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RESULT UNEXPECTED

Andrew Anthony on an unnoticed program broadcast in Britain:

Buried away in the schedules with almost no advance publicity was Lie Lab. Making use of new techniques in magnetic resonance imaging, the programme set out to discover if its subjects were telling the truth. Last week those subjects were Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, better known as two-thirds of the Tipton Three.

That was the name given to the three young men who were picked up in Afghanistan in late 2001 by American forces and transported to Guantanamo Bay, where they were held without charges or trial for two years before being released back to Britain.

Campaigners for the men have always maintained they were innocent tourists-cum-aid workers, caught up in the invasion of Afghanistan. This was also the line of Michael Winterbottom’s film, The Road to Guantanamo. And given the tone and approach of Lie Lab, it also seemed to be a belief shared by the programme makers.

But at the end of what was actually a rather dry and laborious piece of science TV, when confronted with results that suggested he was less than forthcoming with the truth, Ahmed confessed (Rasul had refused to go through with the test) not only to visiting an Islamist training camp but also handling weapons and learning how to use an AK47.

None of which justifies or excuses his sub-legal and subhuman treatment in Guantanamo, but it does raise some questions about the portrayal, insome quarters of the media, of the Tipton Three as blameless heroes. The Lie Lab seemed almost embarrassed by its findings and was neither prepared, nor set up, to follow through on the story. But perhaps another TV programme might one day ask what a British citizen (or citizens) was doing at a guerrilla training camp, learning to fire weapons, in the middle of a war.

Via Garth and Hurry Up Harry, where a reader observes:

So a television documentary managed to get confessions that two years of internment in Guantanamo failed to extract.

They must have tortured him!

Posted by Tim B. on 06/06/2007 at 05:01 AM
  1. None of which justifies or excuses his sub-legal and subhuman treatment in Guantanamo, but it does raise some questions about the portrayal

    spoken like an enemy sympathizing fucktard. ESF’s should be put against a wall and shot. There was a time when such was considered the proper remedy for such gross loss of fidelity and honor. But that was back when the general intention was to win wars and survive as a culture.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2007 06 06 at 05:14 AM • permalink

  2. They must have tortured him!

    If the show hosts are anything like those we get on shows here, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he confessed right after meeting them to avoid further meetings.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 06 06 at 05:24 AM • permalink

  3. You gotta hand it to the journalistic profession.

    Ahmed, when confronted with his long list of outright lies, confessed to terrorist training. The journalist confidently asserts that this doesn’t justify his ‘sub-legal and subhuman treatment’.

    But the only evidence of that bad treatment is his own testimony. Did it occur to the journalist that lying might compromise one’s reputation for truthfulness?

    Posted by lyle on 2007 06 06 at 05:45 AM • permalink

  4. Does it not occur to these geniuses that if Ahmed rolled over so easily for them that perhaps it didn’t require “sub-human” treatment for him to do the same at Gitmo?  Or that, just maybe, there was a just cause for their designation as unlawful combatants?

    They cannot give up their prized conviction that it is the U.S. that is the enemy.  The evidence of their own senses merely causes them some embarrassment, but doesn’t cause them to question their thinking.  This is an evasion for which there is no excuse.  They are consciously choosing evil.

    Posted by saltydog on 2007 06 06 at 06:08 AM • permalink

  5. What next - a Jihad on The Lie lab?

    Posted by egg_ on 2007 06 06 at 06:22 AM • permalink

  6. On the Tipton Three wikipedia page it states that Ahmed was refused a visa to come to Oz to promote his film.

    Posted by bondo on 2007 06 06 at 06:30 AM • permalink

  7. A search on google reveals basically nothing of this story.  Now imagine if a crafty reporter came up with documents that proved that their claims of torture and mistreatment were true.  can you imagine the outrage?  Instant google front page and all over the news.  What is the response to this?

    ** crickets chirping **

    What a fucking disgrace.

    Posted by bondo on 2007 06 06 at 06:42 AM • permalink

  8. O/T Just read this at the “road to surfdom” site and pissed my self laughing…..

    “Fairfax newspapers are pretty much oozing rightwards year by year, as I see it, so it’s a pleasure to read Catherine Deveny’s op ed articles”

    Posted by sparrow on 2007 06 06 at 06:57 AM • permalink

  9. It’s the same everywhere. Put a TV camera in front of people and they’ll tell the world things they wouldn’t tell their best friend or spouse.

    Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2007 06 06 at 07:00 AM • permalink

  10. What a fucking disgrace.

    Our acquiesces is just as much a disgrace. Those who’ve made it their habit to so indulge in open betrayal only do so because it costs them nothing.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2007 06 06 at 07:01 AM • permalink

  11. Did they put on much weight during the filming of this program?

    Posted by mr creosote on 2007 06 06 at 07:38 AM • permalink

  12. I read elsewhere that journalist Wolf Blitzer asked Guiliani the other night what he’d do if Petraeus reported little or no progress as a result of the “surge”.
    Rudi turned the hypothetical back on Blitzer, asking whether he’d report progress when it happened.
    We have become used to media running the negative line. They also run the “innocent” line way beyond its use-by date.
    The proponents of fake “freedom of speech” and “human rights” cannot see the train coming right down their tunnel of vision.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 06 06 at 08:48 AM • permalink

  13. When they answer these questions in the scanner, the technology doesn’t quite give them the response they had hoped for.

    Emphasis is mine, and pretty much says it all.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 06 06 at 09:10 AM • permalink

  14. And at what stage does MI5 quietly taking them out the back and hanging them seem like a bad idea?
    The UK is stuffed.

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 06 06 at 09:18 AM • permalink

  15. Hee hee. Life imitates The Onion.

    Posted by Rittenhouse on 2007 06 06 at 09:19 AM • permalink

  16. #3 lyle:

    “Ahmed, when confronted with his long list of outright lies, confessed to terrorist training. The journalist confidently asserts that this doesn’t justify his ‘sub-legal and subhuman treatment’.” 

    I 100% agree with the journalist. They should’ve summarily shot the guy on capture in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

    Posted by brett_l on 2007 06 06 at 10:30 AM • permalink

  17. New techniques in magnetic resonance imaging - Wow! a taqqiya detector, used by leftards against jihadists. How ironic!
    Where do I get one?
    The Australian govt. should use these to screen immigrants whose religion/ideology calls for our destruction. And how come the Yanks didn’t use one on them while they were in Gitmo?
    Did Lie Lab ask them if they were lying about their ‘torture’ at the ‘Gitmo gulag/fat camp’?
    The al Qaeda manual says:
    .....Lesson Eighteen
    PRISONS AND DETENTION CENTERS
    IF AN INDICTMENT IS ISSUED AND THE TRIAL, BEGINS, THE BROTHER HAS TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING:
    1 . At the beginning of the trial, once more the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security [investigators ]before the judge.
    2. Complain [to the court] of mistreatment while in prison….....
    I must have superhuman/magnetic resonance imaging powers because I knew these ‘brothers’ were telling porkies from the start.

    Posted by Skid Marx on 2007 06 06 at 10:43 AM • permalink

  18. In a photo op gone tragically wrong, the late Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton spontaneously combusted, destroying a $500,000 MRI unit, when asked an unscripted question about her true feelings for husband Bill.

    The technician on monitor watch had to forcibly dragged from the control room and sedated, hysterically screaming “Yog-Sothoth! Yog-Sothoth!” over and over again…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 06 at 10:50 AM • permalink

  19. #18 richard:
    I believe I felt the ghost of Lovecraft shudder in horror and disgust. There are lines which even he would not cross.

    Also, I’m not sure that her brain is wired to tell true from false, so it might not work. Best way to tell would be to see if dissociative schizos give the ‘lie’ indicator when discussing their perceptions.

    Posted by brett_l on 2007 06 06 at 11:21 AM • permalink

  20. “None of which justifies or excuses his sub-legal and subhuman treatment in Guantanamo…”

    Not this bullshit again.

    1.)  Under the Geneva Conventions not only can we hold captured enemy soldiers (be they legal or illegal combatants) indefinitely “without charges or trial”, we can also hold ANY civilian we deem to be a threat to security.  It’s right there in the 4th Convention.  Try reading it sometime.  There’s nothing “sublegal” it.

    2.)  Not one captive held at Guantanamo has died (except a couple or three guys who offed themselves) in all the years we’ve been warehousing “vacationing” jihadists in sunny Cuba.  That’s got to be a record for POW camps…the safest POW camp ever.  So spare me the subhuman crap.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 06 06 at 12:08 PM • permalink

  21. Best method to beat a lie detector:  From the TV series Seinfeld,

    George to Jerry: “Remember, its not a lie if you believe it.”

