What's in a Name?

Nouri al-Maliki: That's not funny

I know you are, but what am I?
--Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)

Every story tells a story
that has already been told.
--The Name of the Rose,
Umberto Eco
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The LA Times reports Iraqis have secret prisons, too (Secret Prisons Revealed in Iraq.) The gruesome particulars read like the Iraqis are taking a leaf from the U.S. playbook. Or maybe it's the other way 'round; in any event, they look the same.

From Al Jazeera:

"The Iraqi ministry of human rights has said two of its inspection teams have entered a facility, described as a "secret prison" by a Los Angeles Times newspaper report."

The Los Angeles Times reported Iraqi officials as saying that more than 100 prisoners had been tortured with electric shocks, suffocated with plastic bags or beaten.

UK-based human rights group Amnesty International urged Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, to investigate the allegations of abuses against the predominantly Sunni detainees.

"The existence of secret jails indicates that military units in Iraq are allowed to commit human rights abuses unchecked," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa deputy director, said in a statement on Monday.

"Maliki, who is looking to build a parliamentary majority following elections last month, has denied any knowledge of the prison, but Amnesty said that this did not absolve the government of responsibility (Iraq Ministry Enters "Secret Jail.)"

Human rights and Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) are mutually exclusive terms. Secret prisons and torture are no surprise, and hardly worthy of comment.

This little expose hardly causes a ripple in the daily news because we know the truth and prefer to ignore the facts. The fact is that the Iraq and Afghan governments will continue to operate extra-judicially, and who is to criticize them?

The U.S. has done the same things and called them "national security" and counter-terrorism. Names matter.

A U.S. that has secreted and illegally renditioned prisoners, kidnapped, assassinated, tortured and detained prisoners sans credible evidence or charges has no call to be surprised when our counterparts are doing the same.