The "good guys" in the Middle East

[Darth Wong]

Remember our good friends, the Kuwaitis?

Somewhere in Kuwait, a killer walks free. He has struck once already, gunning down a Canadian man at point-blank range on a busy street with dozens of witnesses. "God is great," he shouted as he ran away.

The widow of the slain Canadian, meanwhile, remains a virtual prisoner in an embassy in Kuwait City. Although acquitted in court, she cannot leave the embassy. Penniless and alone, she will have to return home to the Philippines to find a job to support her mother and grandmother.

Diplomats and lawyers here are convinced that the assassin is an Islamic fundamentalist with close connections to powerful officials in the Kuwaiti government, and that he probably used those official connections to evade any punishment for the killing of the Canadian, Luc Ethier.

At a time when Washington is heavily dependent on Kuwait as a staging ground for its expected invasion of Iraq, the killer's escape from justice has raised disturbing questions about the true sympathies of a strategically important ally.

The killing of Mr. Ethier, a 36-year-old military technician from Montreal, was the first in a wave of killings that have terrorized Westerners in this small desert emirate in the past 17 months. After his death, two Americans were killed and four injured in a series of shooting attacks by Muslim militants here. Many of the attackers were members of Kuwait's own security and military departments, analysts say.

New revelations in the Ethier case, including a 120-page criminal investigation report obtained by The Globe and Mail, suggest that Kuwaiti police investigators had strong evidence against the suspected killer.

Yet the suspect was released from jail and given a hero's greeting by one of Kuwait's top political leaders.

Mr. Ethier, a former Canadian army serviceman, had moved to Kuwait in 1999 to work as a technician on Kuwait's fleet of F-18 fighter jets. His 26-year-old wife, restaurant waitress Mary Jean Bitos, was one of thousands of Filipino workers in Kuwait. They met in early 2000 and were married just a few months before the shooting.

Ms. Bitos was gravely injured and nearly died in the volley of gunshots that killed her husband on Oct. 10, 2001. But she was able to get a clear look at the gunman as he fired at close range to try to finish them off. She remembers he had a beard and wore an Arab headdress in a distinctive style rarely seen in Kuwait but typical of Arab radicals trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Four days later, as Ms. Bitos lay in a hospital bed on a life-support system, with her lower body paralyzed from three gunshot wounds, the police brought in lineups of suspects. She had no reaction to any of them until she saw a man named Majeed al-Mutairi, a sergeant in the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry with responsibility for guarding oil fields.

As soon as she caught a glimpse of him, she screamed and burst into tears. She grabbed the hand of the police investigator who sat beside her. "This is the man who killed my husband," she said, pointing at Mr. al-Mutairi.

The police were shocked by her emotional reaction. "I feared for her life, because her heart monitor made noises indicating that she was frightened and tense," the chief investigator is quoted saying in the police report.

Even today, more than 17 months later, Ms. Bitos remembers how she felt when she saw Mr. al-Mutairi in her hospital room. "I was scared, oh my God," she said in an interview this week. "I was nearly hysterical."

The suspects were taken away and new lineups were formed, with Mr. al-Mutairi wearing different clothes and placed in different positions in the lineup. But each time the lineup was brought into the room, Ms. Bitos immediately identified him as the killer. Two days later, three more lineups of suspects were presented to her, and each time she identified Mr. al-Mutairi as the gunman.

Based on this and other evidence, Kuwaiti prosecutors arrested Mr. al-Mutairi and accused him of the killing of Mr. Ethier. In their investigation report, they said he was affiliated with a radical Islamic group, Al-Takfir wal-Hijra, which has connections to Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. They also noted that in 1998 he had travelled to Pakistan, where many Islamic extremists have forged links to terrorist groups.

Mr. Ethier was killed just three days after the United States had begun bombing Afghanistan and just two days after a Kuwaiti-born spokesman for Mr. bin Laden had urged Muslims to kill Americans everywhere. The killer may have mistaken Mr. Ethier for an American soldier because of his light skin, blue eyes and close-cropped blond hair, according to people connected to the case.

