1 That's their culture. How dare you judge them.

2 That's right, Carlos. This is the 21st century. YOUR right is not MY right.

3 Google "honor killing" and "human rights"

I get about a gazillion hits, including NOW, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and several other liberal human rights groups. Many of them were on this issue before 9-11, before many conservatives knew about this. They are still on it.

do some research before you attack. It gives you that, certain...credibility.

4 I am not a bit surprised that many people in Turkey justify honor killings. After all, this attitude is coming from a society that denies its genocide against the Armenians.

5 It is very reassuring to me that Turkey is in line to be the next member of the European Union. Very reassuring indeed!

6 Uh, jd, I googled honor killings and human rights, checked out several of the page one entries, and what a treasure trove I found.

First, most of the condemnation of honor killings by liberal human rights organizations took place prior to 9/11, or just before the US invasion of Iraq. There is very little activity since then. I'll bet these organizations have been too busy since then pointing out all the human rights violations of the jihadists, like head chopping, mutilations, kidnappings, murders, rapes, and the like.

Second, I discovered that one of these liberal organizations, MADRE, blames the honor killings on, get this now folks, are you ready.......the US. The US and the colonialists put people in charge and want to deal with people who support honor killings. Now this is funny.

So here's the deal, if you want to end all evil in the World, all you have to do is destroy the US, the colonial oppressors in Europe(what's left of them), and Israel. The whole World would then be a paradise of radical Islamism, Communism, and Socialism. I can hardly wait!

7 When I see outrage over honor killings bump outrage over detainees' rights off the front page of the NYT, then I'll believe that human rights organizations are focusing their efforts in a fair, moral and ethical manner. To my knowledge, it hasn't happened thus far. It would also be nice to know why the feminists and women's rights organizations haven't been raising worldwide holy heck on the issue.

I also believe it's disingenuous to imply that enough is being done by the NGO human rights groups. Honor killing is bottom-drawer importance while detainees' rights is top shelf. The front pages tell which squeaky wheel gets greased and they are not conveying worldwide outrage and condemnation of honor killings.

8 >>>human rights organizations took place prior to 9/11, or just before the US invasion of Iraq. There is very little activity since then.

JJ,

that's the first thing that popped into my head when he mentioned Lefty condemnations of honor killings. I think Lefties have gone more or less silent on stuff like that ever since 9/11 for fear it might stir up the Rightwingers or give Bush some props in Iraq.

9 "I get about a gazillion hits, including NOW, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and several other liberal human rights groups. Many of them were on this issue before 9-11, before many conservatives knew about this. They are still on it."

Allow me to bring this statement up to the level of intellectual honesty. Members of these organizations and those who subscribe to the tenets of human rights are not limited to "liberals". Making a separate distinction between the "liberal human rights groups" and "many conservative's" ignorance of the specific issue of the abuse of women in Islam pre-9/11 is just plain deceptive. Since jd is our resident "honesty cop" I feel it necessary to make sure that we all understand that just as many liberals were just as unaware of the abuses these women suffer from.

Allow 'me' to make a distinction here. I see many conservative blogs out there raising the issue of the treatment of women in Islam almost daily. Odd that I see so few "liberal" blogs doing so. Rather they have chosen to take up the mantle of rights for suspected terrorists. And with a fervent passion too. Not that conservatives have an exclusive on which human rights count and which don't, mind you. But these actions speak louder than just some insinuation of liberal compassion and conservative ignorance.

10 Oyster is right. If you did a random national survey of liberals and conservatives in the general population in 2000, I bet levels of ignorance about honor killing would track much more with general education and travel than with ideology.

As for waiting for honor killing to replace detainee abuse on the frontpage of the NYT, or anywhere in our media, that's not going to happen. Why? Not because the media is controlled by liberals who support honor killings, and hate America. Rather, it is because the media, and the American people, its consumers, don't give a rat's ass about the rest of the world, compared to how much we care about things that actually involve Americans, either as abusers or abusees. We have a very provincial media, and it is becoming increasingly so. The percentage of time in the average news broadcast that is given to overseas news is growing smaller, not larger. When the Supreme Court hands down Hamdan, or any other major ruling, that makes 100 times the news of any honor killing, anywhere. Pick any social ill in the developing world (forced female circumcision, killings of homosexuals, oppression of ethnic minorities, etc) and it just doesn't get major coverage here in the media until Americans are involved.

