, par contre, est un lieu de travail forcé où les pertes humaines sont énormes.

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Notons qu'avec ces définitions, la France, les Etats-Unis et tous les pays modernes sont des goulags: travail forcé (obligé de travailler à l'école) et mortalité de 100%.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Ben merde, je suis un esclavagiste !

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Attends un peu le grand soir objectiviste !!

[Invité jabial]

Notons qu'avec ces définitions, la France, les Etats-Unis et tous les pays modernes sont des goulags: travail forcé (obligé de travailler à l'école) et mortalité de 100%.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Rhétorique fondamentaliste classique - tu ignores sciemment le fond pour ne retenir que la forme.

Il est évident que quand je parle de travail forcé, il s'agit d'individus libres et responsables, et que quand je parle de mortalité, il s'agit de mortalité causée soit par le travail, soit par les conditions de détention.

[Invité jabial]

Ben merde, je suis un esclavagiste !

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Et j'en suis fort navré. Mais je pense que tu es suffisament intelligent pour finir par comprendre que tu n'as pas le droit de dicter sa conduite à une femme enceinte.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Rhétorique fondamentaliste classique - tu ignores sciemment le fond pour ne retenir que la forme.

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Faudrait savoir !

[Sous-Commandant Marco]

Rhétorique fondamentaliste classique - tu ignores sciemment le fond pour ne retenir que la forme.

Il est évident que quand je parle de travail forcé, il s'agit d'individus libres et responsables, et que quand je parle de mortalité, il s'agit de mortalité causée soit par le travail, soit par les conditions de détention.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Peut-être mais le problème, c'est que tes définitions, en plus d'être imprécises, ne coïncident pas avec celles du dictionnaire. Alors, forcément…

Un goulag est un camp de travail en URSS. Point.

Ensuite, tu peux toujours aller voir la définition de "figuré" dans un dictionnaire. Quand la "SNCF prend en otages ses usagers", pas besoin de faire intervenir la police.

[Invité jabial]

Et moi je dis qu'appeler Goulag un endroit comme Guantanamo, c'est une insulte à la mémoire des victimes du vrai Goulag. Point.

[José]

Et moi je dis qu'appeler Goulag un endroit comme Guantanamo, c'est une insulte à la mémoire des victimes du vrai Goulag. Point.

Pour le coup, je suis d'accord avec toi.

[Sous-Commandant Marco]

Et moi je dis qu'appeler Goulag un endroit comme Guantanamo, c'est une insulte à la mémoire des victimes du vrai Goulag. Point.

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OK, je reconnais que c'est une expression assez déplaisante, mais est-ce plus grave que Guantanamo lui-même? A partir de quel degré d'emprisonnement sans raison valable peut-on utiliser le terme de goulag, sans enfreindre la syntaxe jabialienne?

[Invité jabial]

OK, je reconnais que c'est une expression assez déplaisante, mais est-ce plus grave que Guantanamo lui-même?

On peut jouer au jeu du plus grave longtemps. Du genre : est-ce que Gantanamo est plus grave que les massacres et les tortures de Saddam Hussein? Evidemment la seule réponse valable est que les massacres de SH n'autorisent nullement les exactions de Guantanamo, et qu'appeler Guantanamo un Goulag soulève des gerbes d'eaux usées tellement ça frôle le caniveau de près.

A partir de quel degré d'emprisonnement sans raison valable peut-on utiliser le terme de goulag, sans enfreindre la syntaxe jabialienne? 

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C'est pas dur : tu as les camps de travail en Corée du Nord, les laogaï…

Ceci dit ne te rassure pas : il est impossible de ne pas enfreindre la syntaxe jabialienne, à moins d'en référer à jabial auparavant. Ecrivez-moi donc et je me ferai un plaisir d'accepter ou de refuser vos messages

[José]

A partir de quel degré d'emprisonnement sans raison valable peut-on utiliser le terme de goulag…

Peut-être attendre qu'il y ait ne fût-ce qu'un seul mort à Guantanamo.

[Invité jabial]

Peut-être attendre qu'il y ait ne fusse qu'un seul mort à Guantanamo.

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Là, tu pourra parler de "prison française" ou de "prison américaine".

Pour Goulag, il en faut quand même beaucoup plus qu'un.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Pour info, dans l'article d'ouverture, il n'était pas question "que" de Guantanamo…

@ Ase : "ne fût-ce"

[José]

@ Ase : "ne fût-ce"

[Sous-Commandant Marco]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

En plus d'être imparfait, tu es un affreux subjonctiviste.

[Ronnie Hayek]

En plus d'être imparfait, tu es un affreux subjonctiviste. 

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Schnappi parlerait de "subjonctif catégorique".

[melodius]

Et j'en suis fort navré. Mais je pense que tu es suffisament intelligent pour finir par comprendre que tu n'as pas le droit de dicter sa conduite à une femme enceinte.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Je dois être très bête alors…

[melodius]

Schnappi parlerait de "subjonctif catégorique".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

C'est la trouvaille du mois !

[Freeman]

Comment l'Amérique a-t-elle pu tomber aussi bas ?