licentious radio

Thursday, March 13, 2003
[10:43:19 PM]

Torture, Beyond Saddam
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

BATMAN, Turkey

A middle-aged Kurd took me on a lonely hillside near here to point out the isolated police station in whose basement he had been beaten, subjected to electric shocks and sexually humiliated. We stood half a mile away as he recounted his tale, and then the police spotted us ? and a tank rushed toward us.

I fled. But the Kurds in Turkey cannot flee, and many here worry that the war in Iraq will set off more of the savagery that marked the 1980's and 1990's in "Turkish Kurdistan" (a phrase that, if I were Turkish, might lead to my arrest).

The world has turned its back on the Kurds more times than I can count, and there are signs that we're planning to betray them again. The U.S. was so desperate to bribe Turkey into our coalition that it was willing to allow tens of thousands of Turkish troops into Iraq's Kurdish areas. And we still seem ready to acquiesce in this. The Turks, having broken the back of Kurdish resistance within their borders, plan to expand their efforts and "disarm" Iraq's Kurds to block their control of oil fields.

How can we allow this? Aside from the sheer immorality of presiding over what is in effect a Turkish invasion of peaceful Iraqi Kurdistan, such an incursion risks warfare between Kurds and Turks that could spill into Turkey as well.

"The Turkish government has been far worse to the Kurds than Saddam has," one well-educated Kurd said bitterly. His comment stunned me, for Turkey never used poison gas or conducted mass executions as Saddam did, but one Kurd after another said the same thing. They described past Turkish military techniques like raping wives in front of husbands, or assembling villagers to watch men being tied and dragged to their death behind tanks, and they noted that Turkey had been less tolerant of Kurdish language and culture than Saddam.

President Bush is motivated to invade Iraq partly, I believe, by a deeply felt horror of Saddam's repression. But if our claims to be acting on behalf of the people of Iraq are to have credibility and moral legitimacy, we must try to stop Kurds from being slaughtered not only by our enemies in Baghdad, but also by our friends in Ankara. And we should certainly not acquiesce in such steps as a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq, which could trigger a new spiral of clashes and repression in Turkey.

How could a warm and friendly country like Turkey, which has made genuine progress on human rights and deserves a place in the European Union, be so harsh to its Kurds? Turkey's horror of a flourishing Kurdistan derives from its "Sevres syndrome," named for the French city where Western powers tried to dismember Turkey after World War I. Ever since then, Turkey has seen accommodation as a slippery slope toward national disintegration. There had been progress toward reconciliation in recent years, but now the prospect of war in Iraq has revived old suspicions and hatreds.

While President Bush has been eager to take note of Iraqi atrocities against the Kurds, the West has never been so outraged by similar Turkish atrocities. More than 30,000 people died during the years of fighting between the Turkish government and the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or P.K.K.; both sides were brutal, murdering civilians and engaging in torture and terrorism.

Turkey also forced at least 500,000 Kurds to leave their villages at gunpoint. Excellent reports on Turkey by Human Rights Watch say that some refugees who have tried to return to their homes recently have been shot by government-armed thugs.

Southeast Turkey still feels like a police state. I traveled to one remote town to interview a Kurdish man who had been beaten by the police in front of neighbors, doused with gasoline and then set on fire (he survived). The man's family was so terrified to see a foreign reporter and risk another police nightmare that they sent me packing.

Only one Kurdish man was not afraid to be named: Abdurrahim Guler, 37, who has endured repeated bouts of torture and death threats. In one brutal session, he says, the commander called out, "Bring in the stick," used to rape men.

"You can use your stick," Mr. Guler says he shouted back. "I still won't talk even if you use a minaret!"

Now something even grimmer is bearing down on the brave Kurds: Turkish tanks, like the one that sent me fleeing, but waves of them. I feel sick at the thought that we're about to betray the Kurds, again.

[10:24:01 PM]
Once we regime-change Baghdad -- you understand -- that doesn't stop the arms inspections. If there really are bio/chemical weapons scattered around, they're likely to be hidden, and guards will have some significant incentive to keep them hidden.

When Saddam's bureaucratic control is gone, there will be some sort of transition period when the country-side is in chaos. Think Afghanistan.

If Saddam has these naughty weapons, we're going to wish we had let inspections work *before* the conquest.

[10:02:26 PM]
People wonder whether the Republican Guard will fight. Think back to Poppy's Gulf War. They fought. They took thousands of casualties and inflicted only a handful of casualties on the Americans. But they fought. Repeatedly.

