Iraqi reality-TV hit takes fear factor to another level

[cheeto]

By Neil MacDonald | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD – Forget the worm-eating contestants on "Fear Factor." And don't look for teen singers trying to become the next "Iraqi Idol." Here in Iraq, reality TV has a grittier visage.
In one recent opening scene of "Terrorism in the Grip of Justice," viewers see a group of tired, scruffy men sitting on bare ground, squinting in the glare of floodlights and waiting to confess.


The camera then pans to Abul Waleed, the mustachioed, red-bereted commander of the elite Wolf Brigade police squad. Waleed is addressing about 30 terrorism suspects hauled in during Operation Lightning, a massive Iraqi-led sweep (now in its second week) aimed at rooting out car bombers and other insurgents in Baghdad.

"Grip of Justice" dominates the 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. time slot in Iraq - at least anecdotally. There are no Nielsen ratings here.

It's broadly popular and considered a key tool in fighting the insurgency. But critics say the show violates prisoner rights by publicly humiliating suspects before they are proven guilty. As domestic detainees, these men are not covered by Geneva Convention rules for prisoners of war. But even so, "the Iraqi government is still bound to treat prisoners in a dignified way under international human rights law," explains Naz Modirzadeh, assistant professor of international human rights law at the American University in Cairo (AUC) "Public humiliation is a no-no."
(con't)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0607/p01s03-woiq.html?s=yahw

[oblivious]

1. Welcome to freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

[Fridays Child]

2. This show is an example of government accountability. This is democratic.

So says an anonymous Sunni Arab.

Yes, Iraq, welcome to democracy Bush-style, and be sure to stay tuned for televised executions which are, no doubt, coming soon.

[Briar]

3. This isn't justice

but it is how you corrupt and brutalise a population.

[teryang]

4. Another "turning point"

Because so few have electricity, how popular could the show be?

Interesting propaganda piece. I'm certainly glad it only involves "minor rights" violations, such as beating prisoners. Who produces this show, the CIA?

[oblivious]

5. Adnan Thavit - in charge of 10,000 secret police - Rumsfeld's baby

Six militias spreading terror all over Iraq - all controlled by the Pentagon

Pepe Escobar
A least six militias are rampaging throughout Iraq, armed, trained and funded by the Pentagon. One of these - the powerful Special Police Commandos, with at least 10,000 men - as already acknowledged by US generals - is widely involved in applying the dreaded "Salvador option" that retired General Wayne Downing, former head of all US special operations forces, considers a "very valid tactic". The Special Commandos were active in the assault on Samarra last October, which American generals hailed as a "model" of counterinsurgency operations (not exactly: the resistance continues). They are also active in Ramadi and Mosul.

Their commander is the feared Major General Adnan Thavit al-Samarra'i, a member of an aborted, Allawi-conceived coup against Saddam in 1996. Thavit until now has been none other than the "security adviser" in charge of the face-lifted, Saddam-era General Security Directorate - infested with Saddam-era Mukhabarat agents. This is the organization Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld considers so precious that he had to fly to Baghdad to personally order Jaafari not to dismantle it. Thavit also happens to be the uncle of the former minister of interior. All this explains Allawi's obsession in controlling a ministry that so graciously houses his Pentagon-cherished top militia. Two other militias - the Muthana Brigade and the Defenders of Khadamiya - are also subordinated to Allawi.

...The Marines also have their own pet militias, such as the Iraqi Freedom Guard and the Freedom Fighters: these are usually Shi'ites from the south sent to fight against Sunnis in explosive Anbar province - the heart of the resistance. Pentagon financing of these myriad militias and the active involvement of Allawi in all these operations suggest that the Pentagon itself is destabilizing the country it is supposed to control. Destination: civil war.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD30Ak01.html

From New York Times
A couple of hours after Adnan issued his AK-47 threat, I sat with him watching TV. This was business, not pleasure. The program we were watching was Adnan's brainchild, and in just a few months it had proved to be one of the most effective psychological operations of the war. It is reality TV of sorts, a show called ''Terrorism in the Grip of Justice.'' It features detainees confessing to various crimes. The show was first broadcast earlier this year and has quickly become a nationwide hit. It is on every day in prime time on Al Iraqiya, the American-financed national TV station, and when it is on, people across the country can be found gathered around their television sets.

http://www.liberalsagainstterrorism.com/drupal/?q=node/988

[Zodiak]

6. Televised war crimes.

"and when it is on, people across the country can be found gathered around their television sets"

Yeah, looking to see if uncle Ahmed shows up on the show. When he was taken by American soldiers in the cover of night, they never said where he was going.

How many hypotheticals like this are the REAL reason people watch this show?

It is televised war crimes with a VERY thin Iraqi face on it. Everyone knows that this is entirely an American enterprise, and therefore these detainees are not "domestic" because they aren't being seen by a purely domestic army. They are being seen by the puppet of an occupier who forced an illegal election under occupation. International laws sure are an inconvenience, which is why the press gives Americans NO perspective on them.

[teryang]

13. Thanks for the info n/t

[Jacobin]

11. 4% have electricity in Baghdad

These are obviously CIA propaganda shows that only the CIA is watching.

Morons

[oblivious]

12. Yes, see post #9.

set up by the Pentagon and is now run by Australian-based Harris Corp. (a major U.S. government contractor that gave 96 percent of its political funding, more than $260,000, to Republicans in 2004)

[Karmakaze]

7. Apart from the beatings...

this is not much different to the show "Cops", and I have seen a few people get roughed up on "Cops" too.

I also have to wonder whether some significant portion of the audience is watching not to see "terrorists punished" but to see fellow resistance members publicise their victories.

Remember, getting caught or dying is not as much of a concern to the resistance as killing or wounding Americans in particular and occupational forces and their collaborators in general.

[oblivious]

9. Yeah, well, what you read in the CS Monitor is the sanitised version.

You don't want American viewers reading the ugly truth. It would be ... distasteful ... sullying their beautiful minds.

'GAY ORGIES'
The police commandos have been supplying suspects who confess their crimes on the TV show, "Terrorism in the Hands of Justice." Described as the Iraqi government's "slick new propaganda tool," the program runs six nights a week on the Iraqiya network, which was set up by the Pentagon and is now run by Australian-based Harris Corp. (a major U.S. government contractor that gave 96 percent of its political funding, more than $260,000, to Republicans in 2004). According to the Boston Globe, camera crews are sent "wherever police commandos make a lot of arrests."

The show features an unseen interrogator haranguing alleged insurgents for confessions. Virtually every press account notes that the suspects appear to have been beaten or tortured, their faces bruised and swollen. The London Guardian states "some have robotic manners of those beaten and coached by police interrogators off-camera." The Boston Globe observed, "The neat confessions of terrorist attacks at times fit together so seamlessly as to seem implausible." And then there's the nature of the confessions. Many suspects admit to "drunkeness, gay orgies and pornography," according to the Guardian. The Financial Times reported that, "One long-bearded preacher known as Abu Tabarek recently confessed that guerrillas had usually held orgies in his mosques." Another preacher giving a confession says he was fired for "having sex with men in the mosque," the Globe account stated that suspects "frequently admit to rape and pedophilia."

http://www.occupationwatch.org/analysis/archives/2005/04/let_a_thousand_1.html

[newyawker99]

8. Hi cheeto!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[MisterP]

10. not the Wolf Brigades: they had them in proto-Fascist Romania

and Turkey under the brutal junta (one associate of the Gray Wolves was Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to kill some insignificant schmoe by the name of KAROL WOJTYLA). Combine with Negroponte's "Salvador-option" death squads.