Sigh, more lies about abuses

The problem is that the Nazi's went much further then the examples the article gave which was my point. They weren't killed for putting prisoners in stress positions. They were killed for making lamp shades with prisoners skins. The Nazi's did lots of things many governments have done. That doesn't mean that a comparison should be made. It's retarded to do so and only a fool would do so.

WAR ON TERROR

Human rights groups say there are over 39 'ghost detainees'

By Warren P. Strobel
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - At least 39 people from a half-dozen countries have been held in secret U.S. detention centers worldwide for three or more years, and their fates remain unknown, six human-rights groups say in a report to be released Thursday.

Human rights advocates said that the document, which they called the most comprehensive account yet of so-called "ghost detainees," raises new alarms about the Bush administration's practice of secretly detaining suspected terrorists without any legal proceedings.

In five instances, the report says, U.S. authorities detained the wives or young children of suspects held in secret prisons. And in four instances, terrorism suspects in U.S. custody may have been transferred to Libya, once a major adversary of Washington.

"It should be a sobering alarm bell that rattles us all out of our collective slumber," said Curt Goering, a top official at Amnesty International, which helped prepare the report.

A CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, suggested that there were inaccuracies in the report but wasn't specific.

"There's a lot of myth outside government when it comes to the CIA and the fight against terror," he said. "The plain truth is that we act in strict accord with American law, and that our counterterror initiatives - which are subject to careful review and oversight - have been very effective in disrupting plots and saving lives."

President Bush publicly acknowledged last September that terrorism suspects had been held in clandestine prisons, and defended the practice and CIA interrogation methods as legal.

Bush announced that 14 "high value detainees," including the alleged architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said "there are now no terrorists in the CIA (detention) program." He reserved the right to detain top terrorists secretly in the future.

Suspicions that the program was still active appeared to be confirmed in late April, when a 15th alleged senior al Qaida operative, Abdul Hadi al Iraqi, was sent to Guantanamo after being held secretly for months. Now it appears that the secret CIA program is more extensive than the administration has acknowledged.

The new report is based on public documents and interviews with government officials and witnesses, including Marwan Jabour, a Palestinian who was held in secret U.S. detention for two years and released last July.

It describes some detainees already known from news reports or government documents as well as five who hadn't been reported on before: four Libyans and a Somali.

"There may well be more that nobody knows about," Goering said. Amnesty International USA, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the New York University School of Law's International Human Rights Clinic said they planned to file a federal lawsuit Thursday to force the disclosure of information about secret detainees.

The other groups involved in compiling the report, titled "Off the Record," are Human Rights Watch; Reprieve, based in London; and Cageprisoners, whose chief spokesman, Moazzam Begg, is a former Guantanamo detainee.

The report comes at a difficult time for Bush's war-on-terrorism policies.

Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee said the CIA's secret detention program should be ended unless the administration demonstrated that its value in fighting terrorism outweighed the damage done to America's global image.

On Monday, two judges at Guantanamo blocked the administration's planned military commissions to try detainees accused of war crimes. The authors of "Off the Record" acknowledge that all 39 detainees may not still be in U.S. custody, and some may have been transferred to the control of other countries. One such country is Libya, which now plays a bigger role in U.S. counterterrorism operations than was previously known.

The report cites four cases in which terrorism suspects in U.S. custody may have been transferred to Libya. One of them is Ibn al Sheikh al Libi, whose allegations that Iraq advised al Qaida on developing weapons of mass destruction - since recanted - formed part of the U.S. case for invading Iraq.

The report is available online at http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/ct0607

Naturally, no Conservative or Bush supporter has the sac to actually address this issue. They'd rather ignore it and pretend that we are the 'good guys' no matter what actions we take.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Naturally, no Conservative or Bush supporter has the sac to actually address this issue. They'd rather ignore it and pretend that we are the 'good guys' no matter what actions we take.

Coming from someone who thinks the solution to illegal immigration is blowing people up (yeah, that'll teach 'em a lesson), this is hilarious.

