Think We Have a Torture Problem? The Iraqi Gay Technique
Obviously, torture is a worldwide phenomenon because human cruelty is a specie specific tactic of humanity. However, as Americans, the exceptional people, we're supposedly against such tactics, Well, we once had slavery and placed into concentration camps American citizens of Japanese decent without any legal process. So, anything can happen.
Not to be out done, Iraqi militia men have developed a technique in which they glue—that's right, GLUE!—the anuses of gay men. According to ThinkProgress:
"A prominent Iraqi human rights activist says that Iraqi militia have deployed a painful form of torture against homosexuals by closing their anuses using 'Iranian gum.' ...Yina Mohammad told Alarabiya.net that, 'Iraqi militias have deployed an unprecedented form of torture against homosexuals by using a very strong glue that will close their anus.' According to her, the new substance 'is known as the American hum, which is an Iranian-manufactured glue that if applied to the skin, sticks to it and can only be removed by surgery. After they glue the anuses of homosexuals, they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death. Videos of this form of torture are being distributed on mobile cellphones in Iraq.'"
Not to engage in a PETA-centric mentality, but maybe the Earth would be a better place if the most dangerous creature on the planet, the one with the advanced brain, was removed.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Salon.com
Comments
If we put half as much energy into solving the world's problems I can't even imagine the advancements of the human race.
Absolutely terrible.
Yeah, well most societies in the world have practiced some form of slavery at some time, and whatever wrong was done by forcing citizens of Japanese ancestry into internment camps, they fared far better than the Americans and Europeans detained by the Japanese. I don't think there's much comparison there.
But now that we have the obligatory moral equivalence out of the way, I would note that you wouldn't even have had to mention the religion. Based on the monstrosity of the act we would automatically know that the practitioners of the "religion of peace" were involved.
I remember a few years ago there was some kind of Islamic conference held in the U.S. at which a fatwa was issued declaring that it was wrong to kill innocent people. I don't know about the rest of you, but I kind of had that figured out already, and without the benefit of a fatwa. But our Islamic friends are perhaps a little slow on the uptake, and they need these little reminders from time to time, but I guess the memo never got to Iraq.
Perhaps the herd mentality from the Saddam era is still in effect?
rated
I'm with Mungular; imagine all the good we could do if we put that kind of creativity into creating positives for our world.
Earlier, fingerlakeswanderer posted on the continuing lack of support for women's rights in Afghanistan. (http://open.salon.com/blog/fingerlakeswanderer/2009/04/21/tell_me_when_will_women_matter) Now this. The Obama administration, which has taken such a strong and courageous stance on issues of morality related to torture, has yet to take a stand on either women’s rights in Afghanistan or LGBT rights in Iraq. I can only assume that they would in part attribute this circumspection to respect cultural differences and principles related to self-determination.
Where is the self-determination for a man who has his anus glued shut and then is made to die of diarrhea? Where is the respect for a woman’s full humanity when she has no legal recourse to being raped by her husband, or when she must brave the prospect of having acid thrown in her face just to obtain an education After I finish shaking enough to gather my thoughts a little better, I will make a donation to Iraqi LGBT or to the The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Then I will write yet another letter to the President and my congressional representatives. Then I think that I’ll ignore the news for a while. Thank you for your post.
Thanks for posting on this.
I beg to differ with Mishima regarding what happened to Canadian and American CITIZENS of Japanese descent. In many cases, they were targeted because of their valuable properties and businesses. That was certainly the case here on the West Coast. It's interesting that many of the officials and neighbours of the Japanese profited directly from their internment. No lands/money/valuables were ever returned. Remember, these people had committed no crimes, and were not in active military service as those in the terrible POW camps were.
The fact is, many Japanese tried to sign up for service, and were imprisoned instead.
History has a habit of repeating itself, no matter the good intentions some might have.
(Sorry, just couldn't resist :)
That is beyond the pale. You say the glue is Iranian? Too bad they couldn't do that to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Talk about raging assholes with diarrhea...
Man, that's right up there with shoving red hot pokers in sensitive places and giving women syphilis before sewing them up. Where's Tomás de Torquemada when you need him?
On the other hand, perhaps this stuff could come in handy-- I'm thinking of a sort of "reverse glory hole", framed in glass, with George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld as the glued-in-place celebrity orifices. And of course hand out free condoms to anyone who asks. And rather than have it at Gitmo (its so far out of the way) I'm thinking it should be set up somewhere more accessible, like maybe Hollywood and Vine.
"My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!"
What if morality isn't a competition?
Secondly, reading about it made me so sick initially that I could only walk away from it, though I applaud you (and the editors) for making it more public.
I can't believe some of the comments here. They make me nearly as sick as the perps in this story.
This isn't about Islam or the middle east, and some of the reactions have been as hateful as any krazy glue wielding Iraqi. Matthew Shepard was hung on a fence in Wyoming by his peers for being gay. We are verbally and physically attacked daily in urban and rural areas, simply for being different.
The cumulative effect of these attacks are ultimately not unlike having our asses glued shut. It's just a "kindler, gentler", more "civilized" form of torture, so just shut the fuck up with your self-righteous comments.
While our national gay organizations rally the troops for gay marriage, our youth are ostracized by classmates and even families, to the point of committing suicide in the U.S.
Last I checked, none of the big US gay rights groups has issued a statement of the Iraq killings, even though they've been public knowledge for several months now. If they don't speak up, how can we expect our Justice Department to do so?
I thought the whole point of us Americans were that we were the "exceptional" people. That we are a Christian people. That we are a nation of laws. That we don't do torture. Well, if one closely exams the post-Reconstruction history of slavery regarding lynching and castration, Americans did that. In fact, the whole post-Reconstruction regime was a system of state sponsored terrorism against people of color.
My point isn't obligatory moral equivalence; the point is that all humans, regardless of law, religious profession and what not, have a tendency to engage inhumane treatment of other humans, to vary degrees. One can make the argument that the US held the moral ground pretty much during WWII, with lapses regarding Japanese Americans. Germany with it high culture lapsed into system of state sponsored torture against Jews from.
The point, once again, is that humans have a tendency regardless of nation, religion and politics to engages inhumane treatment of other people, particularly those who are deemed the "other."
So, unless there's some actual evidence, I think I'm going to have to with disbelief on this one.