Interrogation and detention on Youtube

A review of the available material on YouTube yields some interesting additions to the growing body of material on this topic.

An October 2006 Sky News interview with former army interrogator Tony Lagouranis is worth a listen.

An undated speech by Janis Karpinski on Abu Ghraib's early days paints a pathetic picture of its admininstration.

Also from CCR (the Center for Constitutional Rights), Prof. Scott Horton, Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia University on command responsibility and the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Bush press secretary Tony Snow on detainees in October: "They don't wanna be torturing people, they don't wanna be setting a bad example."

MSNBC's Olberman on the impact of the Military Commissions Act on Habeas Corpus.

Clips from a British documentary "simulation" of Guantanamo Bay with willing volunteers.

A trailer of the docudrama "Outlawed" provided by Amnesty International.

NOW's interview with British national Moazzam Begg, who was picked up in Pakistan and sent to Guantanamo.

What claims to be video of a Canadian raid on a Taliban compound in Helmand Province.

In this clip from the same source, but in Kandahar province, we can see Canadian troops along side Afghani troops. All in a village setting.

Another amateur video, this time of the Dutch forces in Uruzgan supposedly of in 2005 being ambushed with a really bad "soundtrack."

A British news crew that went unembedded in Helmand Province, Afghanistan in early 2006 made this report, which included a hair-raising encounter with Taliban and Afghan police. The police are beating the Talib prisoners with automatic weapons.

I cannot tell if this is a parody of hunters and videogamers, but this video reveals attitudes of a certain segment of the population in America towards Afghans and Iraqis. It is disturbing.

It's not easy being unembedded in Uruzgan

A number of Dutch journalists have been reporting from Uruzgan province since their force arrived earlier this year as part of the NATO force "stabilizing" Afghanistan. Only one, it seems, was willing to go it alone and report unembedded from the province. Arnold Karskens, quite a war-reporting legend in Holland, was allegedly mistreated by Dutch forces in his most recent trip to Uruzgan in which he remained unembedded.


Gov/Warlord Jan Mohammed, photo by Karskens

While reporting for Dutch newspapers and TV (in Dutch unfortunately) he was "sent back" at one roadblock on a public road. This from Spinwatch

Karskens was refused entry to the Dutch military base near Tarin Kowt, even though the commander of the base had earlier declared publicly that they would not distinguish between 'embedded' and free journalists. According to another journalist present in the military base who wrote about it in the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, soldiers guarding the entrance of the base had instructions not to let Karskens in "unless one of his legs is shot off".

Dutch interest in 'Taliban Country'

With the fate of the potential Dutch increased deployment to Afghanistan (and indeed the future of the ruling coalition) in the balance, the Dutch media have covered the impact of the documentary 'Taliban Country'.



Apparently, the film caused a stir with leading members of the smallest party in the ruling coalition, D66, for the footage of warlord-Governor Jan Mohammed and the negative impact that the US' cordon-and-search and detentions were having in unstable Uruzgan province.

Dutch daily Die Verdping Trouw interviewed filmmaker Carmela Baranowska, sharing her thoughts on future military deployments to 'Taliban Country'. In it she says, any military that comes to Afghanistan with an aggressive attitude will find itself mired in a "cycle of violence." Volkskrant, another daily, also featured Taliban Country in January.

Dutch parliament is scheduled to decide on the controversial deployment to Uruzgan on February 5. The other NATO member nations will be watching with anxiety, as both the UK and Canada have claimed their contributions are already maxed out. There has been speculation that the US would get 'stuck' with Uruzgan if the Dutch refuse to deploy troops there.

The weak military investigations into the abuses alleged in 'Taliban Country' concluded that the abuses were 'unsubstantiated'. But strangely, the abuses alleged in the film Taliban Country seem to have come to haunt the US military when it least suspected it.

Suicide bombing in Taliban country

In a tragic day in which over 100 people were killed in Iraq in suicide bombings, a disturbing echo of this tactic was heard in Taliban country, the remote and dangerous province Uruzgan.

In the provincial capital, Tarin Kowt, the American ambassador was visiting the Deputy governor, when a suicide bomber detonated a grenade and himself in a crowd assembled in town. At least ten were killed. The Ambassador was not injured.


Another suicide bombing in Kandahar only a week prior

Uruzgan province has been the site of continued Taliban activity, and the American counter-insurgency (in partnership with Warlord-Governor Jan Mohammed) appears not to have halted the violence, especially over the last months. A number of bloody incidents occured during November and December, taking a number of Afghan police officer's lives, and wounding a number of coalition soldiers.