Naturally, no Conservative or Bush supporter has the sac to actually address this issue. They'd rather ignore it and pretend that we are the 'good guys' no matter what actions we take.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17332904.htm

Quote:

WAR ON TERROR

Human rights groups say there are over 39 'ghost detainees'

By Warren P. Strobel
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - At least 39 people from a half-dozen countries have been held in secret U.S. detention centers worldwide for three or more years, and their fates remain unknown, six human-rights groups say in a report to be released Thursday.

Human rights advocates said that the document, which they called the most comprehensive account yet of so-called "ghost detainees," raises new alarms about the Bush administration's practice of secretly detaining suspected terrorists without any legal proceedings.

In five instances, the report says, U.S. authorities detained the wives or young children of suspects held in secret prisons. And in four instances, terrorism suspects in U.S. custody may have been transferred to Libya, once a major adversary of Washington.

"It should be a sobering alarm bell that rattles us all out of our collective slumber," said Curt Goering, a top official at Amnesty International, which helped prepare the report.

A CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, suggested that there were inaccuracies in the report but wasn't specific.

"There's a lot of myth outside government when it comes to the CIA and the fight against terror," he said. "The plain truth is that we act in strict accord with American law, and that our counterterror initiatives - which are subject to careful review and oversight - have been very effective in disrupting plots and saving lives."

President Bush publicly acknowledged last September that terrorism suspects had been held in clandestine prisons, and defended the practice and CIA interrogation methods as legal.

Bush announced that 14 "high value detainees," including the alleged architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said "there are now no terrorists in the CIA (detention) program." He reserved the right to detain top terrorists secretly in the future.

Suspicions that the program was still active appeared to be confirmed in late April, when a 15th alleged senior al Qaida operative, Abdul Hadi al Iraqi, was sent to Guantanamo after being held secretly for months. Now it appears that the secret CIA program is more extensive than the administration has acknowledged.

The new report is based on public documents and interviews with government officials and witnesses, including Marwan Jabour, a Palestinian who was held in secret U.S. detention for two years and released last July.

It describes some detainees already known from news reports or government documents as well as five who hadn't been reported on before: four Libyans and a Somali.

"There may well be more that nobody knows about," Goering said. Amnesty International USA, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the New York University School of Law's International Human Rights Clinic said they planned to file a federal lawsuit Thursday to force the disclosure of information about secret detainees.

The other groups involved in compiling the report, titled "Off the Record," are Human Rights Watch; Reprieve, based in London; and Cageprisoners, whose chief spokesman, Moazzam Begg, is a former Guantanamo detainee.

The report comes at a difficult time for Bush's war-on-terrorism policies.

Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee said the CIA's secret detention program should be ended unless the administration demonstrated that its value in fighting terrorism outweighed the damage done to America's global image.

On Monday, two judges at Guantanamo blocked the administration's planned military commissions to try detainees accused of war crimes. The authors of "Off the Record" acknowledge that all 39 detainees may not still be in U.S. custody, and some may have been transferred to the control of other countries. One such country is Libya, which now plays a bigger role in U.S. counterterrorism operations than was previously known.

The report cites four cases in which terrorism suspects in U.S. custody may have been transferred to Libya. One of them is Ibn al Sheikh al Libi, whose allegations that Iraq advised al Qaida on developing weapons of mass destruction - since recanted - formed part of the U.S. case for invading Iraq.

The report is available online at http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/ct0607

Yup, kids.

Cycloptichorn

If one's expectations for America reside at the level of perfection, America will always fail.

The illegal deportation of suspects by CIA kidnapping teams in Europe amounts to a "massive and systematic violation of human rights," the report says.

[Dick] Marty, who conducted the investigation on behalf of the Council of Europe, accuses the CIA of having committing a number of transgressions: "We believe we have shown that the CIA committed a whole series of illegal acts in Europe by abducting individuals, detaining them in secret locations and subjecting them to interrogation techniques tantamount to torture."

A CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, suggested that there were inaccuracies in the report but wasn't specific.

