The Iranians seem to have treated the Britishers as would any country for Prisoners of War (I mean soldiers of other nations as prisoners). Terrorists should be treated as they are treated now --since they follow no code of conduct either. They (terrorists) do not deserve special treatment . Umesh
Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Loved it :-).
cm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2046991,00.html
Call that humiliation?
No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very
uncivilised bunch!?
Terry Jones
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the
treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their
waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this -
allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven
that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear
a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world
- have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's
wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we
capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's
perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the
press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these
unfortunate British service people are. It is also unacceptable that these
British captives should be made to talk on television and
say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over
their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn't be able to talk at all.
Of course they'd probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a
bag over their head - but at least they wouldn't be humiliated. And what's all
this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all
right? It's time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised
world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement.
That's one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo
Bay. The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn't rush into
charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it's just invaded.
The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they
want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged.
What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their
captives before the cameras! What's more, it is clear that the Iranians are
not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US
military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of
exciting "stress positions", which the captives are expected to hold for hours
on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is
where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that
their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and,
finally, muscle failure. It's all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the
captives will confess to anything to get out of it. And this brings me to my
final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has
been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural
psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is "unhappy
and stressed". What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the
Iranians have got her "unhappy and stressed". She shows no signs of
electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This
is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing
them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their
genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The
photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that
everyone can see exactly what has been going on. As Stephen Glover pointed out
in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation
for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be
made to suffer - whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or
simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to
anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in
Iraq. · Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
www.terry-jones.net
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Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
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