Sunday, May 27, 2007

Sorry, Red Cross inspectors -- US military beat you to it

This is good news. U.S. Frees 42 al-Qaida Captives in Raid

BAGHDAD (AP) -- U.S. forces raided an al-Qaida hide-out northeast of Baghdad on Sunday and freed 42 Iraqis imprisoned inside, including some who had been tortured and suffered broken bones, a senior U.S. military official said Sunday.

So the International Committee of the Red Cross sent its inspectors into the al-Qaeda prison and found evidence of torture, right?

Oh, wait, I forgot. While US Armed Forces are required by law to give al-Qaeda terrorists the courtesies of the Geneva Conventions (thanks, Senator McCain!), al-Qaeda feels no obligation to reciprocate such niceties. So who ratted out the location of this "prison"? Did Amnesty International avert its gaze from Israel and the US long enough to notice this atrocity and let the US military know about it? Not quite:

The raid was part of a 3-month-old security crackdown that included the deployment of 3,000 more U.S. troops to Diyala, a violent province north of the capital that has seen heavy fighting in recent weeks, said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq.

Caldwell said Iraqis told U.S. forces about the hide-out: "The people in Diyala are speaking up against al-Qaida."

Whoa -- you mean, the troop surge, combined with Iraqi citizens providing intelligence on al-Qaeda operations, is resulting in things like torture victims being freed? Whatever you do, don't tell Nancy Pelosi. She likes to think of Syria as the only force for good in the Middle East.

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