In a country where scholars estimate that 75 per cent of the population sees Mr. bin Laden as a hero and where Islamic conservatives are the most powerful bloc in parliament, there was soon a groundswell of political support for Mr. al-Mutairi. Within days, newspapers and politicians were agitating for his release from jail.

Witnesses fell silent. Although there were dozens of people on the street at the time of the shooting, nobody except Ms. Bitos was willing to identify a suspect.

Less than a month after his arrest, Mr. al-Mutairi was abruptly freed from prison. "God is great!" he shouted to a crowd of cheering Islamist supporters. He vowed that God would ensure their victory in a global holy war. The speaker of the Kuwaiti parliament shook his hand and congratulated him.

The same level of public support was evident a year later when two gunmen killed a U.S. Marine and injured another on a Kuwaiti island. The gunmen, who died in the exchange of fire, were Muslim radicals who had trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, according to the Kuwaiti government. At their funeral, they were lauded as martyrs and heroes.

To secure his freedom, Mr. al-Mutairi had provided a series of alibis, including the assertion that he was taking his son to a medical clinic on the night of the killing. Later he said he was at a religious camp in the desert at the time of the killing. Several of his friends supported this alibi. However, according to the investigation report, a Bangladeshi employee at the camp told police that Mr. al-Mutairi was not among the group at the camp that night.

When they freed Mr. al-Mutairi, the Kuwaiti authorities needed someone to arrest and they found her in the same hospital where the investigation had begun.

They accused the widow of conspiring in a plot with several of her Filipino friends to kill her husband for his insurance money. In a stunning turnaround, the paralyzed woman was handcuffed to her hospital bed and placed under guard. Over the next several months, however, the Kuwaiti police were unable to find any solid evidence against Ms. Bitos and her friends. It turned out that she was not even the beneficiary of her husband's insurance policies.

The only evidence against the Filipinos was a series of vague and contradictory written confessions, which they later retracted, saying that they had been abused and tortured until they agreed to make the statements.

One of the widow's friends, Teddy Tomaro, says he was blindfolded, hog-tied, beaten and clubbed by police until he agreed to write the statements that the authorities wanted. The other Filipinos say they were subjected to intense pressure and threats.

Convicted by a lower court, Ms. Bitos and the other Filipinos were eventually acquitted of all charges in an appeal court last October. Yet they remained in prison for weeks after their acquittal. They were not released until human-rights groups lodged complaints about their treatment.

Kuwait's highest court is expected to uphold the acquittals in early April. After that, the Canadian government will ask the Kuwaiti authorities to reopen the police investigation so that Mr. Ethier's killer can be brought to justice.

"The Kuwaitis covered up the case because they needed to convince people that there was no terrorism in Kuwait," said Benoit Rivard, a friend of Mr. Ethier who has devoted the past 17 months to seeking justice in the case.

Mr. al-Mutairi could not be reached for comment for this story. His former lawyer, who said he was no longer in contact with him, provided a phone number that did not work.

Ms. Bitos is still recovering from her ordeal. She walks with a pronounced limp, and her body is riddled with scars. But she cannot afford the physiotherapy she needs to walk normally. Stripped of her residence documents, she cannot legally live in Kuwait.

She is staying at the Philippines embassy until the case is over. Then she plans to return to the Philippines to find a job. She is the sole breadwinner for her mother, grandmother, brother and sister.

"All I have left are these scars and the memories," she said, showing the bullet holes on her arm and shoulder. "I don't have anything else."

Aren't you glad a war was fought to help these people?

[neoolong]

Shit. That just pisses me off. That just ain't right.

[Coyote]

Hmmm.

At the risk of sounding bleeding-heart, I'd have to say it is unfair to generalize... there are shitstains everywhere, Kuwait is no exception, as surely as there are fucktards and hosers in the US, Canada, etc. Just a couple days ago an Israeli couple went off their rockers and made threats at the Church of the Nativity...

I think generally the Kuwaitis are friendly towards us... the Kosovars didn't turn anti-American when a sergant was revealed to be a pedophile who raped a little girl there; they realized that it was a guy, not the nation...

