Dear Readers:
From the beauty of nature to the grotesque awfulness of man. Today I have this piece, entitled “A Bloody Message” which explains why the Russian FSB published that gory video of one of their operatives cutting off the ear of a suspected terrorist. A couple of notes: First, to explain is not necessarily to condone. Second, the implication is that only a part of the ear was cut off, not the whole ear. The piece specifically says кончик уха (tip of the ear), which could mean just the lobe. In which case, the terrorist did not necessarily go full van Gogh. It just means he won’t be able to wear a pirate earring in his right ear.
The video of this unauthorized oto-surgical procedure, which was performed right at the time of the detention of this suspect, flew around the world at lightning speed, arousing from some outraged condemnations, from others gleeful applause.
While conceding that torture and mutilation are “inhuman”, the editors of this piece sought out the expertise of law enforcement types to explain why this was done, not in the heat of testosterone-fueld passion, but as a cold-blooded, calculated act. And was done not merely to “scare the others” or to “deter the others”, but for another reason as well.
“It’s an old technique, tried and true,” commented a retired Spetz officer in his Telegram channel, “Get to work, Brothers!” He went on to write: “I recognize the signature.”
The newspaper MKRU interviewed an expert familiar with the situation: “This is a standard technique, designed to elicit the needed information as quickly as possible, and is typically used against Islamist fanatics. But performing this procedure rapidly is not as easy as it sounds. This is done when operative information is needed as quickly as possible; for example, to catch other accomplices before they can get away. When, by escaping, they would present a danger to the surrounding civilian population. In taut situations like that, believe me, the last thing on the investigator’s mind is the civil rights of the detained terrorist. There is no time for sentimentality here.” [yalensis: Fair enough. But the other 3 terrorists, the ones who still have their ears, seem to have received the bulk of their bruises and broken bones during that first night in the pokey, leading to their morning appearance in court!] The expert goes on to say that the loss of an ear has a symbolic importance as well, to those who follow the Muslim faith.
Islamist fanatics, in particular, are very keen on not losing their ears. To walk around without an ear brings a special sense of shame and humiliation for them. [yalensis: Personally, I’d rather have an ear cut off than a nose, for example. Or an eye.] Reason being, they believe that they cannot be a shahid (a martyr who goes to Paradise) without having both ears intact. This belief stems from an all-too literal reading of a passage in the Koran, something to the effect: “Allah will grab you by the ears and pull you up into Heaven.” The logical corollary is that they need both ears, otherwise Allah won’t even bother with the effort. [yalensis: Like, he couldn’t grab their arms, or something?]
In conclusion, the expert opines: These video images of the ear-cutting did not get into the public sphere by accident, nor was it the whim of an amateurish agent. This publication was done deliberately, to send a bloody message to potential terrorists who are even thinking about committing such a heinous crime in the future.
Awful Avalanche 
Your commentary is always informative, usually away from the actual conflict but providing good information on the many background situations in the region. Good work!
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Thanks, Jim!
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Yes, to echo Jim, what has drawn me to your blog is that the facets presented are not just what is commonly tossed to the top of the Telegram heap. Instead you pick things to go deeper, or of human interest, that helps explain.
People do things for reasons, and they’re rarely as simple as westerners like to think.
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Thanks, JC, I appreciate that.
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The problem with doing a “quickie-torture” as “insta-interrogation” particularly where the interrogator is flying blind and doesn’t know the facts is…a lie is, more often than not, better at stopping the pain…than the truth.
Now, if you know you have the right guy [they did], then torture as an effort towards revenge is, in my mind, morally defensible, assuming it was done in the moment of passion. I add that, as with all great evils, revenge is not really possible. Noting that the death penalty isn’t revenge, it’s just cost effective villain management. Why tie up resources peoples lives with a man who is beyond redemption?
The only time the “Jack Bauer” bullshit had any validity is back in Viet Nam when a small squad, [largely surrounded by a much larger force], captured an enemy and the squad needs to make it back to base without further enemy contact [think low-ammo/wounded et al] and there, the technique wasn’t really torture*. There, the captured soldier was bound and had a grenade taped to him with the pin attached to a loop of twine; he was told, “lead us through so we can get back to base…and you’ll live but, if we make contact with the enemy, you die”.
Not really torture, just a simple proposition and I add, just making something obvious to the POW because, on contact with the enemy, he would be killed in the first instance anyway. Anyway, not the “Jack Bauer” bullshit so loved by unthinking audiences everywhere.
*…although, since the 9th circuit court is now defining the use of whoopee cushions as extreme torture**.
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That Vietnam scenario reminds me of the classic Russian hero, Ivan Susanin. (About whose heroic feat Glinka wrote a very powerful opera called “A Life for the Tsar”.)
So, Susanin was captured by Polish troops in 1613, when they invaded Russia during the Time of Troubles. Susanin was said to be an ordinary village person, not a peasant necessarily, but perhaps a lumberjack or small businessman, a widower raising a couple of children.
