Pakistan | The last battle | Economist.com: "The government’s long reluctance to use force at the Lal Masjid had a simple explanation: it wanted to avoid bloodshed. But it has prompted other, less charitable, interpretations. The two brothers and their father, who founded the mosque, had close connections with Pakistan’s powerful intelligence services. As a reminder of the extremist danger, the Lal Masjid helped bolster General Musharraf’s image as a bastion of “enlightened moderation” in Islam. So too, without belittling General Musharraf’s undoubted courage, did the latest attempt on his life, by machine-guns aiming at his distant helicopter."
Evidence of torture used in Iraq | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics : "The Foreign Office says the 'government, including its intelligence and security agencies, never use torture for any purpose' ( MI5 and MI6 to be sued for first time over torture, September 12). The evidence in the public domain from the court martial into the death of Baha Mousa and the serious abuse of 10 other Iraqi civilians is clear in establishing this is not true. UK armed forces went into Iraq with a written policy that allowed hooding, and with a policy of training interrogators to use hooding, stressing and sleep deprivation to gain intelligence. Iraqi civilians were routinely hooded in up to three sandbags - and even old plastic cement bags. When Baha Mousa died in September 2003, partly as a result of abuse while hooded, common sense dictates that at least at that point those in positions of responsibility within the civil service and military would have acted to change the poli...
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