It's sad these poor Iraqi schleps were caught up in
this. Limbaugh will be happy to use it on Monday morning in his defense of American torture:
ARRAF: What I see in front of me is absolutely heartbreaking. It's two of four hostages who are being taken away, rescued. They were rescued this morning. They're Iraqi, and they were found in this complex that Marines first thought was a car-bomb factory. In fact, they did find what they believe was a potential car bomb or suicide car bomb.
But inside this complex, they found something even more sinister -- four Iraqis who were handcuffed, their hands and feet bound with steel cuffs. They're now being taken away for medical treatment, one being borne away on a stretcher.
More below...
The man in intense pain that they're trying to get into a vehicle, has been tortured, he says, and has all the marks of being tortured with electricity. His back is crisscrossed with welts. The other man is even ... in worse shape. Their crime was to be part of the border police.
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But we have just watched the two who were most badly treated be carried out of here for medical equipment, one of them on a stretcher, an older man who worked for the border police, along with his colleague. ... the Marines showed us the room where he says he was hung by his feet, his head dipped in water and then tortured with electric shocks repeatedly.
One of the other men, the other border police, was too weak, really, to tell us what had happened. But he obviously was in very, very bad shape.
They were rescued this morning as Marines and Iraqi forces came into this complex, which included an underground bunker, weapons stockpiles and other things, and found them here. Their captors have fled.
This is a gift from CNN to Limbaugh/Hannity and all the other American savages that condone torture. This story will be perpetuated throughout the American media in the coming week, used as a comparative device to minimize the actions of our own government.
The rest of the story is quite chilling. The Marines are involved in another sweep of Western Iraq, the so called "troubled Anbar province," where they've been slugging it out for quite a long time. Watch for attacks on the Syrian government to come from stories like this.
NGUYEN: Jane, you mentioned the discovery of a car-bomb factory. What else has the military found there?
ARRAF: They found quite a lot of weapons. This is thought to be an area where foreign fighters have really taken hold. They still come from the Syrian border, which is just five miles away. And there were thought to originally be at least 100 of them here. ...
We were in a school, a girls' school just next to the place we are now, and there were weapons stockpiled there, land mines. ... But on the blackboard, somewhere where schoolgirls would normally be learning their ABCs, there was a diagram for a relay system for homemade bombs.
This is an area of town where insurgents really do appear to have taken over and they have left evidence of it, even though in many cases, it seems, they themselves have fled.
NGUYEN: And when we talk about these captors and the insurgents in this fight that is going on right now -- we can hear it in the background there -- with the U.S. Marines, these foreign fighters, is there some fear that they may have already crossed into the Syrian border?
ARRAF: It is very close to Syria and it's believed there are still what they consider "rad lines," which are ways that they come across through the Syrian border. They are not saying that the Syrian government is responsible. Some military officials are saying clearly the Syrian government could perhaps be doing a better job.
But it's a very porous border and we have to understand that this is a part of the country that is not Baghdad, it's not Basra, it's not a cosmopolitan city. It is the Wild West, in a sense, of Iraq.
Interesting that CNN provides some acknowledgement that the insurgency is dynamic and evolving. No discussion of last throes here.