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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, January 27, 2006

US seizing Iraqi wives

There have been some allegations of this, and a few anecdotal cases, but never previously a hard record from the military. (Documents released in a FOIA by the ACLU.) The details are a little staggering, and there is a documented recommendation(?) from a "command officer."
The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.

In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family's door telling him "to come get his wife."

Strip that free from Islamic cultural context, and think about that a minute. The Russians, the Chinese, the Nazis, whoever, came into your house, kicked in the door, and took away your wife, your children's mother.

5 Comments:

  • The good old fashioned bureaucratic-authoritarian regime too, used this as a favored tactic. The abduction, or even torture of family in front of a detainee, to force confessions.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:29 PM  

  • Sick stuff. Anyone defending this type of behavior is a fascist thug.

    By Blogger historymike, at 9:56 PM  

  • I'd read some reports of this kind of thing, but it's always suspect coming out of a war zone. I was prone to belive it, but I still harbored some skepticism.

    How does this rate against flushing Korans or Abu Ghraib? I would think this is pretty big.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:26 PM  

  • Now are these insurgents or jihadists? The article says insurgents. We really need to empathize with these people, even if they are our enemy good post

    By Blogger Graeme, at 1:13 AM  

  • That's a good point Graeme. I figure they have to be Iraqi, just don't see smuggling the wife and kids into Iraq while I conduct a jihad. But as to which class they fall into as Iraqis? I guess it just depends on what happened to them.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 6:10 AM  

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