FOX News mouthpiece Sean Hannity recently denounced the Egyptian protesters, rambling on about how made-by-America Iraq was the only democracy in the Arab world. To Hannity, it seems, no backward Arab people can achieve democracy without first getting a taste of American shock & awe.
We don't hear much about Iraq these days which is why creeps like Hannity are able to get away with lying about it. However all's not well, not by a country mile, in Mesopotamia. Democracy is faltering, at least if you measure such a thing by law and order, maintenance of the rule of law, transparency, curbs on corruption and other democratic niceties.
Human Rights Watch has released a report claiming that the Iraqi government is running a string of secret detention centres at which captives are routinely tortured.
One of the sites is at a military base where U.S. forces maintain an advisory team, the U.S. military confirmed.
Former prisoners who were held at another of the facilities, a military base in the Green Zone that was vacated by U.S. troops last summer, have told Human Rights Watch researchers that detainees there were regularly abused, by being hung upside down, beaten and given electric shocks to various body parts, including the genitals.
The Los Angeles Times first reported the existence of the Green Zone prison, which is being operated by the 56th Brigade of the Iraqi army and the Counter-Terrorism Service, both of which are controlled by the prime minister's office.
Well, unlike Saddam, at least the current Baghdad regime isn't out gassing its own people. Of course Saddam didn't either at the outset of his reign.
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