[Enlightenment]

I think generally the Kuwaitis are friendly towards us... the Kosovars didn't turn anti-American when a sergant was revealed to be a pedophile who raped a little girl there; they realized that it was a guy, not the nation...

Wha? This isn't a case of one pigshit going ape, this is a case of the Kuwaiti government protecting a pigshit who went ape.

[Darth Wong]

Coyote, did you read the article? A man was gunned down, his wife identified the shooter, and they let the shooter go with a pat on the back! Then, they accused her of being the shooter, while she was still laying in the hospital bed paralyzed from her injuries, and they beat bullshit confessions out of her relatives! The government of Kuwait is in on this shit!!!

[Crown]

Coyote, did you read the article? A man was gunned down, his wife identified the shooter, and they let the shooter go with a pat on the back! Then, they accused her of being the shooter, while she was still laying in the hospital bed paralyzed from her injuries, and they beat bullshit confessions out of her relatives! The government of Kuwait is in on this shit!!!

There is no such thing as a 'government' of Kuwait. It's run as the personal fiefdom of whatever his name is. Women have NO rights at all. I suggest that when America does invade Iraq (and they will) they should invade Kuwait at the same time.

[Coyote]

I'll reread it, the impression I got at first was that it was a random guy and typically police corruption and some doubt as to motive, etc. I just skimmed it, basically...

Let's face it, unless there's a major re-arranegement of attitudes in the MidEast, in one form or another, it's safe to assuem that all the Arab governments are going to hate us for the crime of existing.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

There is no such thing as a 'government' of Kuwait. It's run as the personal fiefdom of whatever his name is. Women have NO rights at all. I suggest that when America does invade Iraq (and they will) they should invade Kuwait at the same time.

We wouldn't need to invade Kuwait - We could just have a gunboat bombard the Emir's palace for a few hours and then send a battalion of troops to raise the American flag over the ruins.

[Enlightenment]

Having gone to war to put this particular bunch of thugs back in power rather makes a mockey of fighting for the sake of human rights, doesn't it?

[Steve]

They want a Holy War?

I say we give them what they want.

And when we have leveled their cities, wiped out their armies, and reduced them to starvation, perhaps then they will finally realize the folly of war.

That, in the end, is the process that works. If people are so militant as to desire war and believe it will bring them victory, you give them what they want: a war. One they can't win.

It's what we did to Germany and Japan in '39-'45. It's what we did to the Deep South in 1861-1865. It's what Epaminondas and his Thebans did to the Spartans in 370-369 B.C. It's what happened to the French in the First World War (prior to it, they were very militaristic and looking forward to a glorious war and victory against Germany; after the devastation and slaughter, though, they became virulently anti-war).

I say this not with happiness, but with sorrow, that to bring sanity to Arabia may require of us to visit upon them a destruction not seen in that region since the Golden Horde sacked and burned Baghdad. Just as Sherman once declared that "300,000 Confederate soldiers must be slain to ensure our victory", we may have to slay 3,000,000 Islamic militants to ensure they get the message, and that the most violent and devoted of them is dead and cannot pass on their fanaticism to a new generation.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Having gone to war to put this particular bunch of thugs back in power rather makes a mockey of fighting for the sake of human rights, doesn't it?

It was the principle of national integrity that we were fighting for at the time.

Honestly, we should have let Saddam keep going - He's a better ruler than the Wahhabis in the KSA. More brutal by far, but at least he's secular. However, that's in retrospect. We have the benefit of hindsight, now. The leadership in '91 didn't, and they make their decisions in the context only of what they knew then.

I suspect that the Arabian regimes will not last long after Iraq, however.

[Crown]

I suspect that the Arabian regimes will not last long after Iraq, however.

The world must be topsy-curvey because I sincerely hope that you are right!

[Enlightenment]

I suspect that the Arabian regimes will not last long after Iraq, however.

