The Skeptic الشكاك

760 Detainee Abuse in Iraq

U.S. Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, an interrogation expert, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee what he saw in Iraq:

Kleinman told the Senate Armed Services Committee that his two colleagues forcibly stripped an Iraqi prisoner naked, shackled him, and left him standing in a dank, six-foot cement cell with orders to the guards that the prisoner was not to move for 12 hours. They could intervene only if he passed out, Kleinman said his two colleagues told the guards.

Had the prisoner passed out, he would have hit his head on a wall, Kleinman said. […]

Kleinman also detailed sitting in on another interrogation. An Iraqi prisoner was on his knees in a room painted all black with a light shining in his face. Behind him stood an American guard slapping an iron bar against his palm. After every question the Iraqi answered, his military interrogators slapped him across the face. That had been going on for 30 minutes.

In related news, a federal appeals court has upheld a 2006 ruling that the U.S. Department of Defense must release photographs showing the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. See the ACLU’s press release.

748 Iran and the Arabs, via New York

Everyone likes to make fun of the Egyptian Gazette, perhaps because when they do get a real scoop, such as a proper interview with the President of Iran, they slap this introduction on it:

New York – Probably the most interesting political leader for many is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with his controversial comment over the Holocaust made just a month after he took the office in 2005.

Afwan? Read on for the astonishing spectacle of a government-owned paper printing, on its front page, the accusation that Arab governments’ policies are dictated by the United States. (Sometimes I think the government press may be opening up. And then I remember the “Why do we love you, Mr. President? Let us count the ways” coverage of Mubarak’s birthday in Al-Ahram last May 4. “Arab governments” is just vague enough to make it into the paper.)

On a related note, see CNN’s record of a conversation between five former U.S. secretaries of state. They all agree the next president should talk to Iran. James Baker’s criticism of Bush for not engaging more with Syria to pry it out of its alliance with Iran made headlines. This didn’t:

And I think a well-placed, quiet, private phone call to the Iranian leadership, if you can find out which leaders to talk to, to the effect, “Look, if you do so much as aim a missile or anything else toward Israel or toward anything else, toward Israel or toward us, our strategic nuclear deterrent can be re-aimed in 20 seconds,” they would understand that, I think.

Henry Kissinger, fresh from instructing Sarah Palin on the finer points of clandestine carpet bombing, also chimes in. Worth the detour.

While we’re on the subject of U.S. relations with “Arab governments,” I should note Saad ad-Din Ibrahim’s continued support for conditionality in U.S. aid to Egypt.

746 A Messy Response

It’s been painful to watch the wire reporters here trying to cover the constantly evolving story of the 18 abducted adventurers and their police escort. First Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the 19 had been released.

Then the Foreign Ministry denied he had said any such thing. Then a chorus of unnamed people “close to the foreign minister” in New York supposedly told Al-Masry al-Youm that OK, the foreign minister had said it, and now feels “a fierce anger” at having been given false information. I’ll bet.

And now it seems the government briefly imposed a ban on reporting the story, then quickly rescinded it.

The National translates this editorial from Al-Quds al-Arabi:

The current leadership is old, unresponsive to the concerns of the people, and does not know how to choose good men. The most prominent example of that is the denial or patching up of the foreign minister’s statements by an underling, something that could only happen in today’s Egypt.

One always hopes the government will operate smoothly and efficiently, but almost never more so than when 19 hostages are at stake. Reporters took the foreign minister as a credible source and ran with the story, which in turn ran in newspapers. Imagine the families’ response to learning it wasn’t true.

738 Nineteen Abducted in Egypt

AFP reports that armed bandits forced 19 people on a safari to Gilf al-Kabir, a rock plateau the size of Switzerland, to drive across the border to Sudan. I’m hearing this isn’t the first time something like this has happened, it’s just the first time it has come to light. More on that soon, I expect. [Yes, here it is, with news of their release (soon?)]

In the meantime, the BBC’s story:

Eleven European tourists have been kidnapped along with seven other people while making an off-road tour of southern Egypt.

Five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian were taken along with seven travel guides and drivers.

Local reports said the abduction, which took place near Aswan, was carried out by tribesmen or bandits.

Egypt’s tourism minister said a ransom had been demanded and negotiations were under way.

A ministry statement said: “This is an act of banditry not of terrorism.”

Minister Zoheir Garana told Associated Press news agency that a ransom of up to $6m (£3.24m) had been demanded.

As an aside, I’ve dreamed of going to Gilf al-Kabir for years, but $2,000 and two weeks always seemed too much to spare. The possibility of bandit attacks adds further romance to the adventure, but also raises the specter of a police escort for any future trips.

732 UN Agency Eyes Curbs on Internet Anonymity

While all eyes were elsewhere:

A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.

The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the “IP Traceback” drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.

The potential for eroding Internet users’ right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law in the United States and recognized in international law by groups such as the Council of Europe, has alarmed some technologists and privacy advocates. Also affected may be services such as the Tor anonymizing network.

“What’s distressing is that it doesn’t appear that there’s been any real consideration of how this type of capability could be misused,” said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. “That’s really a human rights concern.” [Please read the full article from CNet]

Meanwhile, back in Egypt:

• Residents of Dowaiqa, the slum flattened by falling rocks last week, have again clashed with police in the neighborhood. When you hear that the government deployed heavy security, but left rescue efforts largely to the residents themselves while rescue workers napped in the shade, you can understand why. Two stories in English stand out: This one, from AP’s Lee Keath and Maggie Michael, and this one, from The National‘s Nadia Abu al-Magd.
• Hossam Badrawy, chairman of the ruling NDP’s Education Committee, and an MP widely touted as one of the party’s leading reformers: “No new policies at NDP conference.”
• Allegations that “all the people were tortured” ahead of a State Security trial for the Mahalla detainees. For first-hand accounts from the trial, see journalist Sarah Carr’s blog.
• The Economist, taking a broad view of fin-du-regime Egypt, asks “Will the dam break?”

728 Obama’s Brother in Egypt

From the inimitable Ibrahim Eissa:

(Click on image to enlarge)

721 Tapes Link Mustafa to Alleged Killer

Sometimes the news reads like so many movie scripts. While Americans watch Miss Congeniality, in Egypt we’re watching The Professional:

Partial translation from Al-Misry al-Youm here.

719 Talaat Mustafa Arrested

Yesterday police arrested Egyptian billionaire Hisham Talaat Mustafa, former chair of one of the country’s largest real-estate development firms and a representative of the ruling party in the upper house of Parliament, on charges that he paid $2 million to have Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim murdered in Dubai. A earlier ban on reporting any connection between Mustafa and the murder had suggested that the government might stand by Mustafa, who has good connections with the president’s son, Gamal. Apparently not.

Reuters’ Aziz al-Kaissouni is filing updates about the effects on the stock market. And Heba Saleh covers the political angle in article for the Financial Times.

716 Spirits, Spam and Wiretaps

This has no relation to anything, but I’m completely infatuated with these photographs of dead people from the 1920s:

And I wanted to take note of an item of spam sent to my work email address: “Without wiretaps, Americans never would have known about the Jessica/Nick split.” You have 20 minutes. Discuss.

710 An Arab Force for Gaza?

Al-Hayat quotes Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit as saying the possibility of an Arab peacekeeping force for Gaza “should be seriously considered” in order to put an end to the violence there:

And with everything else going on to the North, it was easy to miss that former General Security Gen. Jamil Sayyed, currently in custody for alleged complicity in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, has brought charges in France against Detlev Mehlis. A few days late to record this, but I want to remember it.

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