Israeli lessons for the US in Iraq

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

The torturing of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghuraib prison by US occupying forces has shocked the world - but for most Palestinians they come as no surprise.

In fact, tens of thousands of Palestinians who have served time in Israeli prisons and detention centres see striking similarities between Israeli treatment of Palestinian prisoners and American treatment of Iraqi detainees.

...

These include, inter alia, brutal beating, (taltul) or violent shaking, forced-stripping, sleep deprivation (by playing extremely loud music inside a detainee’s cell), cold baths in winter, actual or threatened sexual abuse, as well as the notorious shabh technique whereby a suspect is tied tightly tied to a small chair, with his hands tied to his back, for weeks

....

"It is not secret at all, there are many Israeli experts on torture in Iraq who are transferring to the Americans their accumulative experience of thirty seven years of torturing and mistreating Palestinians," al-Sanai told Aljazeera.net.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C182D988-28E3-4D48-ADFC-F15D6509B0EC.htm

U.S., Israeli armed forces trade urban-warfare tips
American military officials studied attack on Jenin refugee camp

By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer

While Israeli forces were engaged in what many termed a brutal — some even say criminal — campaign to crush Palestinian militants and terrorist cells in West Bank towns, U.S. military officials were in Israel seeing what they could learn from that urban fight.
Likewise, just weeks after the vicious fight in the Jenin refugee camp that ended April 15 with 75 Israelis and Palestinians dead and nearly 150 buildings in rubble, a senior Israeli Defense Force intelligence officer visited the United States to watch U.S. Marines experiment with new urban-warfare tactics.

All this military-to-military contact comes at a sensitive time, one in which the Bush administration is taking pains to appear as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian standoff. Moreover, human-rights groups and State Department officials have expressed concerns about the IDF’s urban counter-terror tactics that U.S. military officials now are studying.

...

The U.S. and Israeli armed forces were trading urban war-fighting tips gleaned from a campaign that even U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had labeled “troubling” for its brutality. In an April 21 interview with ABC News, Powell said U.S. diplomats played a leading role in calling for a United Nations investigation of potential Israeli war crimes in the refugee camps — an investigation that ultimately never got off the ground.

http://www.marinetimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-942592.php

Why the hell would the American army ask ISRAEL how to deal with an insurgency? Fifty-six years of failure should be proof enough that Israeli tactics do not lead to peace.

I couldn't believe it at first, that's why I looked for and posted the marinetimes article.

Moreover, what is the torture scandal going to do to relations between the Western and Islamic cultures?

note - article about US torture scandal and Israeli-US complicity. For those reasons I don't think it should be in I/P

[corporatewhore]

1. Yeah and in israel torture is perfectly leagal

no remorse no fake out rage and no fake apologies from sharon

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. This is why this one smells of not quite valid

they may have asked the Israelis, but you can bet they also
asked the French, the Spaniards and others

Also our boys did their research

Look at the end of the day, WE CHOSE to do this, becuase this was
encouraged from the top

This is a way to excuse some of this, see it was not us, them damn Israelis and I am getting sick and tired of NO ACCOUNTABILITY for us\

And as good as Al Jazeera is, they do have somewhat of a blind spot regarding Israel, and they do tend to blame Isreal for all the horrors... it is like us blaming all problems on the Muslims.

As a student of antisemitism this is a Classic, it is the fault of the Jews, AGAIN.

Again, this is US... and WE SHOULD LOOK OURSELVES in the mirror.

Oh and insofar as Israel is concerned, they will have to do the same, only good thing in this mess... they may be forced to do it sooner than later, and the same goes for the Palestinains... this cycle of violence and hate is fed by BOTH SIDES... first starting point, they boht have to recognize the other as human... and actually mean it

[TahitiNut]

3. Wow! It only took two posts for the first mention of "Jew" ...

... and the "anti-semitism" claim. Just criticize Israeli governement behavior and it's all of a sudden a slander against every Jew on the planet? I don't think so.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. No Isreal is to be critized for its own policy

WE are to take RESPONSIBITY for our own fuck up

STOP TRYING TO BLAME OTHERS FOR OUR MESS

And yes Israel NEED TO LOOK ITSELF IN THE MIRROR, so DO the Palestinians. What part of US TAKING RESPONSIBITY YOU DO NOT GET.

I am sick about this

the six rotten apples are responsible... WRONG

The Israelis are responsbile WRONG

WE ARE responsbile, got it Kemosabe? This comes from the highest levels of OUR GOVERNMENT, yes OUR PRESIDENT, OUR SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, not the Prime Minister of Israel, the President of the United States.

Damn it TAKE SOME RESPONSIBITY.


And yes, Al Jazeeera, just as YOU have this blind spot, not everything that has gone wrong is the fault of the International Jew.

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

4. All true,

but what I find disturbing is that the US military evidently thinks Israel knows how to deal with Muslims. In the lead up to the war I was speaking to people who thought the US couldn't fight a guerilla war, and I said they can, they've changed a lot of practices since 'Nam.

Sadly, if Israel is the teacher I fear the US military hasn't abandoned any illusions of peace through superior firepower alone.

As a student of antisemitism this is a Classic, it is the fault of the Jews, AGAIN.

I don't know about that. Many readers, it is true, will interpret it as that. However, I don't doubt Israeli advisers told the US military and CIA interrogators how best to humilate Muslims and break them down. The similarity in tactics demonstrates this.

What surprises me is that the US listened. Those tactics extract good intel in the short term, but sow a legacy of hatred and humiliation that can only increase terror in the long run.

Oh and insofar as Israel is concerned, they will have to do the same, only good thing in this mess... they may be forced to do it sooner than later, and the same goes for the Palestinains... this cycle of violence and hate is fed by BOTH SIDES... first starting point, they boht have to recognize the other as human... and actually mean it

I agree completely. Unfortunately, they are unlikely to break the cycle without outside pressure. It's a vicious cycle. Once Kerry is elected I hope the US can be an (approximately) honest broker like it was under Clinton.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. I think our people asked many people

about how to handle this.

Teh list is longer than Israel

MI-6 and MI-5

Teh Spanish Internal Security Service

The French Security Service

The German Security Service

The Jordanian Security Service

The Egyptian Security Service

The Mossad

Shin Beit

I could go on...

The took from all of these bodies what they thought they could use. By the way the practices used by Shin Beit are also used by the Jordanians and the Egyptians, a dirty little secret btw... nobody wants to talk about it.

But at the end of the day, it was OUR choice what to use and what not to use. In fact, what we adopted was done with the full knowledge and permision from the highest levels of government. This is coming from General Level officers... on another article, I learned that stripping prisoners had to be done with the knowledge of General Level Officers (karpinsky there goes your denial btw)... So got it, what we did we CHOSE TO DO.

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. Israeli is perpetually on the brink and at war

A garrison state that is in constant fear for it's survival. The same thing could be said for our "coalition" or whatever it is in Iraq.