See the other thread on increasing recuritment rates for al Qadia. Islamism is on the rise rather than on the wane. If the other ME regimes fall it'll either be due to American invasion or internal takeover by even more extreme fundamentalist elements.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

See the other thread on increasing recuritment rates for al Qadia. Islamism is on the rise rather than on the wane. If the other ME regimes fall it'll either be due to American invasion or internal takeover by even more extreme fundamentalist elements.

Exactly.

[Enlightenment]

Exactly.

Exactly what? The US is going to occupy the entire middle east or the whole region will go even more fundi?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Exactly what? The US is going to occupy the entire middle east or the whole region will go even more fundi?

The end result of the latter would be the former.

[Joe]

Exactly.

Exactly what? The US is going to occupy the entire middle east or the whole region will go even more fundi?

I would say the entire Middle East will go fundie, I don't see the U.S. occupying the entire Middle East anytime soon.

[Enlightenment]

The end result of the latter would be the former.

Riiiight. You're going to run out of troops long before you're going to run out of territory to conquor.

You're also going to run out of domestic political will when full bodybags start coming back to CONUS by the shipload.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Riiiight. You're going to run out of troops long before you're going to run out of territory to conquor.

You're also going to run out of domestic political will when full bodybags start coming back to CONUS by the shipload.

I disagree on both counts.

[Enlightenment]

I disagree on both counts.

Okay. Where are you going to find the tens of millions of troops necessary to occupy the entire Middle East? How are you going to equip, supply and pay them without shifting the US to a war economy? Where are you going to find sufficiently effective propaganda to pursuade the public to accept a) the draft that will be needed to occupy the region, b) the war economy necessary to support them, and c) the stomach to tolerate tens of thousands of combat casualties on an annual basis?

[Darth Wong]

I am rather shocked that Marina would seriously argue that the US has the manpower and political will to garrison the entire Middle East.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Okay. Where are you going to find the tens of millions of troops necessary to occupy the entire Middle East? How are you going to equip, supply and pay them without shifting the US to a war economy? Where are you going to find sufficiently effective propaganda to pursuade the public to accept a) the draft that will be needed to occupy the region, b) the war economy necessary to support them, and c) the stomach to tolerate tens of thousands of combat casualties on an annual basis?

You wouldn't need any of that. You're mistaking the effort against modern western countries with what would basically be colonial wars. Casualties would always be in the hundreds or thousands at worst, even the largest of those countries could be garrisoned with a corps at most in the long term, and any situation where this does arise would naturally encourage the populace to support it. Only the draft would genuinely be necessary.

If we wanted to go all out and rebuild the Mid-East in our image, we would need a wartime economy and several millions of troops, but the entire effort wouldn't last more than a decade or so. We'd just have to be willing to engage in Total War.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I am rather shocked that Marina would seriously argue that the US has the manpower and political will to garrison the entire Middle East.

Britain had the manpower to garrison half the world. The political will would exist in any situation that arose whereby we would be driven to it - IE, a general movement towards fundamentalism in all the major States.

I don't think it will happen, though. We saw a surge like this in Al-Qaeda membership after 9/11, which dissipated after we took down Afghanistan. This surge will also dissipate after we take down Iraq. They fear us, and the display of our power will be sufficient to prevent any popular movement from forming.

[Frank Hipper]

I disagree on both counts.

Okay. Where are you going to find the tens of millions of troops necessary to occupy the entire Middle East? How are you going to equip, supply and pay them without shifting the US to a war economy? Where are you going to find sufficiently effective propaganda to pursuade the public to accept a) the draft that will be needed to occupy the region, b) the war economy necessary to support them, and c) the stomach to tolerate tens of thousands of combat casualties on an annual basis?

When the idiot rabid Jihadis start their murder campaign, it will provide ample impetus for all three.(edit)clarification-tens of millions will more than likely be willing to sign up after a worst case scenario, ie. realistic thanks to Bush....

I suspect that the Arabian regimes will not last long after Iraq, however.

I've been saying that is the raison detre behind this Iraq business from the get-go! And I'll believe "after Iraq" if go we in to begin with.

[Enlightenment]

Britain had the manpower to garrison half the world.

That was back when the imperial subjects had machetes and spears while the imperialists had machine guns. Things have changed since then.