The Polish troops basically took him hostage and ordered him to lead them to the forest hiding place where Mikhail Romanov (the future founder of the Romanov dynasty) was hiding. Polacks threatened, if he didn’t take them to the right place, they would kill him.
Susanin tricked the Poles, he led them deep into the woods, in the middle of a snowstorm, to a place they could never find their way out of. The Poles realized they had been tricked. They killed Susanin. Then they all froze and starved to death in the forest. The End.
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Morally, not quite the same, the story I related did NOT require the NVA soldier to betray his comrades, just vouchsafe his captors safe return from encirclement.
And remember, Gen. Westmoreland, the top West Point grad, liked to send small groups of unsupported infantry in the jungle to “flush-out” large groupings of NVA and then call in strikes after contact was made. It made sense to him but, not to the enlisted who hoped to survive the war. Gen. Westmoreland, Henry Cabbot Lodge, Dulles-Bros et al those that led us into Viet Nam war were the best “educated” idiots the US had produced…up to that point in time.
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Prior to the liberal age of criminal reformation and etc., the main objective of punishment was to serve as an object-lesson for other criminals. And, sometimes, to keep a person out of the way for a while.
For such punishments to serve the popular need, they would have to be clearly linked to the crime and sufficiently proportionate that future evildoers would think twice. Thus, in this case, we get a punishment specifically levied against Muslim fanatics, enacted at the moment of capture, and publicized while the events of the crime were “hot”. The intent then was to overlay the emotional impact of the crime with the emotional impact of the punishment, linking them in public consciousness.
Keep in mind that they either already had or very soon would capture the rest of this guy’s merry band, and as a result any information he could provide was a bit moot. Though again, hindsight tells us that, now. I’m sure for the capturer a good bit of their decision-making revolved around “I want to hurt you and know this is a way you’ll survive.”
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Yeah. Problem is, people will discount any confessions or indications given by the perps themselves, because you can’t trust any confessions given under torture. Heck, you can’t trust confessions period. Even if not given under torture. The only real remedy is accurate, scientific, forensic, police work. Like tracing the bitcoin transactions, that sort of thing. Well, that is being done too, so hopefully there won’t be any convictions that rely on confessions coming out of the mouth of a guy with no ear.
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Remember also that Telegram accounts have a phone number associated with them (but not made public). This way, if Telegram management can be persuaded, one can track down people these terrorists were interacting with. Personally, I think owners of Telegram cannot hide behind privacy concerns in this case.
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Good point. Although I doubt the CIA and MI-6 are dumb enough to use phone numbers that lead directly back to them.
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**
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“Well, I wasn’t expecting a sort of Spanish Inquisition…”
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Like cheese in a mouse trap…
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there’s no way i was the first person to instantly think of this:
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I suspect that Americans will be seeing a lot more of the Russian “kick the shit out of the terrorists” videos this year. As part of political campaign ads. By candidates who want to be Tough On Crime. “Iff’n ah’m illicted, we’s gon’ let the po-leece do their JAWB wifout any woke cuckstuff ‘bout ‘won’t somebuddy think of the poor criminal’s rights?’ Just like these’heah Russians did! They know how to treat a terrrrrrrrrist like a terrrrrrrrrrist! Vote for me — ah’m for law’n’order!” You KNOW that will appeal to the authoritarian types in the Amerikkkan electorate, and there are plenty of them.
The only question is, “who will do it and how many times?” Is Russian “kick the shit” going to be done by “advocacy groups” not OFFICIALLY connected to a campaign (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more…) Or will candidates be up front and stand behind (oxymoron alert!) Russian torturevids with “I’m Candidate __ and I approve of this face-bloodying”? Is it going to be deployed just by redneck candidates from the Amerikan South (who’d sound like my attempt to write patois above) or will it go national? Will Trump use tortureporn? Remember, in 2016 he vowed to pay the legal fees of some honky who got into a fracas with a black guy who was heckling Trump at a rally, and Trump also advised police to not worry about slamming suspects‘ heads into backseat door frames when they shoved them into squad cars. During the George Floyd riots in Portland, Ore. in 2020, it was Trump administration goon squads that were grabbing people off the street and heaving them into unmarked vans before hustling them off for interrogation. He’s love the Russian method.
I’m no Biden fan. He’s a doddering angry old man who supports Zionazi genocide and who’s let more people die of Covid that Trump ever did. But Trump is just as bad, in his own way(s). He’s going to win, if he’s not assassinated by the Deep State (or if he doesn’t die of Covid complications before November.) Screw them both! It’s just that when I look at the bashed faces of those Tajikerrorist mooks, I can see Amerika’s future. It’s got a lot of bleeding in it. To paraphrase an old Buffalo Springfield song, “step out of line and the man comes to take you away — and cuts your ear off.” (or at least part of it.)
