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UK agents 'colluded with torture in Pakistan'

Tashah

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UK agents 'colluded with torture in Pakistan'
Mark Townsend
The Observer, Sunday 22 February 2009

A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects. In the study, which will be published next month by the civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, at least 10 Britons are identified who have been allegedly tortured in Pakistan and subsequently questioned by UK intelligence officials. It warns that more British cases may surface and that the issue of Pakistani terrorism suspects interrogated by British agents is likely to "run much deeper".

Ali Dayan Hasan, who led the Pakistan-based inquiry, said sources within the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), the Intelligence Bureau and the military security services had provided "confirmation and information" relating to British collusion in the interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Hasan said the Human Rights Watch (HRW) evidence collated from Pakistan intelligence officials indicated a "systemic" modus operandi among British security services, involving a significant number of UK agents from MI5 rather than maverick elements. Different agents were deployed to interview different suspects, many of whom alleged that prior to interrogation by British officials they were tortured by Pakistani agents.
Source: Guardian UK

This one is for some of our EU members who love to bash the US for condoning torture. Pot... meet kettle.
 
Still nothing from the Euromopes. Strange how that works. :rofl
 
Still nothing from the Euromopes. Strange how that works. :rofl

Isn't it.
I wonder what valuable info they got from their suspects.

I thought that stuff didn't work.
LOL.
 
The British are real bastards, I hope Muslims burn many UK flags. ;)
 
Source: Guardian UK

This one is for some of our EU members who love to bash the US for condoning torture. Pot... meet kettle.

Oh...we handed prisoners over to the Belgians in Somalia. And the French "interrogated" their own. This whole "torture" stage our friends chose to celebrate and glorify through hypocritic cries and screams was always more farce and misdirection than truth. And all their accusations and demands for explanations was merely about a wish for Americans to have to answer to Europeans.
 
And? There is one hell of a difference between questioning a person tortured by someone else in another country than doing the actual torture in your own backyard.

I sickens me that the Brits questioned a person they knew had been tortured, but it does not surprise me one bit that it goes on. Plausible deniablity or whatever its called.. an excuse that is used constantly in our twisted world and used through out the ages.

And in a crazy world where the lines are blurred between what is right and wrong and what is good and bad, one can have some comfort in the fact that the UK did not actively torture these men according to the reports or anyone else as far as we know

However there is still the question about Gitmo and the UK actively participating in torture there, but we do not know yet the extent of their participation there, but we do have enough to suspect it was possibly more than just "questioning" people after the fact.. and THAT will be a far bigger scandal and shock than this frankly if we ever find out the truth.

So yes, Europe still holds a somewhat "moral superiority" over the US and Israel in the case of torture, even though that "moral superiority" is getting eroded with every investigation and scandal.. we have as of yet in this war of terror.. I mean on terror, actively tortured people on our own soil and in our own prisons as far as we know and that is a significant difference to the US and Israel. We also don't claim that some techniques are "not torture" when they so clearly are.
 
So yes, Europe still holds a somewhat "moral superiority" over the US and Israel in the case of torture, even though that "moral superiority" is getting eroded with every investigation and scandal.. we have as of yet in this war of terror.. I mean on terror, actively tortured people on our own soil and in our own prisons as far as we know and that is a significant difference to the US and Israel.


Complete ignorance. You people are among the most hypocritical in history.....

The French Armed Forces made a systematic and indiscriminate use of torture during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62), creating a public controversy which is far from having been stifled today. Although the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) also engaged in violent acts and some of those cases of torture have been registered, it was never systematized and developed as it had been by the French military. Pierre Vidal-Naquet estimates hundred of thousands of Algerians were tortured by the French military.

.....Thus, the military did not consider themselves tied by the Geneva Conventions, ratified by France in 1951
Torture during the Algerian War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Hmmmmm....hundreds of thousands? Yet, a few possible cases in GITMO and frat party behavior in Abu Graib is supposed to be the example of tyranny and evil? Some allegedlies and a just the hint of torture by American personel and Europe casts stones and builds a pulpit? You people exist just to pull America down to your levels. But we are supposed to label you as our "moral superiority?"