    If the above is true, we have a scientfic method in which to quantitatively measure cognitive dissonance in leftists.

    Posted by Mark Razak on 2007 06 06 at 12:17 PM • permalink

  22. Disgraceful is the word for it, but this will be quietly swept under the carpet. Don’t want anything challenging the accepted narrative, do they.

    14 - frollickingmole - That would be the ideal solution.

    Posted by Simon Darkshade on 2007 06 06 at 12:24 PM • permalink

  23. What annoys me is these three wanna be terrorists are referred to as Britons. A dog born in a barn does not make it a horse does it..

    Posted by jon crow on 2007 06 06 at 12:33 PM • permalink

  24. >The UK is stuffed.


    We are all stuffed.  Do you really think that “The West” will be around in 100 years?  My only concilation is that by then I will be dead. 

    I am convinced that before the decade is out, one of the great old Cathedrals of England will be converted into a mosque, in the name of tolerance (Moslems have already taken over some churches in Belgium).

    Posted by Room 237 on 2007 06 06 at 02:04 PM • permalink

  25. STOP PRESS
    BREAKING
    RE: LILEKS

    First Post!

    (Cross-posted. Andrea forgive me!)

    Posted by Old Grouch on 2007 06 06 at 02:24 PM • permalink

  26. So a television documentary managed to get confessions that two years of internment in Guantanamo failed to extract.

    Yeah, some subhuman treatment that must have been at Guantanamo.

    Posted by PW on 2007 06 06 at 04:26 PM • permalink

  27. OT:

    Holy crap, I’m currently watching one of those popular-science TV shows, and

    a) it has asserted that there’s more to the climate than the influence of CO2,
    b) that several other factors are still poorly understood,
    c) that one of those factors is the Sun and that its influence is often understated
    d) has pointed out that the climate has been much more variable in the distant past than it’s been during the past ~10,000 years (the icecore graph they showed would be an instant debate-ender if the True Believers cared about such things as objective evidence), and
    e) has just started having a go at the basic uselessness of climate models.

    I think I’m about to faint.

    Posted by PW on 2007 06 06 at 04:38 PM • permalink

  28. #25, the Lileks post is excellent, but beware the Star-Trib registration page.  I was immediately assaulted by a virus.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 06 06 at 04:42 PM • permalink

  29. Wow, even the “plants are all sweetness and light when it comes to the greenhouse effect” claim just got demolished by pointing out that while they remove CO2 from the atmosphere, their decay emits the much more potent methane.

    And the validity of climate models was just compared to Tarot card sessions.

    Posted by PW on 2007 06 06 at 04:42 PM • permalink

  30. Last OT:

    Well, that was an unexpectedly satisfying half-hour of TV, and on one of the state channels, to boot. Particularly ironic that it followed the nightly news which had an interview with the German foreign minister, banging on about climate change - his number for the “years until unavoidable catastrophe” sweepstakes was 15, BTW.

    Posted by PW on 2007 06 06 at 04:51 PM • permalink

  31. #20 Dave, I could go a holiday at Camp Gitmo under those conditions. My only concern is that I don’t want to get fat. I’m quite happy at my current weight, thank you very much.

    Great food, plenty of exercise, a bunch of blokes in uniforms to perve on, all the religious books one can eat, what’s not to love?

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 06 at 05:36 PM • permalink

  32. #31, Nilknarf:

    A woman that’s happy with her current weight and admits to enjoying a good perve. You are consistently drawing closer to the rank of “perfect” in rating.

    All the women posting here have also passed the rate of “ideal” and are working their way up the ranks too, so dont get big headed. You’ve got some good competition.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2007 06 06 at 06:02 PM • permalink

  33. I guess, Grimmy, I shouldn’t mention the chef the catering company sent today.  Wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers. >perv-sigh<

    Posted by missred on 2007 06 06 at 06:28 PM • permalink

  34. #32 Grimmy, it gets better than that - I don’t care if the toilet seat is left up or down, and I share the remote.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 06 at 06:37 PM • permalink

  35. I love Tim Blair.

    Remember, Blair news, it’s gutsy and it’s good!

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 06 06 at 06:44 PM • permalink

  36. #34 That’s it, I want a chromosome check. If you are female, “Nilknarf”, my wife’s got some explaining to do when she gets home.

