Released Iranian abducted in Iraq claims CIA tortured him.

[MHz]

Meaning what, he was 'only' tortured, but since he didn't die he was treated 'properly'?
Has anybody read any details on 'what he endured'?

 

[DurkaDurka]

Has anybody read any details on 'what he endured'?

He was forced to watch Jerry Springer for 24 hours straight, followed by Oprah for another 72.

 

[earth_as_one]

Meaning what, he was 'only' tortured, but since he didn't die he was treated 'properly'?
Has anybody read any details on 'what he endured'?

Read the first post in this string. It mentions marks on his hands and feet.

But many forms of torture like those D describes leave no marks. Of these waterboarding is probably the most cruel

Waterboarding is a form of torture[1][2][3][4] which is used to obtain information, coerce confessions, and for punishment and intimidation. Waterboarding consists of immobilizing an individual and pouring water over his face to simulate drowning, which produces a severe gag reflex, making the subject believe his death is imminent while ideally not causing permanent physical damage.
The practice garnered renewed attention and notoriety in September 2006 when reports charged that the Bush administration had authorized its use in the interrogations of U.S. War on Terrorism detainees.[5] Though the Bush administration has never formally acknowledged its use, Vice President Dick Cheney told an interviewer that he did not believe "a dunk in water" to be a form of torture but rather a "very important tool" for use in interrogations, including that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

By the way, I never said this diplomat was tortured, but that he claims he was tortured. That makes it an allegation which may or may not be true.

Also Iran claims this person was a diplomat, was invited to Iraq as a diplomat and that he was abducted from an Iranian consulate in Iraq.

Several other Iranian diplomats were abducted by Americans from an Iranian consulate and remain in custody.

Another Iranian diplomat in Iraq is missing and the Iranians claim the Americans are responsible for his disappearance.

If Iran's claims are true, then the US and Iraq are guilty of violating international law and their actions could be considered by Iran to be acts of war. Embassies and consulates are sovereign territory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity

 

[Just the Facts]

I'm no expert, but "torture of the hands and feet" just strikes me as a particularly middle eastern kind of torture. Isn't that the same claim Arar made against the Syrians? How many of those the U.S. tortured at Abu Ghraib had "signs of torture on their hands and feet"? Sounds to me like projection. Iranians torture on the hands and feet, so it make sense to them, when accusing others, that the signs of torture would be on the hands and feet.

Just an impression.

 

[MHz]

Read the first post in this string. It mentions marks on his hands and feet.

I was wondering if anything has been mentioned about how the marks were made.

I'm no expert, but "torture of the hands and feet" just strikes me as a particularly middle eastern kind of torture. Isn't that the same claim Arar made against the Syrians? How many of those the U.S. tortured at Abu Ghraib had "signs of torture on their hands and feet"? Sounds to me like projection. Iranians torture on the hands and feet, so it make sense to them, when accusing others, that the signs of torture would be on the hands and feet.

Just an impression.

That you are probably serious about your post is more than a little frightening.

No doubt you believe everyword America prints, like this tidbit
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20070407-110400-4655r.htm
"A U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the CIA vehemently denies any role in the capture or release of Mr. Sharafi. The official dismissed any claims of torture, saying "the CIA does not conduct or condone torture." "

Would a hundred different articles that dispute that sway you? Probably not. You know who trained Iran's secret police in the 50's right? You know who trained South American death squads right? Ever heard of CIA rendition flights?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/rendition/0,,1662557,00.html
(in part)

[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Canada Victim of US torture flights wins £4.5m in damages
January 27: A Canadian citizen who spent more than 10 months under torture in a Syrian prison after being swept up in the CIA's secret "extraordinary rendition" programme received a written apology from his government yesterday and C$10.5m (£4.54m) in compensation.



There are about a dozen articles on the linked page.



About a month ago they paraded a man who has confessed to almost everything not solved so far. They were actually quite proud of the way they got him to confess.



They are LIARS and TORTURERS. Do a little research before posting such dribble.

[/FONT]

 

[Just the Facts]

Would a hundred different articles that dispute that sway you? Probably not. You know who trained Iran's secret police in the 50's right? You know who trained South American death squads right? Ever heard of CIA rendition flights?

Dispute what? Sway me from what, exactly? Take a deep breath and relax.

Don't tell me, 1950's CIA techniques involved torture on the hands and feet to conceal evidence of torture, right! :-?

