President Bush on Wednesday acknowledged previously secret CIA prisons around the world and said 14 high-value terrorism suspects � including the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks � have been transferred from the system to Guantanamo Bay for trials.
He said a small number of detainees have been kept in CIA custody including people responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in addition to the 2001 attacks.
"It has been necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held secretly, questioned by experts and, when appropriate, prosecuted for terrorist acts," Bush said in a White House speech. Families of some people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks made up part of the audience.
Bush said of the suspects: "These are dangerous men, with unparalleled knowledge about terrorist networks and their plans of new attacks. The security of our nation and the lives of our citizens depend on our ability to learn what these terrorists know."
The announcement from Bush was the first time the administration had acknowledged the existence of CIA prisons, which have been a source of friction between Washington and some allies in Europe. The administration has come under criticism for its treatment of terrorism detainees. European Union lawmakers said the CIA was conducting clandestine flights in Europe to take terror suspects to countries where they could face torture.
"Today the administration finally recognized that the protections of the Geneva Convention should be applied to prisoners in order to restore our moral authority and best protect American troops," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "Today's shift in policy follows the sad legacy of five years during which this administration abused our Constitution, violated our laws and most importantly failed to make America safe."
Bush has sought with a series of speeches to sharpen the focus on national security two months before high-stakes congressional elections.
The president successfully emphasized the war on terror in his re-election campaign in 2004 and is trying to make it a winning issue for Republicans again this year.
Bush said the CIA program has involved such suspected terrorists as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, believed to be the No. 3 al-Qaida leader before he was captured in Pakistan in 2003; Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged would-be Sept. 11 hijacker; Abu Zubaydah, who was believed to be a link between Osama bin Laden and many al-Qaida cells before he was captured in Pakistan in 2002.
The list also includes Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, who was suspected of being the mastermind of a string of deadly bomb attacks in Indonesia until his 2003 arrest in Thailand.
Defending the prison program, the president said the questioning of these detainees has provided critical intelligence information about terrorist activities that has enabled officials to prevent attacks, including with airplanes, within the United States. Other attacks thwarted through intelligence gathered in the program include a planned strike with an explosives-laden water tanker on U.S. Marines at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, an attack with car and motorcycle bombs on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, and a plot to fly passenger planes into London's Heathrow Airport or Canary Wharf, Bush said.
Bush would not detail interrogation techniques used through the program, saying only that they are tough but do not constitute torture. He did use language that suggested its nature, saying the CIA turned to an "alternative set of procedures" that were successful after Zubaydah and others had stopped providing information.
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Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
This was reported by Dana Priest back in November of 2005.
Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11
By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, November 2, 2005; Page A01
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.
The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.
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.
But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military -- which operates under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress -- have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody.
Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.
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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Surprised? No one should be. Disgusted? Depends on your point of view.
What is the best way to get information on pending/possible attacks from people that think they get all Allah has promised them for dying?
Milk and cookies?
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
What is the best way to preserve the most fundamental values and principles of a free society?
Destroying them?
Defending this kind of rape of human rights and dignity is a world of Mao and a world of Stalin and a world of secret police, secret trials, and secret DEATHS, and if you think preventing attacks - no matter how horrific - justifies that world, you might as well have flown a fucking plane into a building yourself.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Welcome aboard my plane, next stop PLO headquarters.
Tell me, what would you recommend? Taking the fucking high raod will only get you so far with this type of fucking menace. You can not reason with it, you can not appease it except through your fucking destruction and following their fucking ways.
So clue me in, what is the best fucking method for dealing with these fucking beasts?
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Nuke the entire world and restart civilization as a utopian society with us as the supreme leaders?
That's my plan, who wants to help? I figure all it takes is a good hacker to get into the russian database and launch a few nukes.
Oh wait, we're talking about the russians, in that case just about anybody can do it...
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Okay, but only if I get my own duchy.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Anybody know W.O.P.R.'s web address?
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
"So clue me in, what is the best fucking method for dealing with these fucking beasts?"
Well, it certainly isn't by becoming them.
Sorry, "...by fucking becoming them".
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
I think you misunderstand him. I believe that he's asking for the best method for him to perform sexual intercourse with terrorists. A strange request admittedly...
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Yes, I don't usually swear, for this I do apologize.
To me they are no different than rats chewing at the underbody of world society. So to treat them like rats does not bother me.
It is a no win situation, we can not treat them like trash nor can we try to show them how 'nice' we can be, there is no middle ground. Not with the extremists, of any group, so what do you do?