"There's a lot of myth outside government when it comes to the CIA and the fight against terror," he said. "The plain truth is that we act in strict accord with American law, and that our counterterror initiatives - which are subject to careful review and oversight - have been very effective in disrupting plots and saving lives."

President Bush publicly acknowledged last September that terrorism suspects had been held in clandestine prisons, and defended the practice and CIA interrogation methods as legal.

I believe this part is all that needs to be gleaned from Cyc's "article".

The plain truth is that we act in strict accord with American law

CIA agents on trial in Italy

MILAN, Italy (Reuters) -- Twenty six U.S. citizens, almost all believed to be CIA agents, went on trial in absentia on Friday accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric in Milan and flying him to Egypt.

The court case, highlighting one of Washington's most controversial policies in its war on terrorism, started hours before President George W. Bush was due to visit Italy.

Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was on Washington's list of terrorist suspects and he says he was tortured under interrogation in Egypt after his so-called extraordinary rendition from Italy.

As expected, none of the Americans turned up in court and only one Italian agent was present. The trial got under way with empty cages lining two walls of the courtroom.

I mean, I do know why you did it - to cast aspersion on the veracity of the article

And in four instances, terrorism suspects in U.S. custody may have been transferred to Libya, once a major adversary of Washington.

The new report is based on public documents and interviews with government officials and witnesses, including Marwan Jabour, a Palestinian who was held in secret U.S. detention for two years and released last July.

Seventy to ninety percent of the detainees at Abu Ghraib, according to an October 2003 International Committee of the Red Cross report and sworn statements made by members of the 470th Military Intelligence Group, the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, and the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion, were arrested by mistake or had no intelligence value.

Provance met one of the prisoners who seemed to be there for the wrong reason. "They got him to the point where he was naked, shivering, and covered in mud and then showed him to his father. That's what broke [General Zabar] down after a 14-hour interrogation," says Provance. "He said, 'I'll tell you anything.'"

"It struck me as morally reprehensible," Provance says.

In November, he says, he overheard a conversation in the dining hall at Camp Victory. One soldier told his friends at a cafeteria table how detainees were being treated in Abu Ghraib. "They would hit the detainees as practice shots…The detainees would plead for mercy," according to Provance's sworn statement in Major General Antonio Taguba's March 2004 report on military abuse, "Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade."

"The whole table was howling with laughing," Provance tells me.

Taguba, describing the moment nearly three years later, said, sadly, "I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting."

In the meeting, the officials professed ignorance about Abu Ghraib. "Could you tell us what happened?" Wolfowitz asked. Someone else asked, "Is it abuse or torture?"

Rumsfeld was particularly concerned about how the classified report had become public. "General," he asked, "who do you think leaked the report?" Taguba responded that perhaps a senior military leader who knew about the investigation had done so. "It was just my speculation," he recalled. "Rumsfeld didn't say anything." (I did not meet Taguba until mid-2006 and obtained his report elsewhere.) Rumsfeld also complained about not being given the information he needed. "Here I am," Taguba recalled Rumsfeld saying, "just a Secretary of Defense, and we have not seen a copy of your report. I have not seen the photographs, and I have to testify to Congress tomorrow and talk about this." As Rumsfeld spoke, Taguba said, "He's looking at me. It was a statement."

At best, Taguba said, "Rumsfeld was in denial." Taguba had submitted more than a dozen copies of his report through several channels at the Pentagon and to the Central Command headquarters, in Tampa, Florida, which ran the war in Iraq. By the time he walked into Rumsfeld's conference room, he had spent weeks briefing senior military leaders on the report, but he received no indication that any of them, with the exception of General Schoomaker, had actually read it. (Schoomaker later sent Taguba a note praising his honesty and leadership.) When Taguba urged one lieutenant general to look at the photographs, he rebuffed him, saying, "I don't want to get involved by looking, because what do you do with that information, once you know what they show?"

You seem angry. Thinking about blowing up some poor Mexicans again?