[politics] But hey! At least there aren't any more rape rooms!

No more mass graves, no more torture. Remember those promises we made in - what was it? April? May of 2003? Probaby around the time that the "Mission Accomplished" banner was unfurled? So what the fuck is this?

[...] an elite Special Operations forces unit took one of Saddam Hussein's former torture centers near Baghdad Airport and made it their own. They called it the Black Room. "In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball," the reporters relate. "Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.

But wait - this is but the merest of prologues.

"The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26. Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away. "Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, 'NO BLOOD, NO FOUL.' The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: 'If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it.' According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. 'The reality is, there were no rules there,' another Pentagon official said.

"...no rules there". So - anyone tried to track down that "Democracy! Whisky! Sexy!" guy to find out what he thinks now? Not so much 'democracy' or 'whisky' under the mullahs, eh? And as for 'sexy' - well, unless your idea of sexy crosses way past the line of 'safe, sane & consensual' and heads on into 'rape, torture and mutilation gives me a woody', this probaby isn't it.