And I think it speaks WELL of the international human rights groups that they were involved in this issue before 9-11, and contra Jesusland, they are STILL involved in it(and Oyster, the reason I called them liberal is because that's common here at Jawa, but you're right, it is possible to be a member of Amnesty and not be a liberal. It is, however, impossible to be a member of Amnesty and not be CALLED a liberal by people like many Jawa bloggers)

Honor killings are an ugly stain on the Muslim world, and they are being fought, abroad and at home, by many different groups. Just because you don't KNOW about it, don't assume it isn't happening. It would be the same as a liberal saying "if conservatives really cared about human rights, they'd be working against honor killing! But since I never heard of them doing it, they are more interested in getting oil for their rich backers!" It's ignorant prejudice, not fact-based analysis.

11 jd has an excuse for every liberal/leftist group out there, irregardless of what they do. What is your excuse for the terrorist enabler Silva at the NYT, jd?

And frankly, I am underwhelmed at all the publicity and "fight" shown by the international human rights groups in their effort to stop honor killings, which now are spreading into the West and are now happening in places like Germany, France, and Britain.

I'll make another prediction here, jd, and I will bet you that we will soon be seeing honor killings/murders in Canada, followed by the US and Australia. As sharia law spreads, its culture of violence(rapes, murders, beatings, etc.) against women will spread with it, and the Leftist/liberal "human rights groups" will be in the vanguard supporting the spread of sharia law into all parts of the West.

12 I totally disagree. I think when liberalism comes face to face with sharia, it will recoil in horror. It has already happened with honor killings in Netherlands and Germany, as you point out.

13 jd,

I agree. And when that happens you will no longer be Liberals, you will become conservatives and join us over here on the Dark Side. Until then, you Libs can pretend you're righteous dudes, while we conservatives are busy taking all the heat.

14 Well, that would be true if the policies of conservatives were actually effective at combatting islamofascism. I think the war in Afghanistan was, but that was a bipartisan war, that a president Gore would have launched with equal vehemence. The war in Iraq, I believe, will be judged by history as one of the greatest blunders in American foreign policy, because it not only did not strike a blow against islamofascism, but actually assisted it (unwittingly, but predictably).

And, on the specific 'honor killing' aspects of Sharia, I think I established above that international human rights groups ARE involved in fighting this, at least as effectively as conservative groups, if not more.

15 Personally, I see human rights groups as not liberal or conservative. Only right or wrong. If one is a liberal, calling them "liberal" is a way to claim them as one's own or as jd does, to simply say, "Hey - you're the one's calling them liberal. I'm just repeating it." If one is a conservative who calls them "liberal", it's a way to attack their policy of painting conservatives as the enemy. Liberals misunderstand that simple difference.

The people who are truly against the idea of human rights and upholding them as they are written; the right to pursue your own destiny, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not conservatives. They are absolute fascists. The reason conservative are so exasperated with human rights groups is that they do not differentiate between those who forfeit certain rights by their actions and those who are victims of those actions. Their condemnation of the US if we don't provide Korans to combat detainees and their condemnation of men who beat and physically maim their women is equal in its application. I won't even bring up their perpetuation of myths such as flushing Korans and lending credence to any outlandish accusation that comes down the pipeline whether based on fact or not.

THAT, my friend, is exactly the sort of thing that is slowly, but surely, changing the definition of the term "liberal" to mean "leftist". Everyone is not equal in every essence.

16 Oyster--do you really think access to the Koran is the biggest beef the human rights groups have against US treatment of detainees?

the pentagon itself has documented these abuses:

beating a detainee with a metal bat (several different incidents, one died from it)

Purposefully chaining a detainee to a post overnight in the Afghan winter, to get him to talk. He died of exposure.

Threatening to kill the children and wife of a detainee, in order to get him to talk in Iraq.

Punishing detainees in Abu by forcing objects up their rectums, violently.