    Posted by Dminor on 2007 06 06 at 06:55 PM • permalink

  37. #33 And missred, not the sort of lewd comment I’d expect from an empress. Where have all the nice girls gone? My ears are burning.

    But yes, you’re all invited to my next party!

    Posted by Dminor on 2007 06 06 at 06:58 PM • permalink

  38. #36 Don’t bother, Dminor - I’m just a freak :) The exception that proves the rule.

    And I fix my own leaking taps and stuff.

    Scary, hey.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 06 at 07:46 PM • permalink

  39. As an unrelated aside, has anyone noticed that soon after the US media reported that Bush ordered the CIA to help overthrow the Iranian government, a huge cyclone started heading for Iran?

    I blame global, um, something myself.

    Posted by Room 237 on 2007 06 06 at 08:02 PM • permalink

  40. For Science’s sake, PW, tell us the name of the show so we can catch it!!

    Back to the lying brothers.  I have a colleague who has been insisting that there are no ‘parties’ that are not covered by the Geneva Conventions.  I kept insisting that the Gitmo detainees are not covered and asked for her cites.  She gave me a 50 page paper by one of those whiny Lefty legal types (hmmmmm, are there any other kind?) that so states and lists still another source.  I looked that one up and it’s the freaking ICRC.  They cite no part of the Conventions themselves or any court or trials convened under them, nor any national or international tribunals.  The ICRC just flat states that “no one is not covered.”

    Fatuity.

    Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 06 06 at 08:28 PM • permalink

  41. Just caught on ABC2 last night the first part of the 4 Corners hatchet job on evil AmeriKKKa and its mistreatment of kidnapped munchkins in its “so-called” “War on Terror”; I wish the lottery numbers were as predictable.

    Nary a mention of anywhere else in the world, especially the enemys brutal tratment and summary execution of uniformed soldiers and policemen, and uninvolved civilians. Instead, Abu Grahib was disinterred again and used as an example of everyday interrogation (despite the fact that the purpetrators are all banged up in Leavenworth), and a couple of Clinton era appointees who have books on the market were presented as former insiders with an informed, objective point of view, and no vested interest in peddling bollocks to the Michael Moore moonpie demographic.

    Straight after Moronica Retard on Meeja Witch put forward the interesting opinion that a web radio station that said whatever it likes and was rude about whoever it likes (subject of course to civil and criminal statute) is very naughty, and needs to be brought under the supervision of bluenose bureaucrats, politically correct pillocks and the perpetually indignant.

    The troops running the station in question were rank amateurs in the villification and insult stakes, I’m sure we could do a much better job- personally I think it’s rather a boffo idea, but no doubt the idea of unfettered freedom of speech is an anathema to the ABC and it’s few fans.

    BTW Monica, if you are in need of being outraged, I suggest you google Youtube Derek and Clive- you may discover that insulting everyone is not a new, radical concept.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 06 06 at 08:40 PM • permalink

  42. 18 richard

    In a photo op gone tragically wrong, the late Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton spontaneously combusted, destroying a $500,000 MRI unit, when asked an unscripted question about her true feelings for husband Bill.

    The technician on monitor watch had to forcibly dragged from the control room and sedated, hysterically screaming “Yog-Sothoth! Yog-Sothoth!” over and over again…

    NOW THAT IS TOP RATE….LMFAO, (laughing my fool ass off) funniest damn thing, I’ve read here in a long while.

    Posted by El Cid on 2007 06 06 at 08:46 PM • permalink

  43. OH, it seems that some of Le Femmes here, are getting a bit racy.

    God, I love it when I type with all 11 fingers…:).

    Posted by El Cid on 2007 06 06 at 08:49 PM • permalink

  44. #41
    The mere thought of “AM” or “PM” drivetime radio with habib would make them shudder. I know it has that effect on me. And then there’s the guests… 

    #43
    “They’re good sheilas Bruce and not at all stuck up.”

    Now I shall resume my post as officer in charge of the sheep dip.

    Posted by Pickles on 2007 06 06 at 09:56 PM • permalink

  45. #41
    Didn’t Moniker Phatarse marry a Ruski when she was an ABC Forrie Corrie there?
    How PC are Ruskis, FFS?
    Or does she juz keep her ‘Alpha male’ caged up at home, away from the PC public?
    Villification is OK if it’s dressed up as ‘Comedy’ on Auntie’s Ballless Collective?

