Topic: Iraq
It's 1984 in Iraq A Washington Post report that the U.S. Military is engaging in deliberate brainwashing of detainees absolutely undermines any last shred of moral credibility that the Bush administration had left.by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Thursday, September 20, 2007
An absolutely stunning article in the Washington Post today showed just how much the Bush administration resembles Big Brother from the famous George Orwell novel, 1984.
The article reports that Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq announced a new "religious enlightenment" program, Orwellian doublespeak for "religious brainwashing," which is being implemented against the will of detainees in Iraq. Stone said the program's intention was to "bend them back to our will" according to the Post. He considers the program to be a way of waging war in "the battlefield of the mind."
What in the world is our military doing engaging in...and bragging about...outright brainwashing activities in Iraq? Has the Bush administration absolutely lost their minds???
More stunning was the naked admission that Stone intends to identify which detainees are most resistant to the program and to use that as a basis to decide that those detainees should be permanently imprisoned. Welcome to the world of the U.S. Government's thought police in Iraq.
Even the name of the facility where the prisoners is being kept is straight out of Orwell's darkly prophetic novel. It's called the "House of Wisdom." How similar this name is to the novel's four ministries. There's the Ministry of Peace, which engages in perpetual warfare. There's the Ministry of Plenty, which severely rations all food supplies and living necessities. There's the Ministry of Truth, which is the propaganda arm of the Big Brother government. And finally there's the Ministry of Love, which engages in the identification, monitoring, arrest, and electroshock torture of dissidents, real or imagined.
It takes very little imagination to realize that Bush's "House of Wisdom" is intended for replacing individual consciences and judgment with obedience to the will of "moderate" Islam as defined by imams selected by the Bush administration.
Think this will be limited to an Iraqi prison? Guess again. The article goes on to report:
"Stone said he believes his approach is 'compelling because it's how you win this war, not only the one in Iraq, but the one on a greater basis.' He quoted Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi as saying that 'America could win the war if they just applied the exact process that you're putting in detention to the rest of the entire nation,' in Stone's words."
The article even states:
"Military detention facilities have served as breeding grounds for extremist views, transforming some prisoners into hard-core insurgents, according to military analysts."
Stone apparently believes that brainwashing prisoners is a preferred method to dealing with Iraq than America dropping out of its current role as policeman to Iraq, regardless of how individual Iraqis might feel about it, and apparently the Iraqi government agrees. Apparently, the notion that the U.S. created that above-mentioned breeding ground via its presence in the first place doesn't even enter into the discussion in Stone's mind.
The article goes on to state:
"The new religious training, Stone said, helps U.S. forces pinpoint the hard-core extremists. 'I want to know who they are,' he said. 'They're like rotten eggs, you know, hiding in the Easter basket.'"
"Stone said his staff conducts polygraph tests for detainees who promise to change after undergoing the religious training program. 'We were trying to figure out if they're messing with us. . . . You're not talking about radicals going to choirboys.' But he also added that they're succeeding in countering extremists in the facilities. 'We're busting them down, we're making whole moderate compounds that didn't exist before.'
"Stone described a sort of religious insurgency that occurred at one detention facility on Sept. 2. 'We had a compound of moderates for the first time overtake . . . extremists. It's never happened before. Found them, identified them, threw them up against the fence and shaved their frickin' beards off of them. . . . I mean, that is historic.'"
And why does Stone consider all this to be important? Simple. He has no intention of ever releasing any prisoner who doesn't bend their wills to Stone's plan. We're talking lifetime imprisonment without a trial and without a conviction.
It's hard to know where to begin to be outraged about this. Everything in the article is outrageous. How does one pick out one or two points for emphasis? In the days and weeks ahead, I'm going to do my level best to do just that. In the meantime, please forgive me as I sit here in shock at the idea that our military is engaging in the ultimate authoritarian nightmare scenario...the establishment of 1984 in the real world.
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2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.
Published: Thursday, September 20, 2007
Last modified: Thursday, September 20, 2007
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"What in the world is our military doing engaging in...and bragging about...outright brainwashing activities in Iraq? Has the Bush administration absolutely lost their minds?"
Walt had you worked in the alleys and sewers of our Federal Government for forty years as I have, you'd know that brainwashing, torturing and assassinating those who resist our encroachment is not new. The difference now is that Congress and voters have given these godless activities a green light, immunity, and even credibility. The moment Americans learned ofAbu Ghraib and didn't say to Congress, "Impeach Bush and Cheney now, or we'll do it, and you'll go with them" was the day that the citizens of this country stepped into the shoes of the citizens of Nazi Germany. The benefits for doing so go only to those who come from the shallow end of the gene pool. Morons like to brag about getting even. They win battles and lose wars. Everyone else suffers. Still, even the literate don't seemed concerned that the U.S. dollar has been devalued beyond belief in the last few years and is still on the express elevator down. But the day is approaching when they will--when OPEC says, "Sorry U.S., you must pay in Euros." And brother, that's the day the weeping and gnashin of teeth will be heard all across this once great nation. I was playing golf at the Pensacola Navy base with three other retired pilots on 9/11. We went into the clubhouse to watch the event on TV. This retired 06 said to me, "Miller, you've been to the Farm, what this all about?" I said, "Paybacks are hell.
Even more shocking is when I realized that this is probably a pilot program for reeduction camps in the United States. H.R. 1955, once enacted, will legally allow (and fund) DHS to establish "Houses of Wisdom" in order to win "the battefield of the mind." Bush Administration will be able to conduct pre-emptive strikes on the thoughts and actions of ordinary Americans. Just imagine if we can brainwash KKK members into becoming civil rights activists or turn radical PETA members into Tyson shareholders. It would be utopia!
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2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.