Because, if you don’t speak the language, if nobody trusts you, if the insurgents can always blend into a civilian population either too mad or too scared to rat them out for you, there’s always one thing you can do that’s sure to work: Kidnap their wives:
Jan 27, 2006 — The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of “leveraging” their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.
In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family’s door telling him “to come get his wife.” […]
The U.S. military on Thursday freed five of what it said were 11 women among the 14,000 detainees currently held in the 2 1/2-year-old insurgency. All were accused of “aiding terrorists or planting explosives,” but an Iraqi government commission found that evidence was lacking.
Iraqi human rights activist Hind al-Salehi contends that U.S. anti-insurgent units, coming up empty-handed in raids on suspects’ houses, have at times detained wives to pressure men into turning themselves in.
Hey, this sounds like a great tactic. I wonder who thought it up. Sounds like something Hollywood might come up with, except, of course, they always have the bad guys doing it. But why let them have all the fun, eh?
Just think of the law enforcement possibilities back here in the States. Having trouble finding people with outstanding warrants against them? Can’t get those suspected drug dealers off the streets? No problem. Kidnap their wives or girlfriends, sisters and brothers, even their mother. I bet it would save time and taxpayer expense once the criminals realized we meant business. Especially if they knew the police might torture or rape their poor unfortunate innnocent family members.
Oh wait. I forgot, we’re a liberal democracy, with laws and rights which protect our citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures (sort of). The kind of democracy we’re supposedly bringing the Iraqi people. One with liberty and justice for all.
Well, I guess that whole civil liberties and human rights thing will just have to wait. There’s a war to be won, after all. Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Et cetera.
And so it goes.
Update [2006-1-28 15:7:42 by Steven D]: Arcturus had this story yesterday. Go check out his/her diary for more details.
why didn’t he jail the whole fuckin’ Bin Laden family after 9/11 instead of helping them to get out?
Because Saudi Arabia is our friend and ally? <snark>
Personally, I doubt Bush knew this was going on specifically. I believe he simply told Rummy “gloves off” and left it to him and his merry gang to implement the policy.
Of course, who really knows with this administration.
I think it’s safe to assume the worst.
In the non-German speaking territories conquered as part of the expansion of the Third Reich, controlling the indigenous population was routinely accomplished through intimidation and mass reprisals.
If a suspect was not cooperative, the authorities would arrest his family, neighbors, or every person on the street he lived and begin beating, torturing and killing them in his presence. There was a war on, and efficiency in these matters was highly valued.
If a German soldier was killed, ten local citizens were simply grabbed off the street and hung from the nearest lampposts. In restive villages, a permanent scaffold would be constructed in the square, with ten ropes ready to be used at a moment’s notice.
The expansion of the American empire will inevitably require similar measures against non-English speaking native populations.
There is a war on, and efficiency in these matters is highly valued.
It has been reported, even in the western, English language media, for years, and even since this latest story came out, I haven’t seen a lot of urgings and campaigns to fax and write and email politicians expressing opposition and demanding it be stopped.
Not this American.
I hope this does not come as a surprise to you. 😉
I used to be mainstream. I still wonder why the stream has moved.
I turned on the tv yesterday afternoon to hear Rita Cosby proclaim that the radical left has taken over the center of the Democratic party. IOW, we have been so marginalized that we don’t even show up on their radar — unless arrested.
BTW, yesterday’s Documents reveal US Army detained female hostages in Iraq has more comments on this.
I want some.
If the US ever gets a left, she’ll know.
Acturus I missed your diary and for that I am sorry. Susan emailed me this story and suggested I write it up. However, if I had seen yours I simply would have promoted it to the front page.
What I will do is update this story to give a link to your diary.
.
Additional diaries on topic of Iraq warfare ::
Fri Jan 27th, 2006 at 05:40:51 PM PST
The US Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of “leveraging” their husbands into surrender, US military documents show.
