Contracting Shin Bet torturers...m
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Contracting Shin Bet torturers...m
| Sat, 07-03-2004 - 9:30pm |
General Karpinski has finally come out and stated what many people have suspected: the Israelis were operating in the Abu Ghraib torture wing.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/446801.html
"The U.S. general formerly in charge of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq told BBC Radio on Saturday she has evidence Israelis were involved in interrogating Iraqi detainees."
The article goes on to print repeated denials by the Israelis. But what does one expect they would do? I'm sure we are all expected to believe the Israelis over our own military officials, right?

"Titan, a company that provides various services to the American army in Iraq."
It doesn't surprise me that Israelis are amongst some of these 'contract' workers. It's a fact that contract workers were questioning prisoners. How many Americans speak Arabic? It's a fact that there's a shortage of agents that are fluent in middle eastern languages. It also seems logical that the Israeli
This topic has been covered by Asia Times on line (including some interesting letters on the topic). The picture is still foggy, but, if your interested, here's some clues..
"Israeli involvement with the Kurds is not a new phenomenon. In its search for non-Arab allies in the region, Israel has supported Kurdish militancy in Iraq since the 1960s. In 1980, Israeli premier Menachem Begin publicly acknowledged that besides humanitarian aid, Israel had secretly provided military aid to Kurds in the form of weapons and advisers. Later on, that relationship was kept low profile due to Washington's alliances in the region"
"Israel and the Kurds also share a common bond through the Kurdish Jews in Israel, who number close to 50,000. Prominent among them is Itzhak Mordechai, an Iraqi Kurd who was defense minister during Benjamin Netanyahu's last term as prime minister. "
"Israel succeeded in keeping its relationship with the Iraqi Kurds intact, by keeping a safe distance from the PKK" (Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party). Israeli ties with the Kurds is linked to the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP).
Some quotes from http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF30Ak07.html
The facts seem to favor the existance of an association, the bone of contention seems to be over the motivation and extent of the alliance.
Here's an interesting wrinkle:
"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". This neo-conservative-authored paper presented in 1996 to the then Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a bold strategy to provide "the nation the room to engage every possible energy in rebuilding Zionism", and strengthen and increase its influence in the Middle East....The paper emphasized that Israel needed to enhance its strategic position independent of the US, in order to deny the US any leverage it may want to exercise on Israel to maintain stability in the region under the "peace process". The paper betrays a high degree of discomfort regarding US influence over Israel and suggests ways to actively neutralize it. "
I haven't seen the paper, I don't know the the extent of the neo-con's meddling, nor how much of the advice the Isralis followed.