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I saw a lot of that kind of redneck MAGA-moron reaction on the RT-America forums, people whooping like chimpanzees and liking it when “turrorists” get theyselves beat to a pulp, and Putin “not soft on crime like the Bolshevik Biden”, sort of thing.
In America, you can easily spot these types, they hang a certain specific type of American flag from their home or car: It’s like a blue flag to support “the men in blue”, get it?
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Two further thoughts, now that I’ve had time to reflect on the post. One, the “expert familiar with the situation” made me give credence to the “Jack Bauer/ticking time clock/torture to prevent a worse disaster” trope.
I always thought that was a bullshit artificial scenario that people cooked up in their heads as a way of justifying torture. “Our lizard-brain wants to shove bamboo shoots under the fingernails of people we detest and fear. Only, we’ll have to admit to ourselves that we’re savage scumbags if we cheer for that outright. But if we tell ourselves ‘what would YOU do if there was a nuclear bomb set to explode on the middle of the city?’ then it’s justifiable to cut somebody’s pinky finger off with a chainsaw and say their left leg below the knee is gonna be next if they don’t tell us how to stop it!” But things like that never happen in real life. The expert quoted here said something similar IS possible (not on the ticking nuke level) if there are other assaults in a multi-faceted attack that still might go off, or co-conspirators who’d make a getaway unless someone snitched to save his other ear. Nothing as big as nukes, but more plausible than that Hollywood plot device.
Second, neither you nor the expert pointed out what’s probably the primary audience that the torturecapture videos are aimed at: the Russian public. The vids are propaganda to show the populace “we’re stomping hard on those bastards — no delays!”
If an atrocity happens, people want vengeance. Even though I’m a pacifist who has no connection to the Crocus situation, my bloodlust was up when I saw one of those Tajikerrorists getting kicked around in the snow until he whimpered. “They’re murderers — give ‘em hell!” If NOTHING brutal was done*, then the citizenry’s collective blood would be boiling. Average folks would be screaming that the security apparatus was weak. They might even stage their own pogroms against Tajik migrant workers. The torturevids are like a pressure relief valve that alleviates the aggro. I have no doubt that FSB honchos put them put there for psychological manipulation.
ETA — WordPress is still doing odd things with the comments. Now when I do an HTML tag in something I pre-wrote, to remind myself to do the block formatting thing, I notice WordPress has done it for me automatically, like with the bolded words above. And with my asterisked sub-comment, it looks to have put it inside some kind of box. The tinkering never ceases!
Also too, in regards to your comment with the “thin blue line” flag, anything with the Punisher skull logo is also a dead giveaway about authoritarian leanings. Too bad Larry Johnson uses it for his blog, but he’s a decent guy, not a thug, so I can excuse that.
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Excellent comment, as usual, Bukko. A couple of thoughts:
(1) When you saw the vid of Mr. Sham being kicked around and whimpering in the snow, it raised your level of bloodlust and your lizard brain wanted to join in and give him an extra kick. Me, I’m the opposite: it almost made me feel sorry for him. I’m not saying I’m a better person, maybe just a wimp. Or maybe because I was bullied so much as a child that my emotions routinely shift to the person being bullied, not the guys kicking him around; even though I know, in my brain, that this guy is a mass murderer! Go figure… I concede that your reaction is the more normal one, and mine abnormal. Like I said, it doesn’t make me a better person. I am not actually a pacifist.
(2) Mr. Spock’s mother was human. If you watch one of those old episodes, you actually get to meet his mom. I forget the backstory, but she met her Vulcan husband at some conference, or something. They got married in an inter-species relationship. (The idea that they could have offspring is ridiculous, but let’s play along…) Vulcan males only come to orgasm and ejaculate once every 7 years, so Mrs. Spock-mom had to make herself pretty for that magical moment. Fortunately, it all worked out, and she was able to give birth to little baby Spock. So, yeah, their DNA must be compatible, somehow. (Like I said, ridiculous!)
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Dunno, there is some scientific research to say that life is free to move about the universe. If so, then DNA strands might be similar/same as they start with the same building blocks…
https://www.inverse.com/science/how-likely-is-it-that-life-traveled-from-one-planet-to-the-other
Interbreeding might well happen but Spock was surely sterile from the tryst, however………………..
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Interesting article, Brennan. I had heard of the panspermia theory before, but I did not know the angles about how Mars might have spawned life before Earth because it was more habitable in the Solar System’s early epochs, and because it had less gravity, it would have been easier for Mars to seed Earth rather than vice versa.
If any life form is capable of crossing interstellar distances, my money is on tardigrades!
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I hear you saying that Mr. Spock was the descendant of tardigrades? I deem that theory ….
Plausible! (also highly logical)
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Another thing Islamic jihadis fear is being killed by a woman. If that happens your ticket to heaven is cancelled. This is part of the reason why the Kurds have women soldiers in combat roles. Attacking Kurds is a risky proposition for a jihadi.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEQEidgcMhU]
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That’s interesting, I didn’t know that!
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