Condi Rice Goes to Europe!

Re: Condi Rice Goes to Europe!


Rice knows full well what is going on. The US operates a gulag prison system in "friendly" countries where prisoners are regularly tortured, with the pretence that because its not happening on US soil, its not happening period. This practise is quite illegal under international law. Any European country that connives in it (by aiding flights etc) is also breaking international law. Rice is not stupid, she knows whats going on. She just doesnt care. She doesnt even care if we know she doesnt care. [Interesting and somewhat ironic dont you think, that the Chinese are pointing to the poor human rights record in the US as a barrier to their companies investing there]

Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen resident in Ulm, Germany, went on a trip to Macedonia, was arrested by local authorities on New Year's Eve, 2003 and held for over 3 weeks in a motel. Then, he was handcuffed, blindfolded, stripped by masked men, drugged, diapered and flown to Afghanistan, on the basis of a "hunch" by a counter-terrorist chief in the CIA. The hunch was no more than the fact that Masri's name resembled that of an associate of one of the 9-11 hijackers.

Masri was imprisoned for five months by Afghans and possibly Americans and claims he was tortured. A bus driver confirms that Masri was snatched up by border guards on the date he alleges; forensic analysis of his hair shows malnutrition during the time he claims he was imprisoned; flight logs confirm that a CIA front company flew a plane out of Macedonia on the day he says he was abducted.


Back in the US, Masri's passport and story held up and in May 2004, around the time when the Abu Ghraib scandal first burst into public view in America, the White House sent U.S. ambassador in Germany, Daniel R. Coats, on a special mission to German Interior Minister Schily, an ardent Bush supporter, to inform him of the error and tell him to keep the details secret should Masri go public.


Later in May, Masri claims he was visited in prison by a man he says was German, who told him that he was going to be released without documents that might confirm his story because the Americans would never admit to a mistake. He was released, flown out to Albania - Macedonia wouldn't admit him - and dumped onto a narrow country road at dusk. From there he was escorted to the international airport at Tirana by armed men and rejoined his family in Lebanon where they'd gone.


Masri's attorneys say they intend to file a lawsuit in U.S. courts this week.


Neither the CIA nor the German ministry which was told about the case, is talking.


And for good reason. At a time when the administration was frantically dismissing Abu Ghraib as a case of a "few rotten apples," Masri's case shows it for what it really was - a reckless policy put in place by the administration in violation of US and international laws.

The Masri case was known at the highest level and concealed with the knowledge of then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1133782258128650.xml&coll=2

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512050088dec05,1,7692937.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

What I find it interesting is the appearance that the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing in this Administration. Cheney and others insist on our right to torture while Rice denies any such thing is happening.

It's curious...

D'art

They are in deep **** on this one. EU parliaments - and the public in those countries - are big angry at finding themselves unknowingly complicit in torture and rendition. They, and the press there, aren't going to let this one go and the press here is now carrying word of this EU anger.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article331070.ece

Of course, what Bush's crowd is doing is claiming they don't torture after having redefined what the word means to a point which is completely unrecognizable to anyone other than themselves (and psychotics, we ought to add).

You are right Blatham, the Great and the Good here are up in arms about it. Is there no standard of behaviour below which the US government will not sink? Apparantly not. But what you gonna do about it? Get uncle Kofi to write a letter? Sell all your dollars?

steve

We do what we little folk can when fukked around by the powerful...yell, organize and, if circumstances allow, train our pidgeons to rip their eyes out.

I get the impression that the US really doesnt care that we know they torture people. Its almost if they like it to be known....denied officially of course...like some macho badge.

Is she wearing her "leathers"?

steve

Let's differentiate US citizens and the folks in this present administration. US citizens definitely DO care about torture.

But yes, I think there is something clearly strategic in the way these guys operate, and it is Machiavellian. They promote fearfulness at home and abroad in order facilitate getting what they want.

I agree Blath. But what do they want? Is there a specific plan, or is this just an ad hoc descent into fascism?

Their plan is to defeat terrorism. It's a stupid plan, because they can't do it. Certainly not the way they're trying to. But that goal justifies their crude and barbaric methods...

d'art

I think much of what we see (in terms of political ideology) pre-dates 9/11. That simply provided the means to set governance in a particular direction. Recall that back in 92, these chaps wrote about how a Pearl Harbor event would have positive consequences for what they wished to see.

steve

Quickly...I think there is some percentage of any human population which is profoundly power-seeking and authoritarian.

It seems to me that the institutions we have evolved (constitutions, parliamentary democracy, the courts, etc) have been developed precisely to ward off the dangers of that percentage among us who would rule unilaterally by force and dictate given the opportunity to do so.

Thats the official line sure. But what they are really doing is creating terrorists and furthering the cause of terrorism. Deliberately if you ask me. To create a nebulous enemy against which all measures are justifiable.

You may be right. Sounds Orwellian, but Karl Rove is straight out of "1984".

"So now, before the next attack, we should all consider the hard choices that democratic governments must face," she said in a statement read at Andrews Air Force.

This means obviously: 'We have to accept torture and other CIA methods and work together to meet possible terroristic danger."

I think, Dr. Rice should visit some of the various medieval museums about torture instruments which are to be found at various places in Europe.
Perhaps, new brooms clean better.

It's tough to wend one's way through this stuff without missing things that are real and without surmising things that aren't.

Several weeks ago, the big oil execs testified to congress (they were allowed to give testimony without an oath) that their corporations had not met with Cheney's energy task force. Within days, the WP turned up a government document that showed most actually had. Either that document or a subsequent letter from one of the corporations mentioned that a subject discussed was world oil supplies.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/16/news/fortune500/oil_execs.reut/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842.html

So we know these fukks are quite comfortable lying through their teeth. We know the same of Cheney, unless we are just naive. We also know they wish to keep very much of what goes on at this level secret.

It isn't hard to draw a sensible line from that to Iraq. But we can't accurately say we "know" the correlation, even if we suspect it possible or even likely.

Likewise, the dynamics of 'the war on terror'. We can understand how a highly militarized state which is as tightly connected to the huge corporate entities dealing in oil and weaponry as is the case with the US could certainly benefit from an environment of threat whether true or not (simple marketing/demand theories).

Where the threat is open-ended and ambiguous (communism, terrorism, evil, etc) we can understand how such a conception works in aid of on-going growth in the demand for the services/goods these corporate entities have to offer.

"Before the next attack". How like the "mushroom cloud" threat.

Meanwhile, the 9/11 commission has just reported that the administration and congress have achieved almost none of the recommendations they made to keep citizens safe.

And meanwhlie not only a German Ex-[Interior] Minister [Is] Under Fire Over CIA Abduction, but the new government looks like a stunned mullet: no chance to lay it all to the Americans and acting like the three apes!

Audio link: How much did the German government know about the affair

So to sum up, the worlds oil supply is beginning to be contrained by geology, not economics. The worlds major oil companies meet with ex oil man VP Cheney to discuss the implications. The remaining resources and new resources lie in the Persian Gulf and Caspian basin. Most of the worlds non OPEC oil has already peaked. For various reasons Iraq's oil has been largely untouched. (It also has a low sulphur content). With Afghanistan a conduit for Caspian oil, and Iraq central to the persian Gulf states, America would firmly establish itself in control of most of the worlds oil. Geology dictates there will be a shortage. But American military power ensures it will not be a shortage for America and its allies. Conveniently some religious nutters fly planes into the WTC. The scene is set...some one should make a film of all this.

Hope I wasnt surmising too much into that Blath. Its all fiction of course.