So you sound like you know a lot more about this than I do, I have no issue with that, my first sentence on this topic was I'm no expert. So share with me, is the CIA currently using 1950's torture techniques? Did the prisoners who were tortured at Abu Ghraib have evidence of torture on their hands and feet? I don't think it's a frightening question at all.

[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]They are LIARS and TORTURERS. Do a little research before posting such dribble.[/FONT]

I never said they weren't. What's your point?

 

[MHz]

Take a deep breath and relax.

Why? Your post was relating to how Iran would torture somebody. On their latest chance they treated their captives quite nicely and in a relatively short time sent them home. A short clip showing them as being well was bitched about by the Brits, how many days did they broadcast those few clips? Even being blindfolded was 'frowned on' in the press. I read one report where they were blindfolded and they could hear the sound of rifles being 'loaded'. One chap says 'they're going to shoot us' so another guy gets his hands untied and takes off his blindfold to see the guards cleaning some of their weapons.
I saw that particular piece mentioned once, everybody else stops at the being blindfolded and hearing weapons.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/07/nhostages07.xml

Do you see any reporters outside any prison in Iraq offering those people money for their 'stories' so it can be published in the West. Don't bet that the Americans don't give Iraqi forces the names of people they want to talk to.

I'm not sure if the larger picture is anything to be relaxed about. Face it, if not for lies (that never got investigated or any punishment for lieing to start a war) America wouldn't even be in Iraq. I don't have any relatives or friends over there but the latest civilian death toll was estimated at 650,000. I find that repulsive. Since they will be there for years yet to come that number will keep rising.

Don't tell me, 1950's CIA techniques involved torture on the hands and feet to conceal evidence of torture, right! :-?

Apparently those parts can be worked on for a long period of time without the nerves going numb. That people can be 'missing for months and years with no contact with anybody other than their captors seems to be at odds with saying anything about how anybody else treats a 'captive'.

So you sound like you know a lot more about this than I do, I have no issue with that, my first sentence on this topic was I'm no expert. So share with me, is the CIA currently using 1950's torture techniques? Did the prisoners who were tortured at Abu Ghraib have evidence of torture on their hands and feet? I don't think it's a frightening question at all.

I doubt any torture technique fades away, especially the cheaper most painfull ones. It isn't like the US gives them a shot of truth serum and then lets them go if they answer 'correctly'.

I never said they weren't. What's your point?

Damn if I know. Apparently lieing is not on my list of things I like about people or Nations.

 

[earth_as_one]

If you read the Egypt torture string, they mention "The Water Room".

Apparently, the victim is put into a tank/room filled with water. The victim can just breath if they stand on their toes. I imagine a torture room operator controls the water level and can revive the victim if he passes out. Something like that could go on indefitely without leaving a mark.

That's why I question the validity of Iran's claims. The captors must have gotten sloppy. If he was tortured, I imagine they would use a method which left no marks. If they did leave marks, then I doubt they would let him walk free with evidence of torture. So I'm not convinced in this case.

But there can be little doubt the Americans have torture chambers. Likely they also rent facilities in Egypt and elsewhere...

That the US does this should be a concern to everyone.

 

[EagleSmack]

Read the first post in this string. It mentions marks on his hands and feet.

But many forms of torture like those D describes leave no marks. Of these waterboarding is probably the most cruel



By the way, I never said this diplomat was tortured, but that he claims he was tortured. That makes it an allegation which may or may not be true.

Also Iran claims this person was a diplomat, was invited to Iraq as a diplomat and that he was abducted from an Iranian consulate in Iraq.

Several other Iranian diplomats were abducted by Americans from an Iranian consulate and remain in custody.

Another Iranian diplomat in Iraq is missing and the Iranians claim the Americans are responsible for his disappearance.

If Iran's claims are true, then the US and Iraq are guilty of violating international law and their actions could be considered by Iran to be acts of war. Embassies and consulates are sovereign territory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity

I think your last two sentences are funny particularly when you remember about Iran and their seizure of the US Embassy and the hostage crisis. So much for the thought of the US Embassy in Tehran being considered sovereign territory.

 

[earth_as_one]

I think your last two sentences are funny particularly when you remember about Iran and their seizure of the US Embassy and the hostage crisis. So much for the thought of the US Embassy in Tehran being considered sovereign territory.

