Dutch torture, with or without quotation marks

Yes, I know we're the nation that invented waterboarding, a gruesome method of coercion in which the victim gets the sensation of drowning.

But if Dutch soldiers have indeed done what left-wing newspaper De Volkskrant has literally called torture of Iraqi insurgents, then I wonder what else happened, except (a) turning on the radio, (b) putting ski goggles on them, (c) spraying them with water. Question: wouldn't keeping water away from them in that climate constitute torture? Or does throwing some water all of a sudden rate on the same scale as waterboarding?

I am not trying to be a right-wing stoneblind Fox News hack here. I distrust the government as much as anyone - it is exactly why I tend to vote towards the right of the spectrum.

I'll admit it is downright dodgy that secdef Henk 'The Tank' Kamp all of a sudden has announced a full investigation into what happened back in 2003 and which was supposedly adequately dealt with by the Dutch military police at the time. I agree with Pieter that keeping quiet about it was a huge mistake. Perhaps the free-market VVD party would do well not to let Mr. Kamp return after the elections.

But it is important to separate the issue of political incompetence from the matter of torture. After all, if torture has been willingly and knowingly committed by Dutch soldiers, Mr. Kamp has committed nothing less than criminal negligence by not acting sooner, as the current uproar makes Dutch soldiers serving in Uruzgan prime targets for the Taleban. Furthermore, these soldiers, and possibly some brass and perhaps even the secdef himself, would then be war criminals and should be treated as such.

But first, we need proof.

Mr. Kamp's investigation may be explained in one out of two possible ways: (1) he's stalling, as something really happened, and there's an election on Thursday, (2) he's not stalling, but wants to look thorough as well as diffuse the uproar from the Dutch left, as there's an election on Thursday.

Until I get enough information to be able to determine whether this was (a) a deliberate matter of torture driven by the need of military intelligence organization MIVD for information, or (b) a matter of prisoner mistreatment that the secdef was stupid enough not to inform Parliament about, please forgive me I am withholding judgment on a story which was broken by de Volkskrant, a newspaper with a history of 'October surprises'.

After all, there's an election on Thursday.

Oh, and dear Labour voting countrymen? There's plenty of scandalous behavior left the Dutch government will readily admit to. Such as a proposed ban on burqas. Which will never fly, but I am surprised there isn't more upheaval about a freedom-infringing law proposal. Next stop: prohibiting army boots since they tend to be worn by skinheads? I'm sure that will discourage them from being racists. In fact, if only Hitler had had a dress code, the Second World War might never even have happened!

(In case anyone is interested: I'm voting for this guy anyway - hey, what can I say, he's my neighbor, and he likes '24' as well... Just watch the vid on his site - I think the nukes are a bit much though.)

14:18

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