It is good enough for us:
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA’s unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA’s covert actions.
Not surprising, really. We depose Hussein, the murderous dictator, and take over his prisons and turn them into our own chamber of horrors. Makes sense that we would also take over former Soviet prisons and convert them into clandestine facilities to disappear people.
The Heretik notes why the CIA might do this:
THE HERETIK RECALLS a very public appearance by Stephen Cambone before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he righteously announced the CIA would no longer be allowed to hold “ghost detainees” in Army prisons abroad.
And few know what is going on in those facilities:
The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.
While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.
The only reasons for these facilities are to subvert domestic and foreign law. And no one gives a shit.
And it does not makes us safer to have a clandestine service indiscriminately detaining, abusing, and torturing people around the world in secret prisons.
*** Update ***
Maybe they should start checking CIA detention facilities for this guy:
A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday.
Omar al-Farouq was one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured him in the summer of 2002 and turned him over to the United States.
A Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday evening that al-Farouq escaped from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, on July 10. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
An Army lawyer for Sgt. Alan J. Driver, a reservist accused of abusing Bagram detainees, asked Tuesday where al-Farouq was and what the Army had done to find him in time for Driver’s court proceedings.
Capt. John B. Parker, a prosecutor, said al-Farouq and three others escaped from the Bagram detention center and have not been found.
“If we find him … we will make him available,” Parker said.
Good grief.
*** Update ***
Rick Moran weighs in on the issue.
*** Update ***
That is a start.
Slide
I’m disgusted by what this country is doing under the leadership of the criminal Bush administration. History will look back at these times very unkindly as a period of time where the fear of terrorism caused us to abandon all the values that once us all proud to call ourselves Americans. Shame.
Bob In Pacifica
A guy escapes, you never see him again. Everybody forgets him.
A guy disappears, you never see him again. Everybody forgets him.
A guy is tortured to death, you never see him again. Everybody forgets him.
===
Nothing by this Administration has disproven my theory that they are a bunch of psychotic sadists, and the spoiled little boy at the top defines this sadistocracy. From Bush branding new members of his frat back in Yale, he’s shown himself as a sicko disinterested in the welfare of anyone other than himself and whoever brings him what he wants.
We know why these people are being imprisoned in Third World jails. Our government is torturing them. Torturing them and getting nothing. I wouldn’t doubt that Bush reads the Amnesty International reports, but he’s probably jerking off while he does.
cd6
holy shit
i actually can’t even think of a comment beyond that… holy shit
p.lukasiak
Capt. John B. Parker, a prosecutor, said al-Farouq and three others escaped from the Bagram detention center and have not been found.
I expect that in a couple of years, we’ll dig up the bones of the prisoners that escaped, and the explanation will be that they were buried while digging an escape tunnel…
Lines
Once again Liberals should be breaking out the “I told you so” stick and smacking the hell out of their conservative counterparts.
How much evidence do Conservatives require before they realize that the US is and has been torturing people? Not “terrorists” or “combatants”, but people.
Ignore it at the peril of your own moral compass, I for one am tired of the elephant in the living room. It would be easy to move that elephant out if conservatives wern’t busy humping it.
Mike S
I think Durbin may be owed an appoligy.
wilson
Pretty incredible. Possible grounds for impeachment proceedings? Seems too serious to leave just to the courts.
Hopefully McCain will get his no torture bill passed without changes. If it stalls, some moves toward impeachment may seem warranted. I am amazed that 2 members of Congress knew about this and said nothing. Chaney hiring Addington makes clear Big Time has a mental block about torture.
Looks like Hamdan may get his case heard in USSCT – this latest revelation about the CIA would seem to increase the chances of a cert grant. I would prefer to have O’Connor voting on Hamdan’s case as opposed to Alito. Hamdan focuses on military detainees at Gtmo, but CIA detainees seem legally pretty similar.
If pure CIA abuse cases went to the USSCT, Alito and Roberts would likely listen to bogus arguments about “everyone does it” and “it has such valuable results.” Also could be swayed by “constitution does not apply overseas or to foreigners” arguments. What is this country coming to?