Technically what the Iranian students did was an act of war. But the embassy/hostage crisis started during a period of anarchy. Iran's leaders didn't even know about the students' plan until after the embassy had been captured. But they were willing to use the "crisis" as a bargaining chip after the fact.

Eventually the "hostages" were released unharmed.

The terms for their release was:

...The Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line justified taking the hostages as retaliation for the admission of the Shah into the U.S., and demanded the Shah be returned to Iran for trial and execution. The U.S. maintained that the Shah — who died less than a year later in July 1980 — had come to America only for medical attention. The group's other demands included an apology by the U.S. government for its interference in the internal affairs of Iran and for the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh, and that Iran's frozen assets in the U.S. be released. Revolutionary teams displayed secret documents taken from the embassy, sometimes painstakingly reconstructed after shredding,[17] to buttress their claim that "the Great Satan" (the U.S.) was trying to destabilize the new regime, and that Iranian moderates were in league with the U.S....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis#Khomeini.27s_protests_against_the_US

Iran eventually got their assets and a promise from the US not to interfere in Iran's internal affairs. I'd say after so many years of oppression, injustice, murder and torture as a result of the US coupe, the Iranians had every right to be PO'd with the US, but they had no right to seize the American embassy.

 

[EagleSmack]

Technically what the Iranian students did was an act of war. But the embassy/hostage crisis started during a period of anarchy. Iran's leaders didn't even know about the students' plan until after the embassy had been captured. But they were willing to use the "crisis" as a bargaining chip after the fact.

Eventually the "hostages" were released unharmed.

The terms for their release was:



Iran eventually got their assets and a promise from the US not to interfere in Iran's internal affairs. I'd say after so many years of oppression, injustice, murder and torture as a result of the US coupe, the Iranians had every right to be PO'd with the US, but they had no right to seize the American embassy.

You are partly correct. The seizure of the embassy was not in a time of anarchy. The Revolutionary Govt. had control and did nothing to stop it. After the seizure it was approved of by the Ayatohlla (sic) Khomeni. The hostages were subject to beatings, torture, mock executions, and mental torture. So they were returned but you have to modify your definition of "unharmed".

The Americans can say that the Iranian Diplomat was returned "unharmed" can't they? By your definition of "unharmed" they sure can.

 

[earth_as_one]

You are partly correct. The seizure of the embassy was not in a time of anarchy. The Revolutionary Govt. had control and did nothing to stop it. After the seizure it was approved of by the Ayatohlla (sic) Khomeni. The hostages were subject to beatings, torture, mock executions, and mental torture. So they were returned but you have to modify your definition of "unharmed".

The Americans can say that the Iranian Diplomat was returned "unharmed" can't they? By your definition of "unharmed" they sure can.

The Ayatollah took power Feb, 1979. The embassy was taken November 4.

The students planned this themselves. The revolutionary guard had to have been watching the American Embassy. But I see no evidence they knew beforehand what the students were planning.

Once the Embassy had been captured, the 10 month old government had to react. They choose to wait and see.

The crisis evolved from there...

I don't see how anyone could have stopped it. The students planned this carefully.

Related:
Controversies surrounding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

Also please link to support your claim that the hostages were tortured or beaten. Beyond the initial violence of the attack...

 

[EagleSmack]

The Ayatollah took power Feb, 1979. The embassy was taken November 4.

The students planned this themselves. The revolutionary guard had to have been watching the American Embassy. But I see no evidence they knew beforehand what the students were planning.

Once the Embassy had been captured, the 10 month old government had to react. They choose to wait and see.

The crisis evolved from there...

I don't see how anyone could have stopped it. The students planned this carefully.

Related:
Controversies surrounding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

Also please link to support your claim that the hostages were tortured or beaten. Beyond the initial violence of the attack...

Make sure you put in the years

Khomeni took power in February of 1979 and the US Embassy was seized in November 1979. So he was indeed in power. Do the calculations.

The Revolutionary Guard was indeed watching the embassy. Did they do anything to stop it? Could Canadian Students storm an embassy in Canada w/o the police stopping it. They did nothing therefore they were complicit in it's seizure. The Ayatollah then gave his blessings to the students. Therefore the Govt of Iran approved. If the Ayatollah said

"Let the hostages go."

... they would have.

