Dean's World

Welcome to the Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts of the week from Iraqi and Afghani bloggers. This week we've got torture in Jadriya, foreign support for the Taliban, Turkey as a portal for terrorists entering Iraq, and much, much more.

Afghan Lord reports that the Afghan government is concerned about the level of foreign support the Taliban is receiving.

24 Steps to Liberty has posted the final chapters in the journal of his trip to the United States early this year.

I said that I avoided linking to Iraqi ex-pats in the Carnival but this post from Faiza of A Family in Baghdad was just too much (commenting on the riots in France):

Why is the world moving backwards?
Would the solutions be arrests, curfews, and enforcing emergency laws that could last for months?
Why did they use to say Saddam Hussein was an unjust dictator…

Well, for a start, because he used to throw his political opponents alive into industrial shredders or use nerve gas on them. And being unemployed and comfortably on the dole in France is so much like being imprisoned in Iraq. Sheesh.

I liked this post from Abu Khaleel of A Glimpse of Iraq. He concludes:

This is where I want to live. This is where I want to be buried when I die… in the hope that my decomposed body will one day be food for a tall and proud palm tree.

Hassan of An Average Iraqi doesn't think that American forces should leave just yet and gives his reasons. Mohammed of Iraq the Model has some questions for Congressman Murtha and wonders “Who would benefit most from U. S. withdrawal from Iraq?”

The story of the week in the Iraqi blogosphere was clearly the one about abuse of prisoners by the present Iraqi in Jadriya. This story has been a lot bigger over there than here. To bring you up to speed:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq is investigating allegations of abuse after more than 160 prisoners were found locked in an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad, many of them beaten and malnourished and some apparently tortured.

The detainees were discovered on Sunday night during a raid by U.S. troops who were searching for a missing teenage boy.

The prisoners were found in an underground cell near an Interior Ministry compound in Jadriya, a central Baghdad neighborhood, and many of them showed signs of malnourishment and beatings, Iraqi officials and U.S. military sources said.

"There were 161 detainees in all and they were being treated in an inappropriate way ... they were being abused," Hussein Kamal, a deputy interior minister, told Reuters.

"I've never seen such a situation like this during the past two years in Baghdad, this is the worst," he told CNN.

"I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating, one or two detainees were paralyzed and some had their skin peeled off various parts of their bodies."

"This is totally unacceptable treatment and it is denounced by the minister and everyone in Iraq," he told Reuters.

Riverbend weighs in. Hammorabi has his own thoughts on the subject. So does Kurdo. Salam Pax is all over this story with posts on it here and here. But his best commentary is on the political aspect of the story:

I was watching a press conference held by the Ministry of Interior Affairs when I remembered that we are less than a month away from general elections. The minister was fierce. He defended all his officers and is very clearly ready to sink with them. He insists that there was nothing wrong happening at the Jaderiyah bunker and this has been just a case of bad shit-stirring by rival political parties.

I guess the bunker scandal was the starting shot for the mud-flinging phase of the election campaigns.

The post of the week is from Pearls of Iraq on the role of Turkey as a portal for jihadis entering Iraq. Miriam certainly has a distinct point-of-view.

You might find this new blog, My Letters to America, interesting. I certainly did. Hat tip: Iraq Blog Count.

Dave Schuler posts regularly to his own weblog, The Glittering Eye. The Carnival was originally conceived by Ryan Boots.