Do Addington and Chaney have any proof that torture works? What have they been smoking? They must be on drugs. How does Porter buy into being torture master?
Kudos to Reid for calling for closed sessions. Let’s hope he has a complete airing of the CIA torture business, along with Niger uranium issues, etc. Would be nice to know who lied to us (intentionally or inadvertently) – top to bottom – so we can have a fair chance to avoid being duped again.
Steve S
Dick Durbin is owed an apology.
Don Surber
“most important al Qaeda captives”
Hmm
I have no sympathy for these bastards. They want POW status, but they refuse to abide by Geneva conventions by wearing uniforms and the like. They are as evil as Hitler
How do you know about this mistreatment?
“An Army lawyer for Sgt. Alan J. Driver, a reservist accused of abusing Bagram detainees, asked Tuesday where al-Farouq was and what the Army had done to find him in time for Driver’s court proceedings.”
Hmm.
So we are such villains that we are trying guards for abuse of detainees.
You know, why argue? Everything we do is wrong, everything they do is excused. You have no sense of proportion
The abuses of Abu Ghraib under US management were not one-tenth of that under Saddam . You equate making fun of someone’s dick is the same as chopping it off
But left up to you, Saddam would still be killing and instead of trying to drive us out of Baghdad, the “insurgents” would be in the United States.
Embassies 1998. Cole 2000. WTC 2001. Pentagon 2001.
Nothing 2002. Nothing 2003. Nothing 2004.
I am glad that Saddam Hussein will be given a fair trial, something he denied his own people and something he would continue to do if you were in charge.
God bless George Bush, Don Rumsfeld and the American military for doing the job you would not
searp
Where are the torture defenders? Do I have to switch websites?
Steve S
Good question, searp. Where’s Defense Guy?
Don Surber
Dick Durbin is owed nothing. He is an incredibly unfit man in a body that includes an exalted cyclops, a drunk driver who killed a woman and an addled brained Republican who can barely was re-elected
He called our soldiers Nazis
He should be forced to spend a weekend at the Holocaust museum, perhaps cleaning the latrines
Mike S
I suppose that if you live in FOXville he called them Nazis, but out here in the real world he didn’t.
In FOXville they screamed about how wrong it was to compare the prisons to gulags. Now that we know that they are using an actual gulag that talking point is no longer operative.
Anderson
Great, we’ve assumed the lease on the gulag.
What would Reagan say? Not something I often ask myself, but I wish he were alive and compos mentis today.
ppGaz
John, when you are wondering why your posters get into such vile fights …. just remember this blurb from Surber.
It’s not easy to see this kind of nasty, lying
crapstuff and not respond with a verbal nuclear weapon.Durbin called nobody a Nazi.
Lines
Surber, why do you have to exagerate to the point of lying to get your point across? To the rest of us, your argument became as effectual as a burning bag of dog shit on the porch step. I ceased being funny or useful long ago and now you’re just flinging the feces looking for some of it to stick.
Lines
Wow, that was a hell of a mistype on my part and I know I’m going to pay for it heavy now:
“I ceased being” is supposed to be “It ceased being”
Don Surber
Dick Durbin apologized for saying, in part, “If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings.”
The FBI agent was describing what was alleged — not what was proven.
BTW, I thought last week the CIA was the savior of the Republic in Plamegate.
Lines
And your point about calling our troops nazis? Where is your proof? Sorry, parsing and squinting don’t count for much. Stop projecting what you wanted him to say and move on.
Don Surber
I saw this live on C-Span at a quarter to 6 on whatever the date was. No network picked up on it.
“More than most people, a senator lives by his words … occasionally words fail us, occasionally we will fail words.
“I am sorry if anything I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time. Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy.
“I am also sorry if anything I said cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military. … I never ever intended any disrespect for them. Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them I extend my heartfelt apology,” Durbin said, choking on his words. “They’re the best.”
Y’all ought to be ashamed. If laws were broken, we shall prosecute them. And we are
Don Surber
Lines: Read before you post, please
Thank you
Mike S
In FOXville everything is black or white. It is not possible to agree with only some of what the country or an agency of it does. It is not only wrong to criticise certain aspects of our actions, it is un-American.