The French in Algiers, the Belgians in Somalia, Germans in Germany, today's secret prisons in Europe......your "superiority" is false and it is typical of Europeans to exaggerate the issues of America in an attempt to forgive your own behaviors. With hundreds of thousands freely tortured in Algeria by the French.....you people, especially the pathetic French, find the nerve to complain about a possible handful of individuals that may or may not have been tortured depending on whose defintion?

"As far as you know"......what a joke. You do know. You choose to lie about it and drag America through the mud you create. It's the same old European attitude. In your quest to deny the house that your kind exist in, you choose to exaggerate the few rusty nails in America to feel better about yourselves and to project the same old typical anti-Americanism. From colonizing the world, dividing tribes, forcing tribes to live together, starting two world wars, hosting the Cold War, a continued love affair for dictators, and vast genocides and torture along the way......you stand and pretend that a few recent stumbled American cases now vindicate you and that we must answer to the like of you? Didn't Spain just evolve out of a dictatorship? I wonder how many of your countrymen were tortured and executed by your own countrymen.

You talk of differences. The difference is that we judge ourselves and demand better. The American military has always been subjected to the Geneva Convention. America is an original signatory. It takes outside sources to stop genocide inside Europe, not once, but again fifty years later in Bosnia. And none of you demand better of your own...even as hundreds of thousands of Muslims are tortured systematically and as a matter of policy. But today you accuse America of conducting a genocide upon Muslims or conducting a war against Islam, despite the obvious truths right in everybody's faces.

And today you people criticize secret prisons in Europe even as your government's deny them. "As far as you know" is a joke at best.
 
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Source: Guardian UK

This one is for some of our EU members who love to bash the US for condoning torture. Pot... meet kettle.

Still nothing from the Euromopes. Strange how that works. :rofl

Tashah, I just love how you post this thread on a Sunday morning and are surprised when other people are too busy living their lives to answer you straight away.

You and Newt Gingrich, oi. We need a function that polls who's actually online when someone tries something like this. :roll:
 
:lol::lol::lol:

Okay.

1. Nice bait thread. Gotta love them, no matter what side of the ocean they're posted from. Very entertaining technique.

2. ROFLMAO at ANY European who claims we have the moral high ground. Gotta be pretty naive to actually believe the bull**** that our governments try to shove down our throats. Is there REALLY anyone out there who thinks that European intelligence agencies don't either torture or are up to their necks in complicity with those who do??? Seriously, people, stop making excuses for something that is inexcusable.

3. GySgt, do you ever wake up at night with a funny taste in your mouth? It's called hate produced bile. We have people like that over here too. They're almost as entertaining as this thread. Are you trying to one-up PeteEU? Is this what this is about? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Americans... "you people" are funny... always wanting to be number one at everything.

:lol:
 
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And? There is one hell of a difference between questioning a person tortured by someone else in another country than doing the actual torture in your own backyard.

****ing priceless.

Deny, deny, deny.
 
3. GySgt, do you ever wake up at night with a funny taste in your mouth? It's called hate produced bile.

No. My hate for the average Euro sentiment is quite tasteful. It allows me to see past the surface BS that Europe's been under for decades.

We have people like that over here too. They're almost as entertaining as this thread. Are you trying to one-up PeteEU? Is this what this is about? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Americans... "you people" are funny... always wanting to be number one at everything.

Oh....as an American my place is to bend over for the European right? His spill of "moral superiority" is supposed to be welcomed and groveled over? Typical. One up? With an abundance of Euro BS to pull from just in the twentieth century, "one up" is easy. You people are a joke. You whine about a few cases and attempt to equate that to what you've done and continue to do.

And yes...I do despise the European attitude displayed by PeteEU, Maximus Zebra, and yourself. I do choose to deny you your celebrated self-righteous parties that merely allow you to gloss over the overwhelming guilt and depravity with European stamps upon them.
 
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No.



Oh....as an American my place is to bend over for the European right? His spill of "moral superiority" is supposed to be welcomed and groveled over? Typical. One up? With an abundance of Euro BS to pull from just in the twentieth century, "one up" is easy. You people are a joke. You whine about a few cases and attempt to equate that to what you've done and continue to do.

And yes...I do despise the European attitude displayed by PeteEU, Maximus Zebra, and yourself. I do choose to deny you your celebrated self-righteous parties that merely allow you to gloss over the overwhelming guilt and depravity with European stamps upon them.
:lol::lol::lol:

I rest my case.
 