According to military sources, new Taliban recruits are arriving from Pakistan to replace those killed earlier in the year. Villagers allege in Taliban Country that the US military's hard-handed tactics have forced many to flee for Pakistan, and had turned some in Uruzgan towards militant resistance.

Afghan newspaper Cheragh wrote in its editorial:

The Taleban’s use of the new weapon of suicide attacks raises the question of whether militants are losing their capacity to fight a guerrilla war, or whether they are copying the tactics used by Iraqi insurgents against US forces. (transcribed and translated by IWPR)

It appears that while the Taliban may be limited to guerilla and suicidal tactics, the group not oblivious to the politics behind the 2006 NATO deployment to Afghanistan.

Within the next month, the Dutch parliament will vote on deployment of 1,000 troops to Uruzgan. This suicide bombing was a message not only to the American Ambassador, but to the Dutch government.

Dutch doubts dog Coalition in Afghanistan

The Australian reports that the Dutch government's hesistation to deploy forces to troubled Uruzgan province in 2006 as a part of an expanded NATO contingent of the Coalition (ISAF) is causing consternation in Canberra.

Australia is worried that 200 engineers, poised to take over from the US the Provincial Reconstruction Team based in Tarin Kwot (Uruzgan), will be held in limbo waiting for protection. The Dutch are their would-be protectors in that trouble spot.

The Dutch Prime Minister recently stated he will allow Parliament to decide whether the deployment to Uruzgan will go forward, facing dissent from a party in the ruling coalition and opinion polls that show 68% opposition to the increased troop contribution. Issues of concern are almost certain increased casualties, the potential "partner" in Uruzgan a controversial Governor-warlord featured in Taliban Country, and more generally concern with the strategy of conducting a counter-insurgency in remote Afghanistan.

Dutch Defense Minister Henk Kamp stated that Dutch forces would not be "hunting Taliban" (like American forces there).

From the Australian side, the opposition Labor party commented today that no Australian servicemen should go into a "hostile sphere" for reconstruction projects without troop and air support.

The other NATO partners are worried (UK and Canada) that they may have to increase their contributions, something they have sworn they cannot afford.

Dutch question Afghanistan mission

After much debate in the alternative and mainstream media in the Netherlands, it seems that the Dutch Left has come together against the decision of Defence Minister Henk Kamp to authorize a deployment of 1,200 Dutch troops to Afghanistan in mid 2006. The troops would be deployed under the increased NATO contingent to the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) to the troubled "Taliban country" of Uruzgan Province, in the south central area of the country near Kandahar.


Taliban country? Must we?

Reuters reports that three parties, one of which is part of the ruling coalition, have expressed their opposition to the deployment. According to the New York Times, the issue will be debated in the Dutch parliament in a special hearing on January 26. A vote will take place on February 2, but the parliament does not appear to have the power to veto the deployment.

A Dutch opinion poll shows that 68% of the public is against the increased deployment to Uruzgan.

The Dutch opposition bases its objection to the mission on reports of anarchy, failed counter-insurgency and abuse by mainly US forces in Uruzgan.

A major worry for the Dutch opposition is the issue of detention during the inevitable counter-insurgency missions in the troubled region.

A number of sources have pointed to the film Taliban Country as a source for these doubts, after the film was featured in an Amsterdam magazine and on Dutch television.

Dutch rejection of the Uruzgan mission could cause big problems for NATO, as other contributing countries (Canada and the UK) claim they have already reached their deployment and funding limits.

Detention, serious issue for potential Dutch mission in Afghanistan

The Dutch government and media have been debating over recent weeks the viability of Dutch forces taking over control the Southern Afghan province of Uruzgan (under NATO command) in May 2006. The UK and NATO invited the Dutch to take control of this troubled province, as a part of the large expansion of NATO participation in the ISAF, International Security Assistance Force.

Reuters reported this week that Dutch Military Intelligence, the Military establishment and Cabinet members have real fears about the management of detention in such a possible deployment.

Aside from the documented killings of detainees in Kunar Province and Bagram by US forces, in Afghanistan, Uruzgan province has been the site of abuse-related controversy.

Allegations of mass detention of villagers in Uruzgan arose last year in the documentary Taliban Country, and of course most recently, two American soldiers were charged only weeks ago in connection with physically attacking detainees in the same province.

Articles in the Dutch alternative and mainstream media have raised the question as to whether it is in the national interest to send troops into a counterinsurgency-type situation.

Reuters reports that the Dutch will require a Memorandum of Understanding with the Afghan government specifically regarding detention.

It is important to observe that Holland's only other major peacekeeping operation, during the war in Bosnia, was widely considered a disaster. The shame and controversy over the perceieved Dutch battalion's failure at Srebrenica led to the resignation of an entire Dutch government.