Unless, of course, you are a Republican.
Lines
Where? Do you mind not acting like an ass and actually proving your point? He did no such thing, you are implying it because you want to be outraged. Your anger isn’t proof and your faux-politeness is pathetic. Put up or shut up.
RA
Its time to assign a special prosecutor to find out who outed these agents and safe houses. Time to clean house of the anti-American left who are subverting the covert operations of the CIA.
All you liberals would sound a lot more believable on torture if you stopped sticking scissors in the back of babies heads and suck out their brains.
Once again liberals want to torture the helpless and innocent Americans while they want to protect the worst enemies of America. Yep, thats the American hating left!
Outing a paper pusher is a crime but outing actual covert agents, operations and airlines is not!?? The left is just evil. Its time to start throwing NYT reporter in jail and throwing away the key.
Mike S
By the looks of it you have personal experiance with that.
Mike S
Comments from an “evil” leftist?
Rick
Who leaked this classified information! I demand a Fitzmas present!
Cordially…
Krista
RA – Why is it that instead of actually discussing the topic, you defend anything that this government does, by using the fallacious argument that all left-wingers are running around sticking scissors into the craniums of infants? It doesn’t prove any kind of point, and only serves to make you look foolish and ignorant.
j.d.
Still a tool-shed here, I see.
Anyway, is it just me, or does the CIA lately seem like a rogue agency; just doing whatever it wants?
Kimmitt
“I don’t recall.”
Steve S
Now I’m assuming that John Cole doesn’t hate America, but here you are accusing him of that. [Please take note John, you claimed this doesn’t happen here]
Rather I think what John is saying is very much like the arguments put forth by George Washington during the Revolutionary War, that no matter how bad the British would treat us, we would do the right thing. It wasn’t because George Washington hated America, it was because George Washington had principles and morals and demanded that this nation stand up for those same values.
Now I don’t know what this CIA leak crap stuff is about. But clearly if the media is reporting that our CIA has outsourced concentration camps to North Korea, the public has a right to know. Oh I’m sure the CIA wouldn’t want the public to know… not because they are afraid Al Qaeda will raid their gulag, but because it’s fucking bad public relations.
I told someone last year when he claimed to me that GW Bush was a Moral person… I said Abu Ghraib put an end to that claim.
tzs
Read those comments on RedState. Holy whatever. I see a majority of commentators totally ignorant of why we have checks and balances or any appreciation of what has happened in history when all authority has been given to the State and no checks and balances exist.
Besides which, a lot of what they are so willing to throw away isn’t just something in the Geneva treaties. Assumption of innocence, ability to hear the evidence against you, no double-jeopardy–
Heck, that’s from the INQUISITION. And it dates from the period of the Albegensian (sp?) crusades in southern France.
I thought you guys called yourselves conservatives?!
You may be able to “save” the US in your “WOT” by ripping out the guts of judicial process dating from the 13th/14th century–I’m not sure I want to live in the country that’s left behind.
jg
No thats the american right projecting monstrous attributes on the opposition party to enable ignoring their actual message.
Doesn’t it bother you that in order to defend this administration you have to invent this crap about the left?
Andrew J. Lazarus
Don’t you think we owe the Iraqi Army an apology for complaining about how they treated Jessica Lynch?
I take it Mr Surber is joining us because he lives in a part of the country where it is now to cold to pull the wings off flies.
Sherard
Says you. Considering these “hidden” and “secret” facilities are being treated in exactly that manner by the people – the CIA – that run them, you, I, and everyone in this discussion know absolutely not a thing about them. Suffice to say, with that level of knowledge, your blanket proclamation is meaningless.
Sherard
You know what else about this I just LOVE. It’s all “this administration”. Yeah. And the CIA was generally a bunch of peace loving boy scouts up until the year 2000. Laughable. I wonder what would be worse, having such facilities in a time of war, or before that ? I guarantee the same kind of thing was going on before 9/11. You just never heard about it. The CIA is just doing their damn job. You may not like it and it may not be pretty, but I personally don’t think it’s a stretch to think their tactics might just be necessary sometimes.