The New York Times reports that Iran is obtaining false confessions of treason by utilizing torture enhanced interrogation techniques on reformers they have in custody.
The government has made it a practice to publicize confessions from political prisoners held without charge or legal representation, often subjected to pressure tactics like sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and torture, according to human rights groups and former political prisoners. Human rights groups estimate that hundreds of people have been detained.
They fear the confessions are part of a concerted effort to lay the groundwork for banning existing reformist political parties and preventing any organized reform movement in the future. “They hope with this scenario they can expunge them completely from the political process,” said Hadi Ghaemi, coordinator of International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based group. “They don’t want them to come back as part of a political party.”
Cheney and Rumsfeld were definitely a bit more subtle, but they didn’t shy away from using these techniques on at least two American citizens. They also thought they could prevent the opposition party from coming back, although their approach was indirect. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had any ground to stand on in protesting Iran’s behavior?
Something to think about on this Independence Day.
It would be wonderful, indeed, BooMan but, alas, I think what we are witnessing in Iran (and have witnessed in the case of the USA) are desperate attempts to maintain power and control at the expense of the public welfare.
God grant that the Iranians fail at creating a monolithic state as did the neocons here in our own country. Come to think of it this is a great Fourth of July when the bells of freedom are ringing louder than they have in the past eight years.
Viva Obama! Viva America!
The US can’t do a thing about Iran, and it’s not because we were torturing people during the Chimperor’s years. America’s tortured (ahem) history with Iran goes back past the time when we got Mossadeq kicked out of office and installed the Shah. We have no diplomatic ties, no economic clout, no meaningful sanctions to impose, and anything the US government tries to do to help those fighting for basic human rights in Iran will backfire, big time. Not that Obama is crazy enough to try anything.
The American people are another story, and it’s been gratifying to see the support the Iranians in the streets have gotten from the American people, when they know what is going on. Unfortunately the news networks have decided that Iran is anywhere from a non-story to less important than news about Michael Jackson’s will, so most of the people in the US probably think the protests are over and the protesters failed (if they think of it at all). Neither is the case.
I agree with you completely.
I had a brief discussion on Twitter last week with someone who was convinced that the US was massing troops on the Iranian border and getting ready to invade. I tried to convince them that (1) US troops were stretched too thin to do any such thing, and (2) unlike Cheney, Obama is not batshit insane enough to try. These efforts fell on the cybernetic equivalent of deaf ears; my correspondent was convinced that Obama served the same masters as Bush did. To an extent they have a point (Wall Street is still running the economy), but not in a military sense. The “Bomb, Bomb Iran” crowd no longer has the ear of the C-in-C. (And we should all be thankful John McCain didn’t get elected.)
Glenn Greenwald’s blog
Here’s something interesting I found in a comment on Greenwald’s post:
This is a good example of how private as opposed to public ownership and control of the press do not necessarily lead to greater journalistic objectivity and independence. We already knew that of course, but it’s good to have an example of how it can actually work the other way around.
This brings up a curious thing that seems to be creeping into liberal/left discussion. Why Cheney and Rumsfeld and not Bush? Seems like there’s some kind of subtle impulse to leave Bush, without whom none of this would have happened, at the margins of the responsibility list. What’s that about?
Mainly two things.
The Boy President delegated the dirty work and he didn’t dream all this crap up on his own. Better advisors with a moral compass, different result.
And, it is much easier to go after underlings politically than a former president.
Bush is totally responsible, but I aim where the vulnerabilities are.
Well I think the cumulative effect is to spread a meme that somehow mitigates his guilt and the damage he has done. Re advisors, you’ve got the cart before the horse: given who he is he couldn’t possibly have had better advisors any more than a ripening corpse could attract tooth fairies instead of maggots. At the levels he reached, idiocy is absolutely no excuse. He belongs in the pen at least as much as Cheney, Rumsfeld, and a whole bunch of others. We might want to make sure we don’t suggest otherwise.