    Posted by egg_ on 2007 06 06 at 10:27 PM • permalink

  46. #43
    God, I love it when I type with all 11 fingers…:).

    Here’s an instant remedy: Meeja Crotch featuring Moniker doing a Sharon Stone ...

    Posted by egg_ on 2007 06 06 at 10:44 PM • permalink

  47. You can only villify HoWARd, Bushitlerbigmachalliburtonjesusboy, heterosexual white employed males and females and anyone skeptical or dismissive of any phantom panic du jour, especially those who can actually spot the elephant in the living room.

    BTW- I reckon Woger Hodgson and his record company have been a bit slow off the mark in not re-releasing this- I reckon it’d sell like solar-warmed cakes (no GM ingredients) at one of the Alapaloosa gigs.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 06 06 at 10:46 PM • permalink

  48. #46 Please egg_, don’t write something like that again.

    The chunky bits are so hard to extract from the keyboard.

    Posted by Dminor on 2007 06 06 at 11:00 PM • permalink

  49. O/T. The Ned Kelly wannabe has been shorn

    Posted by burrah on 2007 06 06 at 11:08 PM • permalink

  50. #48 The chunky bits are so hard to extract from the keyboard.

    Not to mention the mental images.

    Posted by Kami on 2007 06 06 at 11:09 PM • permalink

  51. “#20 Dave, I could go a holiday at Camp Gitmo under those conditions.”

    LOL.  You probably wouldn’t care for the part where you’re not allowed to leave, but the idea that what we’re doing at Guiantanamo is illegal or that the inmates are being treated as if they were subhuman is a lot of hogwash.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 06 07 at 01:06 AM • permalink

  52. #47
    With the KRudder ‘balancing’ our ABC board, in the interests of blokes getting their 8-cents-a-day worth from our ABC:

    Blokes night:
    Blokesworld
    The Man Show: Oz edition, featuring Fatty Vaughtin et al from the (NRL) Footy Show: e.g. how to choke a chook prior to the Easter barbie.
    The Naked News: Oz edition, featuring the best talent from Auntie’s News-n-Nympho Dept.

    NB:
    There’ll be stiff competition from the alternative ‘Sex Between Soccer’ network, incl. Italian family variety shows featuring middle-aged male hosts leching at scantily-clad buxom hostesses.

    Work safe, Wiki links only.

    Posted by egg_ on 2007 06 07 at 01:44 AM • permalink

  53. #37 Dminor
    Any comments made by an empress are above reproach (as well as any lewd thoughts) ;)

    Posted by missred on 2007 06 07 at 05:33 AM • permalink

  54. #48

    You need the Protective Anti-Chunk Overcover
    for your keyboard, screen and CPU!

    On sale now, one set per customer!

    Posted by carpefraise on 2007 06 07 at 06:41 AM • permalink

  55. #39 As an unrelated aside, has anyone noticed that soon after the US media reported that Bush ordered the CIA to help overthrow the Iranian government, a huge cyclone started heading for Iran?

    You ought to ask wronwright about it.  He’s got the Dark Lord’s ear, after all.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 06 07 at 09:12 AM • permalink

  56. 46 egg_

    Here’s an instant remedy: Meeja Crotch featuring Moniker doing a Sharon Stone ...

    No, no. You see that type of “instant remedy”, is performed by readily available femmes, many a time, orally. No money is passed, but I do receive many thank yous…:).

    I do thank you for your hard heart felt suggestion. I shall pass it along to monks, that may be in need.

    Posted by El Cid on 2007 06 07 at 09:47 AM • permalink

  57. El Cid
    Will you eventually attempt using all 22 appendages?

    Cheers

    Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 06 07 at 12:22 PM • permalink

  58. Worst analysis of the middle east you will ever read.

    Click this link if you dare.

    sigh - ps slightly OT.

    Posted by peter m on 2007 06 07 at 06:19 PM • permalink

  59. Peter
    It’s Gwynne Dyer, who served in three Navies without acquiring any expertise in military subjects.

    Cheers

    Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 06 07 at 08:37 PM • permalink

  60. You ought to ask wronwright about it.  He’s got the Dark Lord’s ear, after all.

    For some reason, wronwright has been avoiding Our Dark Master Karl ever since that whole Tardis/Havana Taxi thing after the last Detective Paco adventure.

    Don’t think Our Dark Master hasn’t noticed.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 09 at 03:00 PM • permalink

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