Watch any documentary on the crisis and the hostages will tell you of their treatment which included again beatings, torture, mock executions, and mental torture. Isolation, blind folded and bound for months.

Read "Guests of the Ayatolla"

Thats a whole book!

It would have been easy to stop. Circle the Embassy with the Revolutionary Guard and the students would not have seized the embassy. Khomeni encouraged the demonstrators.

 

[earth_as_one]

I was referencing wikipedia (above) which makes no mention of abuse or torture. I'm not saying wikipedia is reliable.

The same wikipedia article hints that some of the American hostages may have been working closely with SAVAK.

...At least three of the hostages were CIA operatives [28] at a time when the CIA was working with SAVAK [29].

If true or even if the Iranians thought it was true then those people would have been at grave risk for torture and execution. I am inclined to believe American hostage claims about torture and poor treatment.

However, when discussing this subject, context is important. The US set up and ran SAVAK

...Formed under the guidance of United States and Israeli intelligence officers in 1957, SAVAK developed into an effective secret agency...

...SAVAK increasingly to symbolized the Shah's rule from 1963-79, a period of corruption in the royal family, one-party rule, the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners, suppression of dissent, and alienation of the religious masses. The United States reinforced its position as the Shah's protector and supporter, sowing the seeds of the anti-Americanism that later manifested itself in the revolution against the monarchy...

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iran/savak/index.html

I am against torture and revenge, even when the tortured used to be one of the torturers as what may have been the case for some American hostages.

more information:

...There is no longer any dispute that SAVAK practiced systematic torture. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a member of Khomeini's Revolutionary Council, described to TIME'S Raji Samghabadi how SAVAK agents in 1964 lashed the soles of his feet with electric cable: "The flesh was torn apart, and the bones jutted out. There were multiple fractures." The agents, he says, also held a knife to his throat for hours, making small nicks and telling him to guess "when the blade might go all the way down and sever my head." Amnesty International in the 1970s described other methods of torture: electric shock, burning on a heated metal grill, and the insertion of bottles and hot eggs into the anus. Last spring Anne Burley, an Amnesty International researcher, was shown by the government a SAVAK file that she deems authentic, containing pictures of victims who had been tortured to death. Several were women, she says, and "in each case the breasts were mutilated."

William J. Butler, a New York lawyer who investigated SAVAK for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, spoke to Reza Baraheni, an Iranian poet who was held for 102 days by the secret police in 1973. Baraheni told of seeing in SAVAK torture rooms "all sizes of whips" and instruments designed to pluck out the fingernails of victims. He described the sufferings of some fellow prisoners: "They hang you upside down, and then someone beats you with a mace on your legs or on your genitals, or they lower you down, pull your pants up and then one of them tries to rape you while you are still hanging upside down."...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912545-6,00.html

Sounds nasty. How does the treatment of the American hostages compare with what some of them may have been dishing out?

At a minimum, there is no question of close ties between the CIA and SAVAK.

...With Mossadegh gone, British Petroleum returned to the Iranian oil fields. Some newcomers tagged along. They included five American companies, the ancestors of today's ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco. Meanwhile, the U.S. government opened the foreign-aid spigot. Over the next 25 years, more than $20 billion in U.S. taxpayers' money would pour into a decidedly undemocratic Iran, most of it military aid and subsidized weapons sales for the Shah's armed forces and SAVAK, his secret police. As for American oil companies, they would extract 2 billion bbl. of oil from their new Iranian fields. But the access came with a stiff price tag in U.S. government dollars and Iranian lives. And the Shah's oppression led to the establishment of the first American-hating Islamic republic...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,450997-122,00.html

Iranians had plenty of good reasons to be angry with the US and maybe had more than just an axe to grind with specific individuals.

Yes Iran's leaders violated international law when they did not order the students to release the American diplomats. Likely some Americans were abused, but many Americans were immediately released (women and Afro-Americans).

I'll bet your book doesn't mention all the illegal American activity in Iran which led to the 1979 revolution.

 

[EagleSmack]

Actually the book mentions a lot about American activity prior to the seizure and provides both sides of the story. However I can see by that comment (I bet your book doesn't mention... etc.) that you are biased (at least somewhat) towards Americans.

Wikipedia is a good start when doing research but just because it is the first link to pop up on Google doesn't make it definitive. You yourself can add to any topic. That's right. My hometown is on Wikipedia and at the end of the information about the town, history, population, etc. it said this.