If any British involvement in torture can be proved then criminal charges should be filed. It harms the British image and violates the human rights we are supposed to stand for.

However, it is very important for British national security to cooperate with Pakistani intelligence. The 7/7 bombings were planned in Pakistan and most British Islamic extremists are likely of Pakistani origin. Refusing any cooperation with the ISI because of the practices every knows they use isn't really an option. I guess the whole thing it is a pretty difficult problem.
 
Which was?

That you're trying to out-do PeteEU in the "anti-whoever is on the other side of the ocean" department. ;)

I like how you ignored my calling him on trying to make excuses for what Europe does.

And I also like how you lump me in with people I have nothing in common with other than living on the same continent.

When have I ever made an anti-American statement on this forum, other than in jest, GySgt? When and in which thread?

We're not all out to get you, you know? :)
 
That you're trying to out-do PeteEU in the "anti-whoever is on the other side of the ocean" department. ;)


I'm not trying to do anything. His kind makes their posts, and I retort in defense of my country and force them to deny acknowledgment of their own country men's overwhelming bad behavior. I start no threads about Europe. They start plenty about America. I usually do not entertain myself on threads about Europe for Europeans unless "America" is a part of that thread title. For example....

Have I started any threads about the French behavior in Algeria? Could I? Yet, Europeans are fond of starting threads about a few cases of torture over the last few years as they preach about "moral superiority." I simply come along and defend. But I get to be the source of your sermon?

Notice that you expressly adressed me and spared PeteEU, the individual that was attacking and claiming "moral superiority?" Save it.
 
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I'm not trying to do anything. His kind makes their posts, and I retort in defense of my country and force them to deny acknowledgment of their own country men's overwhelming bad behavior. I start no threads about Europe. They start plenty about America. I usually do not entertain myself on threads about Europe for Europeans unless "America" is a part of that thread title. For example....

Have I started any threads about the French behavior in Algeria? Could I? Yet, Europeans are fond of starting threads about a few cases of torture over the last few years as they preach about "moral superiority." I simply come along and defend. But I get to be the source of your sermon?

I wasn't a sermon. I happen to think you're an incredibly smart man and I usually like reading your take on things, especially when you're responding to either Zeebra or Pete. However, lately, it's colored with so much visceral anti-European sentiment, it's hard to tell the difference between you and them anymore.

Notice that you expressly adressed me and spared PeteEU, the individual that was attacking and claiming "moral superiority?" Save it.

Fair enough. Feel free to edit my post and add his name somewhere you think it would fit. I thought it was obvious who I was talking about. :lol:

No, seriously.
 
However, lately, it's colored with so much visceral anti-European sentiment, it's hard to tell the difference between you and them anymore.

Maybe because now, instead of just defending America from those who gained and prospered under America's umbrella, I get to defend America as the source for all their economic problems too. It never ends.
 
Maybe because now, instead of just defending America from those who gained and prospered under America's umbrella, I get to defend America as the source for all their economic problems too. It never ends.

Could you maybe expand on this some, for those of us who were confused by the bolded portion?
 
Could you maybe expand on this some, for those of us who were confused by the bolded portion?

I think he means that European nations could afford to look after themselves and their citizens by developing a broad (and expensive) range of social programs, while considerably reducing their military spending, seeing as they knew they could count on the US to come and help them if they were ever under attack. This is something I actually agree with.
 
Maybe because now, instead of just defending America from those who gained and prospered under America's umbrella, I get to defend America as the source for all their economic problems too. It never ends.

Believe it or not, I understand your frustration. I often have to do the very same thing. Imagine that, a European defending the US. Needless to say, I'm not very popular with the left-wingers and pacifists around these parts. Starting with my very own sister. :lol:
 
Could you maybe expand on this some, for those of us who were confused by the bolded portion?

Post WWII, Europe was in no shape to continue occupying their former colonies much less the newly voided locations from Africa, the Middle East, and Europe where the formerly expanded Nazi Germans occupied. America and Russia were the only two nations in a position to do anything in regards to maintaining a sense of stability throughout the world. But before long, and as predicted, the grand divide occurred and by 1950 the Russians were on their way to spreading their ideology over most of the world. America patrolled the Pacific and protected western Europe; and the Soviet Union went on to patrol parts of South Asia and the Middle East. When Korea happened, the UN authorized Truman his "Police Action" with a minimal of support from the still recovering Europe. Less than three decades later, Afghanistan would see an American effort to turn back the Soviets. All the while over the span of this Cold War, Americans engaged enemies and bore the burden of the grand effort for the free world while European nations slowly crept out and sought back their former colonies for personal gains.

