You what?

If this story (via T) is true, the US is even more unbelievably fucked in Iraq than they were after the (quite bad enough) prison torture scandal. An excerpt:

  • “We were slaves in American kitchens. We barely got two hours of sleep. Any slip-ups and we were tortured for days," says Hameed.
  • “Once I told the kitchen in-charge that as I was a devout Muslim I could not cook pork. I was beaten up with rifle butts,” says Hameed’s brother Shahjahan.
  • “Iraqi militia attacked our camps several times. At times, officers used us as shields,” adds Hameed.

More mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners of war? Nothing so defensible:

In August 2003, 25 such workers -- of whom Hameed, Shajahan and two others were from Kerala -- paid Rs 75,000 each to obtain Kuwaiti work visas. In Kuwait, they were told they were to travel for two days to reach the work site. “When the journey ended we realised we were in Baghdad. We were handed over to another agent who took us to a military camp in Mosul,” says Hameed.

The Americans in the camp told the Indians that they had purchased them for a hefty amount, and that they were to work in the kitchen and do other odd jobs.

Now, I may be reading too much into this, but I remember the last few world leaders who invaded countries who were not attacking them, started mistreating prisoners and using slave labour. They weren't popular and, as I recall, things didn't go to well for them on the world stage. It's not funny anymore! There are no more jokes to be made about this shit, George! You are killing your people and their people and torturing people and keeping slaves and you are fucking closer to Hitler's wartime behaviour than anybody's managed in quite a while! ENOUGH ALREADY!