"Adam Wilson is the best hockey player to attend ******* High School and now attends ******* College for any of the ladies who want him."

That is hardly factual information now is it?

 

[earth_as_one]

The assumption I made was that an American book by an American author would tend to cover this event from an American viewpoint. Therefore I would expect the book to tend to omit important facts about the negative aspects of US activities in pre-revolutionary Iran and simplistically portray Americans as good and Iranians as evil.

Since I haven't read the book, I found this review which had this to say about it:

(A Fairly Tame Book Review of Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam)
By L.P. Omid


...After reading the book, I was left wondering: who is Bowden seeking revenge against, his former employers or Iranians? Or are the Iranian people merely collateral damage in Bowden’s personal vendetta? His choice of words (“militant Islam,” “showdown,” “menace,” “crisis,” and, of course, “revenge”) in answering this straightforward question only scratch the surface of the verbal shrapnel he projects in his book, perpetuating the same stereotypes that, frankly, are at the root of the problem of U.S.-Iranian relations

Egregiously, and perhaps self-disclosively, Bowden contradicts the above answer with more thoughtful reasoning for undertaking this project later in the press packet information when in response to another set of questions [How do you think our current problems with Iran relate to the hostage crisis? How about our confrontation with militant Islam?], he replies:

I think they are one and the same. The book Guests of the Ayatollah explores the roots of the Iranian and Islamist hatred of the United States. It is a dramatic story of captivity and attempted rescue, but it explains the origin of the global conflict in which we are engaged. I think that the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 was conceived as a small thing with local motivations and goals, but it was immediately swept up by an international tide of anger and hatred that is still gaining strength today. Not even the hostage-takers anticipated the enormous response their action would generate, and, in a sense, became hostages to that response themselves. If we want to understand what we are up against, and why this struggle happened, we need to understand what happened in Tehran in 1979. I hope this book helps accomplish that. [Emphasis added, mine.]
​

It does not. In this regard, Bowden’s book is a total failure.
Bowden is a story teller, one who “fortuitously” has the eye of a filmmaker. Like a good movie, the reader is expected to get fully absorbed in the “action,” to feel every agony, small victory, sense of relief, heartbreak, and so forth, that the characters [in this case, real people, not fictional creations] endure. In short, the reader is not supposed to sustain a critical perspective; the reader is, even in this non-fiction book, expected to suspend their disbelief. Consequently, little mind will be given to the actual language Bowden uses to describe the events. It is assumed, unthinkingly, that the adjectives, for example, he uses are the only or factual descriptors available to the author. The critical thinker, the intellectual posture of the so-called enlightened Western world, ought to ask: Is the historical event giving itself to Bowden? Or is Bowden giving us his account of the historical event? If it is the latter, then let us see what “understanding” of Iran and “militant Islam” Bowden grants his audience.

All compassionate, well-intentioned humans share the pains of those taken hostage (or any other natural or human-caused suffering, e.g., news of a tsunami or a school shooting). Thus, a neutral telling of the events—i.e., sound journalism—would suffice to stir emotions in caring persons about the precarious circumstances of the hostages, the trying ordeal of their families and friends, the political strain on the U.S. government, and so forth. But it is to Bowden’s advantage to portray heroic characters—especially in our culture of hero worship and cinematic idolatry. Heroes are on the side of good (i.e., “us”) and without a villain or villains (i.e., “them”), heroes would be rendered impotent and meaningless. In predictable fashion [see Edward Said’s book Orientalism, 1978], Bowden pronounces the “obvious” dichotomy between the forces of good and evil.

Examples abound in his massive text which vividly describe the ordeals of the hostages, from humiliations (having to wear underwear that are too small), to violent outbursts (beatings), to hunger. Indeed, Bowden does succeed in reporting the blatant contradictions between the rhetoric of the hostage takers (describing the hostages as “guests” and insisting that they are being treated hospitably) and the brutal reality of the daily torment, physical and psychological, of the hostages.

However, in order to demarcate clear, identifiable lines of right and wrong, Bowden stealthily interjects unproven, even absurd commentary...

http://www.themodernist.com/terminal3/bowden.html

Doesn't sound very objective, but then again, book reviewers are known for being cruel.

But I think its safe to say that if all you knew about this crisis came from this book, you would not have an accurate or objective viewpoint.