Mowhoush Torture Death Negligent Homicide ¶ 3 Yr. – Updated Reprimanded
Interrogated general’s sleeping-bag death, CIA’s use of secret Iraqi squad are among details
The U.S. military initially told reporters that Mowhoush had been captured during a raid. In reality, he had walked into the Forward Operating Base “Tiger” in Qaim on Nov. 10, 2003, hoping to speak with U.S. commanders to secure the release of his sons, who had been arrested in raids 11 days earlier.
Mowhoush’s ordeal in Qaim, over 16 days in November 2003, and circumstances that led to his death paint a vivid example of how the pressure to produce intelligence for anti-terrorism efforts and the war in Iraq led U.S. military interrogators to improvise and develop abusive measures. Not just at Abu Ghraib but in detention centers elsewhere in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The sleeping-bag interrogation and beatings were taking place in Qaim about the same time that soldiers at Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad, were using dogs to intimidate detainees, putting women’s underwear on their heads, forcing them to strip in front of female soldiers and attaching at least one to a leash. It was a time when U.S. interrogators were coming up with their own tactics to get detainees to talk, many of which they considered logical interpretations of broad-brush categories in the Army Field Manual, with labels such as “fear up” or “pride and ego down” or “futility”.
● Col. Hoggs 2nd Brigade 4th Infantry ¶ From Hi-Tech Shock & Awe to IEDs
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
If I am not mistaken, there is a provision inthe Geneva Convention, providing no authorization to this maneuver. So this is again, breaking the law, all internations laws. So what is it now that we do from here on out??!!
I was actually shocked this morning when my small town local newspaper had this article on the front page. I live in a very conservative town, the news from Iraq is usually hidden in the Sports Page. The placement of this story is a welcome sign that perhaps we are closer to outrage here in Northern California.
This part of the article stood out to me.
During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target’s surrender,” wrote the 14-year veteran officer.
He said he objected, but when they raided the house the team leader, a senior sergeant, seized her anyway.
The 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing, the intelligence officer wrote. She was held for two days and was released after he complained, he said.
Like most names in the released documents, the officer’s signature is blacked out on this for-the-record memorandum about his complaint.
I found it particularly interesting that the US calls ripping a woman away from her family, her children and her still breast feeding baby detention but when the insurgents take someone against their will it’s kidnapping.
It’s disturbing, once again, that the media isn’t all over this.
This is why i love Andrew Sullivan. He is great on these issues. Bless his heart.
— Via Daou Report
And there’s more- I believe this came out last year, there was a German television show about our jailing of children. Unicef was suitably outraged but the news died here. I think Gen. Karpinsky also spoke of touring the children’s jail-(that phrase alone is enough to make me ill).
I’ve written reps. and sens. and tried to get letters into the paper but no one wants to deal with this, or no one wants to admit to it.
http://www.sundayherald.com/43796
As skillfully as the neocons have manipulated American public opinion (well, to be fair, here they DO speak the language and for the most part understand the culture), you’d think they would be smarter about this.
This tactic is inhumane — hell, it’s barbaric — but it’s also ineffective, and it’s going to backfire big time. It’s backfiring already. If a “detained” woman’s husband, brothers, cousins, father and sons are already insurgents, this treatment will only strengthen their resolve and hatred. If they aren’t insurgents yet, they will become so, having now been handed personal motivation.
Ultimately, this tactic didn’t work for the Nazis either; it merely fueled the anger and inspired the underground resistance.
But I guess it’s not a question of being smarter. It’s a question of deeply rooted insecurity among American leadership, which has spread downwards, unchecked by rules or standards of behavior. The insecurity of the bully, who tries to use fear and brute force to reinforce his position and his will upon others, because fear is what he knows and understands. Bullies pick on the weak because they dare not face the strong.
Or it could be that their goals are not what they say they are at all… there are so many vicious twists possible here, it’s difficult for rational analysis.
that even people opposed to US policies refer to the Iraqi Resistance as “insurgents.”
….. good point.
I prefer Freedom Fighters, just to add the thrill of possibly getting Ronnie to spin a bit.
….and they wonder why Jill Carroll got kidnapped. The only request for her release was to free the women in the American Jails/pow institutions.