New York Times Scoop: Families of Iraqi Terrorists are Very, Very Angry That We Fight and Arrest Them

A larger version of this photo, above the fold, three-quarters of the width of the broadsheet-- runs on today's New York Times page one.

With all the anger over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the scandal has deepened another reality for hundreds of Iraqi families — possibly thousands: a searing uncertainty over missing loved ones.

The accompanying article is full of surprising details, like the fact that the fates of many terrorists fighting a war against the US remain unclear, and that people who knew these solid citizens are very very sad about that:

Khraisan al-Aballi and his 80-year-old father were taken into custody, and for 10 days, he contends, he was tortured: stripped naked and forced to stand and kneel for hours; kicked and beaten with a stick; ordered to confess with a gun to his head.

The charge, he said, was that the family had been harboring one of Iraq's former vice presidents, Izzat Ibrahim — a man Mr. Aballi said he had never met.

Well, if he said so, then you've got a point!

A year later, Mr. Aballi still has the marks from the handcuffs on his wrists, as well as a deep scar of anger at Americans who he says moved too quickly from suspicion to torture and have not respected Iraqis enough to provide information as basic as whether his brother is alive or dead.

Hmmm... the man's body displays no outward physical evidence of abuse, apart from marks from handcuffs.

But this dilligent New York Times reporter looks deeper, and sees a wound that can never heal: "a deep scar of anger at Americans."

They're angling for another Pulitzer.

Note: Somehow this news-free non-story, which credulously prints up the claims of terrorists and terrorist-enablers as uncontroverted fact, slipped by the New York Times' famously conservative cadre of right-wing editors.

posted by Ace at 04:01 PM

| Access Comments