We are their Great Satan.
Now, where is that tissue to clean up that snotty mess????
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Living up to their propaganda will not make things better for us and will not deter them.
If we adopt their methods, we can add ourselves to the "Axis of evil" and ever other petty oppressive government the world over.
While I understand that the goal is to keep America "safe", the sad truth is, once you start rationalizing torture as doing what's in the State's best intrest, you are giving alibi to all the worst dictators and human rights abusers in the world. Not a club I want my country to belong to.
What are these "alternative" methods exactly? I think they're afraid to reveal what they've been doing....hell, I'm afraid to know!
Amnsety International has long taken note of such "alternative" methods of extracting information- fun stuff that leaves no marks for any pesky trials that may come up later. Stuff like repeatedly sufforcating the prisoner in a plastic bag full of urine or playing a recording of a woman being tortured to death (heard from the next room over) and telling the prisoner it's their mother/wife/daughter etc. Then there's the not so nice methods- like inserting an electrical lead into a man's penis and shocking him repeatly (this one's reportedly big with the Chinese for interrogating "spys") or depriving prisoner's of protien while making them stay awake for days at a time (a known brainwashing tecnique)...
I'm hoping this admission leads to some sort o oversight on interrogation operations...but I doubt it.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: ... we can add ourselves to the "Axis of evil" and ever other petty oppressive government the world over.
We probably should.
The problem is that no matter what avenue we may try, probably even isolationism, would deter them in any way.
This goes to the other issues I asked where to draw a line on what is acceptable and what is not. I find that the line on this hasn't been crossed, yet, even with people making comparisions with regimes that 'cleansed' their countries. If they started clearing all people of middle eastern ancestory from the streets I would have a problem, but, as of now, I do not.
Let's break this down to a base level. Parents.
A couple of people take your kid(s) and will kill them, you got lucky and caught one. Where would you draw the line on the amount of brutality used to find out where your kid(s) is/are?
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
If my kids are involved, there is no line.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I'm glad that example is exactly congruous to reality.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
To quote you, "Explain."
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Your example wasn't.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
The people overseeing this nifty little Woah oan Terrrr, their kids aren't in danger, and nor are they. While no-one can be completely safe, I doubt Bush would ever end up in a situation where he'd have to do anything necessary, no matter how bad, to save the twins! Instead they're letting us think we're in danger - while doing all sorts of stupid things that make the situation worse, and less safe for the average citizen; and all for their own financial and political benefit.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
But, OK, to be less terse, there is such a vast difference between "here's how I'd act in a hypothetical situation threatening a child" and "here's how I'd set national foreign policy" that sarcasm seems appropriate.
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: But, OK, to be less terse, there is such a vast difference between "here's how I'd act in a hypothetical situation threatening a child" and "here's how I'd set national foreign policy" that sarcasm seems appropriate.
Thank goodness you were there to supply the sarcasm.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Sol, I would have you ask the people that did lose offspring in any terrorist attack how they feel about it, and what methods that they deem to harsh in order to keep any of their other kids from dying the same way.
Would this touch on reality for you?
Lee, you point is off in that some of the people were in a building that was hit by a plane, so they were in danger. I can not argue on the benefits derived from this for those that can grab ahold of them.
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ritten: Sol, I would have you ask the people that did lose offspring in any terrorist attack how they feel about it, and what methods that they deem to harsh in order to keep any of their other kids from dying the same way.
Would this touch on reality for you?
There is a reason why we don't put those people in foreign policy and why we can't create foreign policy on the basis of 'gosh, I'd torture and kill to get my kid back.'
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
I was thinking more along the lines of doing in to try to prevent others from losing their kids.
I am still waiting for someone to propose a better method for gaining the information needed to prevent future attacks.
Would completely pulling out of the Mid East work? Or would it give them the idea that they were winning and press on with more attacks?
Would dropping the world police theme work, switching over to have a kinder gentler trigger finger, giving them lots of money and just hushing up? Or would that be viewed, by them, as winning and press on with more attacks?
Instead of giving me the, It's not right, we can not do that, we are sinking to their level, lines, give me an alternative to look at.
I agree that, ideally, we should not take these actions, but with thousands dead what would your course of action be? Without using the, Well, I wouldn't do that dodge.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
One things for certain- becoming torturers and terrorists ourselves is not going to make us any safer. Consider that over 10,000 people detained by U.S. forces (in Iraq/Afghanistan) have been released as not having anythng to do with terrorism. Now consider what would happen if interrogators were given a free hand to torture for information and were pressured to get results... It's just what Saddam's police did to get "confessions"...they always get whatever they were looking for. Even if the victim did nothing.