Killing a prisoner by forcing his arms into such a position that his lungs collapsed.

Pulling a detainee by a chain through vomit and feces, to get him to talk.

Piling detainees up in naked pyramids, to soften them up for questioning the next day.

Mocking the religion of detainees, forcing them to violate their religious beliefs, and exposing them to fake menstrual blood.

Savagely beating detainees as punishment for trying to escape.

These are only SOME of what our own government admits our forces have done. I think these abuses, and many others, are more significant than access to the Koran, although I do believe that is also important.

All that said, I would still rather be a Talib captured by US forces than an American captured by islamofascists. But we, the United States of America, should aspire to a higher standard than simply being better than animals.

Also--the "koran flushed down a toilet" story appears to be inaccurate. But numerous examples of Koran abuse have been documented--stamping on, ripping, urinating on. The ONE that turned out to be false outweighs all the others for you, apparently.

17 Oh, and I forgot waterboarding. I met up with a group of international law students last week. You can't imagine how angry they were about Abu, Gitmo, secret CIA prisons. These were not leftists. These were not America's enemies. These were America's potential and former friends, lost to us because of one president's extraordinary lack of judgment.

18 Oh, and Oyster---PLEASE don't think that I'm saying we are as bad as the Islamofascists. We are better, even with all the things I list above. And please don't imagine that I ignore islamofascists' beheadings, honor killings, female circumcision, torture, genocide, religious oppression...all of that is true, and all of it is evil, pure and simple.

But their evil does not justify our evil, even if our evil worked. The sad truth is that it is not even a case of the ends justifying the means--this conduct actually hurts our ends. We are farther from victory because we torture. We are farther from defeating our enemies because we break the Geneva Convention. Patriotic Americans should want what Colin Powell so wisely advised==that America live up to its promises to the world. We are, through our conduct, creating more terrorists than we are killing. Thus, the conduct is not only reprehensible, but judged by its effects, it is also stupid. Criminally stupid, in the best sense of the phrase.

19 Give me some links to these examples of torture you so carelessly throw out there, jd. And I don't mean silly sites like Indymedia, Kos, Atrios and those dumb butts on the Left, where propaganda is all that is served up.

20 fair enough request, Jesusland. How's this? Please remember that I don't believe EVERY account: Al Qaeda trains its people to allege torture. But so many of these have been documented that it's not just lies by our enemies.

Taguba Report:
http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/iraq/tagubarpt.html

This extraordinary piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker shows how torture was chosen, deliberately, by the administration. Abu is not the mistakes of a few guys doing "frat pranks" like Rush has been telling you.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?060227fa_fact

You'll be shocked, but the "lightest" account comes from ABC's account of a CIA internal report on abuses by its interrogators. They note several of the deaths, including one I referenced
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866

Human Rights Watch documents a number of abuses, I'll clip the first page, and you can get the rest:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/us0405/4.htm

As a consequence of these policies, which were approved at least by cabinet-level officials of the U.S. government, the United States has been implicated in crimes against detainees across the world — in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in secret detention centers, as well as in countries to which suspects have been rendered. At least 26 prisoners are said to have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspected were acts of criminal homicide.22 Overall, according to a compilation by the Associated Press, at least 108 people have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and Iraq.23

What follows is a brief summary of what is now known:

Afghanistan
Nine detainees are now known to have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan — including four cases already determined by Army investigators to be murder or manslaughter. Former detainees have made scores of other claims of torture and other mistreatment.

In March 2004, prior to the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos, Human Rights Watch released an extensive report documenting cases of U.S. military personnel arbitrarily detaining Afghan civilians, using excessive force during arrests of non-combatants, and mistreating detainees. Detainees held at military bases in 2002 and 2003 described to Human Rights Watch being beaten severely by both guards and interrogators, deprived of sleep for extended periods, and intentionally exposed to extreme cold, as well as other inhumane and degrading treatment.24 In December 2004, Human Rights Watch raised additional concerns about detainee deaths, including one alleged to have occurred as late as September 2004.25 In March 2005, The Washington Post uncovered another death that occurred in CIA custody, noting that the case was under investigation but that the CIA officer implicated had been promoted.26