But while all of this was going on, NATO was a feast in which Americans provided. An organization that was more about Europe than the "North Atlantic" and never used. Post Cold War, the Middle East would see a Gulf War inwhich Americans would lead the vast majority of the missions. Later, Bosnia/Kosovo would see an American led crusade against the genocide of Muslims and others on European soil, in which America would conduct the vast majority of the missions. And finally, Afghanistan earns a re-visit from America in 2001, for which our "allies" again support us by sending the bare minimum and complaining about having to send more years after that.

What is concluded is that while America was busy running around the world defacing our own values at times for the sake of all of us, Europe was afforded time to look inward and to re-build. With the lack of showing for Bosnia/Kosovo and Afghanistan we can conclude that 20 years after the Cold War ended, America is still expected to bear the burden so others can benefit internally. We are supposed to be criticized for our military culture, yet expected to maintain it at the expense of social programs and such. And we are expected to do this because we have allowed our "allies" to get away with the bare minimum of support while focusing on their social programs and such. And any hint of "Buy America" as was recently mentioned by President Obama's plan, is seen as some sort of blasphemy or selfish behavior by those "allies" who had spent decades doing exactly this under our umbrella.

This is the truth of our reality. People have a habit of prettying this up, but this only ensures that America remain the work horse for everyone else instead of focusing on our yard as they have been afforded to do.
 
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Complete ignorance. You people are among the most hypocritical in history.....

Funny coming from you......

Hmmmmm....hundreds of thousands? Yet, a few possible cases in GITMO and frat party behavior in Abu Graib is supposed to be the example of tyranny and evil? Some allegedlies and a just the hint of torture by American personel and Europe casts stones and builds a pulpit? You people exist just to pull America down to your levels. But we are supposed to label you as our "moral superiority?"


The French in Algiers, the Belgians in Somalia, Germans in Germany, today's secret prisons in Europe......your "superiority" is false and it is typical of Europeans to exaggerate the issues of America in an attempt to forgive your own behaviors. With hundreds of thousands freely tortured in Algeria by the French.....you people, especially the pathetic French, find the nerve to complain about a possible handful of individuals that may or may not have been tortured depending on whose defintion?

"As far as you know"......what a joke. You do know. You choose to lie about it and drag America through the mud you create. It's the same old European attitude. In your quest to deny the house that your kind exist in, you choose to exaggerate the few rusty nails in America to feel better about yourselves and to project the same old typical anti-Americanism. From colonizing the world, dividing tribes, forcing tribes to live together, starting two world wars, hosting the Cold War, a continued love affair for dictators, and vast genocides and torture along the way......you stand and pretend that a few recent stumbled American cases now vindicate you and that we must answer to the like of you? Didn't Spain just evolve out of a dictatorship? I wonder how many of your countrymen were tortured and executed by your own countrymen.

You talk of differences. The difference is that we judge ourselves and demand better. The American military has always been subjected to the Geneva Convention. America is an original signatory. It takes outside sources to stop genocide inside Europe, not once, but again fifty years later in Bosnia. And none of you demand better of your own...even as hundreds of thousands of Muslims are tortured systematically and as a matter of policy. But today you accuse America of conducting a genocide upon Muslims or conducting a war against Islam, despite the obvious truths right in everybody's faces.

And today you people criticize secret prisons in Europe even as your government's deny them. "As far as you know" is a joke at best.

So now you are going back in history to find instances where European countries have used torture? Is that all you got? We are talking about geo politics of today, not 50 years ago.

What the French did in Algeria is disgusting, just as is what the US did in Vietnam and what the Germans did during WW2. What does that have to do with the world today? Do you know if the French still officially support the use of torture as they did then? When was it the last time we heard of a detainee complaining over being tortured in a French prison?

As for Belgium in Somalia. That at least is closer in history to anything else you got even though it is almost 20 years old. Here we have a single unit as far as I know that abused its detainees. Unless I am mistaken it was not on orders by the political leaders.... another big difference between the case and what the US did under Bush.