You want a better method of preventing future attacks without resorting to torturing prisoners?
First- do what we set out to do: catch Bin Laden, cush Al Queda, install a democratic government in Afghanistan and eliminate the taliban for good. Those were the post 9/11 goals.
Second- recruit/hire/train locals to be our much-needed "human intel" against terrorists.
Third- work to make the lives of the adverage people (read: poorest) over there better. Terrorist organizations get their support by blaming the terrible conditions people live in on the West (the U.S. in particular). All our current intel in Iraq/Afghanistan comes from people that have been helped by US forces and want to live without fear.
Once we show the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan that we are not there to oppress, occupy or steal their oil, we'll get a lot more cooperation from them against terrorists.
Every time a case of US soldiers torturing someone comes to light, the adverage person says "they're just as bad as the terrorists" and that's whay they want us the fuck out of their country(s)...and why so many new terrorists are being recruited each day.
We cant buy off terrorists, but we sure as hell cant become terrorists either.
Bush revealed that those secret CIA prisons used "alternative methods" of getting information and that "many terror plots were foiled as a result". But he did not say what information was gained, how it was gained or what "plots" were foiled. National Security, you understand- just trust him!
Reading the newspapers today, it sure does not seem like the prot...er..."alternative methods" used resulted in much success- Iraq and Afghanistan are more violent than ever and the biggest terror plot stopped all year was foiled by the British police.
Somehow, torture des not seem to be the answer we need.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
I read your first line and thought, oh great a long dodgy post, but it wasn't. Thank you.
Iraq shouldn't be mentioned, as far as terrorism goes, as it was Bush II personal goal to get Saddam, and the opportunity presented itself. The other goals should be the priority I agree.
Humint has taken a fall from the good old Reagan years, which it never should have, but the budget cuts made the American people happy. Things like this have taken a far back seat to the super hi tech stuff, which could lead me off on another tangent, but I'll refrain.
I agree that we should be doing public works efforts, and that it needs to be run far better than anything done in the Mid East to date. This administration has given a lot of money away for nothing over there.
I am not saying that every suspect should be tortured, but known ones that do have the intel and are not giving it up, to me, is a different item. The general abuse by US troops is sickening.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
So, torture should be allowed in instances where it is actually useful for information? If a US soldier were captured and tortured because he really did have information about troop movements or whatever, would you say that that was justified, as well?
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
The point is that torture is torture, no matter who is doing it. And if we say it's OK because its our guys doing it to fight terror or maintain peace or whatever it is we're trying to do wherever it is this week, then right there we've established that violating a persons human rights is an effective and even in some cases justified means of obtaining what you want. We don't get to have it both ways.
I think the problem is that if the US decides that we're the sort of state who will perpetrate this sort of thing to fight terror, then we've crossed a line. Even if we've done so with the best intentions. We become (even more than we already were) the embodiment of what the terrorists or insurgents (or democrats or whatever we're calling them today) are fighting against. And a lesson maybe we could learn from them is that when you spend too much time fighting against something, sometimes you lose sight of what it is you're fighting for.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:I am not saying that every suspect should be tortured, but known ones that do have the intel and are not giving it up, to me, is a different item. The general abuse by US troops is sickening.
But, you see, the general troop treatment over there (by war standards) is fantastic- civillian treatment guidelines are far more strict than any other war in U.S. history.
It's the (comparitivly) very few documented cases of horrendus torture/murder that makes the whole situation seem (to both them and us) like soldiers are marauding and killing everyone- and with no supervision.
If a few (horrible) cases of blatantly illeagal -and condemned- abuses cause such a bad reputation, imagine what sanctioning torture will do to the U.S.'s failing image, and how much more difficult local cooperation will become.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ritten: To me they are no different than rats chewing at the underbody of world society. So to treat them like rats does not bother me.
This statement frightens and disturbs me. To take any group of human beings and view them as somehow less than human beings in order to justify treating them brutally is an atrocity. It is that simple. It doesn't matter who started it.
These people are fighting us because they believe we pose a threat to them, and it isn't a totally delusional view. All the conflict, manipulation, and mistrust between their geo-political-socio-cultural world and ours erupted in violence often throughout history. The events of the past several years are simply a continuation of this. The answer is to stop perpetuating it, not to further exacerbate it by living up to their portrayal of us.
Oh, and if you want to talk about rats "chewing at the underbody of world society," look at the contemptible, self-serving zealots running the country....
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)