Guantánamo Bay, Cuba
There is growing evidence that detainees at Guantánamo have suffered torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Reports by FBI agents who witnessed detainee abuse — including the forcing of chained detainees to sit in their own excrement — have recently emerged, adding to the statements of former detainees describing the use of painful stress positions, extended solitary confinement, use of military dogs to threaten them, threats of torture and death, and prolonged exposure to extremes of heat, cold and noise.27 Videotapes of riot squads subduing suspects reportedly show the guards punching some detainees, tying one to a gurney for questioning and forcing a dozen to strip from the waist down.28 Ex-detainees said they had been subjected to weeks and even months in solitary confinement — which was at times either suffocatingly hot or cold from excessive air conditioning — as punishment for failure to cooperate during interrogations or for violations of prison rules.29

According to press reports in November 2004, the International Committee of the Red Cross told the U.S. government in confidential reports that its treatment of detainees has involved psychological and physical coercion that is “tantamount to torture.”30

Iraq
Harsh and coercive interrogation techniques such as subjecting detainees to painful stress positions and extensive sleep deprivation have been routinely used in detention centers throughout Iraq. A panel appointed by the Secretary of Defense noted 55 substantiated cases of detainee abuse in Iraq, plus twenty instances of detainee deaths still under investigation.31 The earlier investigative report of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba found “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” constituting “systematic and illegal abuse of detainees” at Abu Ghraib.32 Another Pentagon report documented 44 allegations of such war crimes at Abu Ghraib.33 An ICRC report concluded that in military intelligence sections of Abu Ghraib, “methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information.”34

CIA “Disappearances” and Torture
At least eleven al-Qaeda suspects, and most likely many more, have “disappeared” in U.S. custody. The CIA is holding the detainees in undisclosed locations, with no notification to their families, no access to the International Committee of the Red Cross or oversight of any sort of their treatment, and in some cases, no acknowledgement that they are even being held, 35 effectively placing them beyond the protection of the law. One detainee, Khalid Shaikh Muhammed (a presumed architect of the 9/11 attacks), was reportedly subjected to waterboarding. It was also reported that U.S. officials initially withheld painkillers from detainee Abu Zubayda, who was shot during his capture, as an interrogation device.36

21 Incidentally, one of the reports talks about how some of the intel that led to the invasion of Iraq came from our torture of an Al Qaeda operative called "The Libyan." (al libbi). He was waterboarded, and subjected to freezing temperatures for days on end (doused with water in his cell, naked, so cold that he could not sleep for days). I'm not feeling a lot of sympathy for him, he was, unlike some of those tortured, guilty of supporting terror acts. But it is CRUCIAL to understand that he told numerous false stories to try and get the treatment stopped--stories about Al Qaeda-Iraq cooperation that when we investigated after the war--turned out to be totally false. As our professional interrogators have known for YEARS--torture doesn't work as well as other interrogation techniques because when you torture someone--they'll say anything to stop the torture. Ironically, if Libbi had told the truth--that there was very little operational contact between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and none of it involved WMD--he might have been tortured longer.

22 Hey, Joe--are you going to say anything about these reports? Any response to my fulfilling your request that I back this up? Do you believe now? Or do you still doubt?

23 Detainees? Why not call them scum-sucking goat-fucking sub-human filth? Or I suppose we should send in human-rights activists to protect their sorry asses!?

24 Larry--perhaps because we don't know they are all guilty. Numerous Gitmo and Abu and Bagram detainees have been released because they were either no longer deemed a threat or in fact our own government admitted that they had been arrested in error. In other words--they just spent 2-4 years in confinement, with no access to attorneys in many cases, no way to show they were innocent.

Imagine, Larry, that a foreign government arrested you, accused you of something you were innocent of, separated you from your family for 4 years, denied you access to attorneys or to relatives, subjected you to waterboarding, 20 hour interrogations, forced you to violate your religious faith, at least symbolically, etc etc...and then said...oops. Sorry about that. Our bad.

You'd be okay with that?

25 I havn't time to worry about about the fate of the
" detainees ". I'm too busy worrying about whose head will be cut off next. If you have time to worry then you are a better man than I, J.D.

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