Now imagine them fighting in the soon-to-be rubble of Baghdad -- not the open desert where US tank superiority cut them to shreds. There could be a lot of American casualties.

This explains the "Shock and Awe" strategy -- push the soldiers and civilians -- mothers and children -- over the edge mentally into numb despair. Then maybe they won't fight. Maybe. Some people have been known to get angry when they see their family, friends, and neighbors' bodies wripped into pieces by bombs dropped by heroic pilots from the safety of high altitude.

Just for example, if Chinese pilots had killed dozens of people in your neighborhood, including women and children, and then Chinese soldiers with tanks drove up, would you fight? Or would you lay down? Even if you didn't like the current President, would you fight, or would you lay down?

Scary business.

[9:47:05 PM]
Shocking Re-run of Bad Movie

Washington, DC (licentious) -- In a shocking re-run of a bad movie, George W. Bush has yet again run afoul of mandatory drug testing. To Bush's surprise, a new policy for residents of the White House requires annual drug tests.

The policy was implemented after Bush's drugged-out performance at his news [sic] conference last week. While everyone in attendence was convinced Bush was doped-up, there was some controversy over *which* drug or drugs Bush might have been abusing. Many claim Prozac is the drug of choice for Bushes, though obviously Noel and Jenna have made other choices.

Bush was said to have said, "It's unfair! There wernt no testin' when I got appointed ta this job. They shoulda tol' me back then." Bush hasn't been seen in any government location since the testing policy was adopted.

This is, of course, eerily similar to events when Bush was appointed by political influence to the Texas Air National Guard in order to avoid the draft. After mandatory drug-testing for pilots was initiated, Bush did not complete his military obligation. This is sometimes termed "AWOL", though in fact the accurate term is "deserter" -- Bush never returned to duty.

As in the earlier episode, no one appears to miss Bush, and the country seems safer now that he has run away like a sniveling, drug-addicted coward.

[2:18:36 PM]
Bush campaign contributor defies Iraqi arms embargo

Baghdad, Iraq (licentious) -- In a globe-spanning scandal, licentious radio has turned up documents proving a Bush campaign contributor provided essential technical parts for the newly discovered Iraqi "Doomsday Drone".

Although the drone was documented in papers supplied to the UN arms inspection team, and it's range is less than two miles, Colin Powell declared the drone's existence to be proof that Iraq continues to create and hide illegal weapons systems from inspectors, and that Saddam can't be trusted.

Disguised as UN Arms Inspectors, intrepid licentious radio reporters stormed into a secret military base here, and demanded immediate access to the drone. Our reporters confiscated the plans and financial records. After careful analysis, we discovered that the Iraqis were *hiding* the supplier of one critical part. A second trip to the military base caught the Iraqis by surprise, and we were able to grab the receipts for the part.

According to the mechanic, the drone worked pretty well, except that its wings kept falling off. In order to keep the wings from falling off, he placed an order for duct tape from the Duck Products website. Duck Products' founder, Jack Kahl, is a big-time Republican campaign fund donor.

The receipt we photographed had the Iraqi embassy in Freedom (the state formerly known as France) as the ship-to address, but the bill-to address was Baghdad, and the "extra shipping instructions field" said: "Please trans-ship to xxxxxx at xxxxxx air base, Baghdad." The roll of duct tape was paid for by American Express. The name on the card is "S. Hussein". It also says "Member Since 1979".

Shipping critical military technology to Iraq for usage in a Doomsday Drone is highly illegal, Ari Fleischer confirmed today. Ari did waffle slightly when he heard that the perp is a Bush campaign donor. "Obviously, our financers deserve a little extra leeway. Where would we be if we started jailing or summarily executing the people who helped us steal the elections?"

Back at the secret Baghdad Doomsday Drone Aerodrome, the evil mastermind behind the drone said all they had used it for so far was to fly over the women-only swimming pool for officer's wives. "If we could just attach a camera to it, we'd get some *great* photographs," said Corporal Xxxxxx. "The generals' trophy wives are *hot*."

Although the Doomsday Drone does not appear to have offensive capabilities, Corporal Xxxxxx said that if George W. Bush came within two miles of the base, he would try to crash the drone into Bush's head. When we pointed out "that's his least vulnerable spot", the Corporal didn't get the Casablanca reference, and so we left it at that.