And Germany.. what are you babling about? That Germany in the 1970s may or may not have tortured RAF people? 30 years ago? Or do you have some evidence that the German government has "secret prisons" where it tortures in Germany? Why is it you have to go back 20+ years to find your evidence?

And why did you leave out the Brits and what it did in Northern Ireland? Funny you "forgot to mention that".

I am no way in denial that our governments may or may not be abusing prisoners in the war on terror. I aint that naive. I dont trust our own government further than I can throw them and that is the ones I voted for.

But we have no evidence what so ever that they are at this moment in time. The only evidence we do have is what was presented in the original article, and even here the British did not use torture. That is why I say "as far as we know". It is no cop-out, no excuse, but reality.

We however have plenty of evidence that the US used torture on its "enemy combatants" and exported suspects to 3rd countries that tortured them for the US... totaly with the knowledge of the US. We have Abu Graib, Bagram and of course Gitmo, plus the "secret" prisons around the world. We have pictures. We have documentation that greenlights "harsh techniques" while justifying the use of said techniques and making them seem legal when they are not. We have Bush administration officials admitting that it happened. And yet the right in the US is still in denial and refusing to believe that the US used torture.

If anything it is you and your right wing friends that are in denial of the truth. Water boarding is torture. Sending people to Syria and Egypt means they will be tortured (which is ironic since the US refuses to send a known terrorist to Valenzuela because they fear he will be tortured..)

So yes as it stands now in this time in history, Europe has a far cleaner record (not perfect, far from it) on torture than the US. If we go back in time, then no, but then again human history regardless of nation or ethnic group has used torture since the dawn of time...

So no I am not in denial nor brainwashed to believe that we European's are better (or worse) on the issue of torture, but as it stands now there is no evidence of any form of official policy by any European government (minus the eastern block) in the use of torture on anyone. And this is the difference between Europe and the US.. the evidence against the Bush administration is there even though you refuse to believe or accept it, the evidence against European countries is next to non existent.
 
Post WWII, Europe was in no shape to continue occupying their former colonies much less the newly voided locations from Africa, the Middle East, and Europe where the formerly expanded Nazi Germans occupied. America and Russia were the only two nations in a position to do anything in regards to maintaining a sense of stability throughout the world. But before long, and as predicted, the grand divide occurred and by 1950 the Russians were on their way to spreading their ideology over most of the world. America patrolled the Pacific and protected western Europe; and the Soviet Union went on to patrol parts of South Asia and the Middle East. When Korea happened, the UN authorized Truman his "Police Action" with a minimal of support from the still recovering Europe. Less than three decades later, Afghanistan would see an American effort to turn back the Soviets. All the while over the span of this Cold War, Americans engaged enemies and bore the burden of the grand effort for the free world while European nations slowly crept out and sought back their former colonies for personal gains.

But while all of this was going on, NATO was a feast in which Americans provided. An organization that was more about Europe than the "North Atlantic" and never used. Post Cold War, the Middle East would see a Gulf War inwhich Americans would lead the vast majority of the missions. Later, Bosnia/Kosovo would see an American led crusade against the genocide of Muslims and others on European soil, in which America would conduct the vast majority of the missions. And finally, Afghanistan earns a re-visit from America in 2001, for which our "allies" again support us by sending the bare minimum and complaining about having to send more years after that.

What is concluded is that while America was busy running around the world defacing our own values at times for the sake of all of us, Europe was afforded time to look inward and to re-build. With the lack of showing for Bosnia/Kosovo and Afghanistan we can conclude that 20 years after the Cold War ended, America is still expected to bear the burden so others can benefit internally. We are supposed to be criticized for our military culture, yet expected to maintain it at the expense of social programs and such. And we are expected to do this because we have allowed our "allies" to get away with the bare minimum of support while focusing on their social programs and such. And any hint of "Buy America" as was recently mentioned by President Obama's plan, is seen as some sort of blasphemy or selfish behavior by those "allies" who had spent decades doing exactly this under our umbrella.

This is the truth of our reality. People have a habit of prettying this up, but this only ensures that America remain the work horse for everyone else instead of focusing on our yard as they have been afforded to do.

Talk about rewriting history to fit your world view... gezzz.
 
They should force 'em to listen to Boy George.
 
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