Is there any government in the Middle East that doesn't routinely employ torture to extract information and/or confessions from prisoners (now universally called "detainees")?

But whether that torture is reported or not depends mostly on who's doing it -- and to whom. Yes?

If it is Iran, then of course the banners are paraded and the trumpets blare. Iran is the Enemy. Its use of torture is barbaric, evil, and worthy of contempt.

But when the Saudis torture and chop off limbs and heads and flog the hide off the backs of adulterers, nary a peep, wot? Well, of course not, they are Our Friends. Same with Jordan, Egypt, the various Emirates, Pakistan for heaven's sake. We just don't talk about what Our Friends do. It's rude.

I'm sure some of us remember some of the first scenes out of the Afghanistan invasion, when peaceniks were still calling for "bombing them with butter," the AP ran photos of poor robed and turbaned sods, their crotches covered with blood, the captions running something like this: "A suspected Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan is shown just after his genitals were cut off by Northern Alliance troops allied with American forces who captured him. Such rough treatment is traditional among the people of Afghanistan. Shortly after this picture was taken, the suspected Taliban insurgent was shot in the head and is presumed to be dead."

And this was cheered in America -- it was meant to be cheered in America. We may have heard about the torture of John Walker Lindh, "American Taliban," or we may not have. We may have heard about the thousands of Afghans who were rounded up by various interests (American and other) in the early days of the campaign and starved or slaughtered in shipping containers, or who were tied up and blown to bits or shot at Mazar-i-Sharif. We may or may not have heard about the sex slavery of Afghan women and boys to our Northern Alliance allies as a consequence of our conquest, but by now everyone has heard of the sale of captives to the Americans for disposition at Bagram and/or Guantanamo and other handy gulags and outposts of Empire.

All this was going on as the so-called War on Terror was just beginning. Torture and murder and cruelty and brutality toward any and all suspects has been integral to the conduct of Imperial conquest, just as it was when the Spaniards came a-calling in the New World.

Yet it's not our torture and murder and cruelty and brutality that is of interest to our State media and the Government it serves, it is always the Other Guy's Torture, so long as the Other Guy is one of our plethora of Enemies.

Thanks for that link. I can't spend time on it now, but will in the near future. I appreciate all the work you've done.

No offense, but its time she retired. Anyone ALLOWED to be the "crazy old leftist" is by definition going to be used to discredit discomfiting ideas. What better way to relegate certain questions to the margins, than by having an elderly woman who's been used as the butt of a joke for the past decades, ask it.

No offense, she did her duty and ran a good race and lived a life that anyone should only stand in awe of; but this is the same sort of counterproductive support that's put two septuagenarians--Ron Paul and Ralph Nader--as the only two alternatives to the entrenched two party system.

Any number of people could take the place of Thomas; think about it, she's no longer attached to a newspaper. She's in effect an off-line blogger. It could just as well be a cranky Atrios taking over the seat.

And if you wonder why that's not possible, then you're starting to realize why Thomas has been so convenient to so many administrations.

From: “Government Further Delays Release Of Crucial CIA Inspector General Report, (7/2/2009), CIA's Fourth Delay Seeks Extension Until August 31

I can see why people are worried. A sequence of small delays, followed by a court request for a longer delay... If it follows the photos pattern, the next is for the Congressional Republicans and neocon columnists to ratchet up criticism, Dick Cheney to make public statements about endangering national security, and the Obama administration to boot a "review" of the decision to release the report up to the President's desk, followed by an appropriate wait to look like it's being cogitated on, and then the President to say he's consulted with [generals in the field, CIA agents in the field, other "vulnerable" people, tug on yellow ribbon heart strings here] and announce that the report will not be released.

I really don't see how they can say that material will endanger anything. According to all information that can be collected, they killed Aafia Siddiqui's kid as a threat to her while torturing her, PHR has documented multiple rapes with sticks and gun barrels, winches for strappado, and then there's this: In Descent into Chaos Ahmed Rashid details how Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan held the Bush administration for extortion and ransom, essentially, for several years. Rumsfeld wanted the use of bases there, but the big secret and number one thing that the U.S. was totally addicted to was the ability of the CIA to render prisoners to Uzbekistan. That's right, to the country of the Andijan massacre (I wonder what "assurances" the State Department had that they would be treated properly on that one).

Once the Uzbeks had handed over the K2 base to the Americans, it would have been difficult but not impossible for the United States to use its aid, training programs, and personnel as leverage to push for reform and encourage a cadre of reformers to emerge from within the Uzbek elite. Instead, the Bush administration treated the country as a mere dumping ground for rendered prisoners and a logistics base for Afghanistan. Uzbekistan and its people -- their hopes and aspirations -- did not exist for anyone in Washington.

[...]Ultimately, President Bush was responsible for losing Uzbekistan and Central Asia, as the U.S. administration pursued one-track policies that put torturing prisoners above the need for nation building. (pp. 347-8)

Well, now, that was certainly worse than being beholden to just any old country for foreign policy, now wasn't it? Oh, and to people who would like to split hairs, or even mention beheadings on video, there's more,

Later, [former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig] Murray was to testify to the European Parliament...Murray described photographs of Muzafar Avazov...: "His face was bruised, his torso and limbs livid purple...[A pathology report] said that the man's fingernails had been pulled out, that he had been beaten, and that the line around his torso showed he had been immersed in hot liquid. He had been boiled alive." (Ibid. pp 310-11)

Can we stop pretending that the other guys torture worse than our guys, now?
And that three instances of waterboarding is all we are talking about?