Outsourcing Torture - (CBS\New Republic)

[WillyT]

I know it's an opinion piece, but I wanted wider distribution. Is that OK???

<snip>

One reason it can't is that a Canadian inquiry is about to draw attention to another kind of U.S. complicity in torture. On September 26, 2002, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was flying home to Montreal from a family trip to Tunisia. During a stopover at New York's JFK Airport, he was detained by American immigration officials, who questioned him about connections to al Qaeda, then threw him into Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. Two weeks later, he was flown to Washington and then to Amman, where, he claims, the Jordanians "blindfolded and chained me, and put me in a van.... Every time I tried to talk, they beat me." Hours later, he was transferred again, this time to Syria. The Syrians placed him in a nearly pitch-black, three-by-six cell. Periodically, they beat him with an electrical cable and threatened him with electric shocks and a device called "the metal chair," which stretches the spine. During one such session, he confessed to attending an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan (a confession he now disavows). Ten months later, he was released back to Canada, where he has not been charged with any crime. Next month, the Canadian government will launch an inquiry into the case, which has garnered front-page coverage north of the border.

The inquiry will spotlight a policy called "extraordinary rendition," in which the United States hands suspected terrorists over to authoritarian Muslim regimes. American officials say those regimes are better culturally equipped to elicit information from suspected Islamic militants. But there is little doubt that one of their primary "cultural" tools is torture. As one American official told The Washington Post's Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, who broke the "rendition" story in December 2002, "We don't kick the shit out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the shit out of them."

The policy seems to have begun in the 1990s. According to George Tenet, the CIA took part in over 70 renditions before September 11. No one knows how many have occurred since, as Congress is not notified about individual cases. But the practice has probably increased. According to the Post, the Clinton administration stopped sending suspected terrorists to Egypt after repeatedly complaining about Cairo's brutal interrogation methods. "You can be sure," said one Bush administration official of such human rights complaints, "that we are not spending a lot of time on that now."

<snip>

Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/25/opinion/main619513.shtml

Thank the Cosmic Muffin, another country is gonna do an investigation!!! Oh, Canada... GO Canada !!!

And BTW... Isn't Syria on our shit list??? What's the deal? We won't attack, as long as you do our torturing for us???

Fuck!!!


:nuke::kick::nuke:

[Robbien]

1. The most surprising part is that this piece is written by The New Republic

and the guy is complaining the conservatives want this story to go away.

I do not believe the Canadian lawsuit is going to get many headlines down here.

[WillyT]

4. Yeah... Wasn't Beinart A Supporter Of The War In Iraq ???

:shrug:

On Canadian Lawsuit: I dunno, I think our press is finally smelling Pulitzer in the water!!!

I HOPE!!!

[liveoaktx]

2. Dana Priest said something like this last night on Tweety

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5058535/
PRIEST: In a post-9/11 war on terror, there‘s a new urgency to extract intelligence from suspected terrorists. Even top administration officials hint that past restrictions no longer apply.

COFER BLACK, COUNTERTERRORISM COORDINATOR, STATE DEPARTMENT: This is a very highly classified area. But I have to say that all you need to know, there was a before 9/11 and there was an after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves come off.

PRIEST: Today‘s techniques, approved at the highest level, include food and sleep deprivation, constant noise, and stressful physical positions. Those who cooperate are rewarded, hot baths and meals, rest and sometimes money. But uncooperative suspected terrorists are sometimes secretly kidnapped or—quote—“rendered” for harsh interrogations to other countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco.

BLANTON: So the problem that you get into, when the CIA is there with both feet and with boots on, is the same problem we saw in Vietnam. Our allies put people in tiger cages. And we could say, oh, it wasn‘t us. But was it? We were given the orders. We were doing the training. They knew what we wanted, which was information out of these people. So where does the responsibility lie?

PRIEST: They don‘t go to court. They never see a lawyer. They just disappear. That‘s the point.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEWS: So, Dana, what we‘re seeing in all these horrible pictures the last couple weeks is not the worst. Some of these people are being shipped off to third countries, where they have absolutely no scruples about what to do with prisoners.

PRIEST: That‘s right. And that‘s at the CIA‘s hands. Abu Ghraib, the big question there is, did they take the leeway given to the CIA to be harsher with terrorists and water it down, but use it in the military at Abu Ghraib?

MATTHEWS: So what actually you‘re saying is, this is the tip of the iceberg, to use an old cliche. Only this time, we‘re seeing a softer treatment. So the guys with crap all over their backs, the guys being asked to do all these ridiculous things sexually, all that‘s nothing compared to what‘s being done by the third countries we‘re shipping these guys off to.

PRIEST: Which, unless Congress asks, we will never know. These people leave. They disappear.

MATTHEWS: But aren‘t they sworn as members of the CIA to lie? And if Congress calls them in and say, did you ever ship a guy to Egypt or to some horrible Arab country in the middle of nowhere where they‘ll do anything, they‘ll say no?

PRIEST: No. In fact, they tell Congress. They tell a very small number of members of Congress on the Intelligence Committee what they‘re could doing. Those people know.

MATTHEWS: How many people do you think have disappeared so far and have been killed by us, by rendering, it is called?

PRIEST: It is impossible to tell, but there are dozens.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: And what‘s the purpose of all this? Is it to get intel or to kill people?

PRIEST: It‘s to get intel by using very harsh techniques that the CIA itself will not use. So they send them to Egypt, which has a well-documented human rights abuse problem, when they can no longer do anything with them.

[WillyT]

5. I Remember That, Thanks For The Transcript !!!

This (American Torture, Outsourced or Not) is what I believe will bring this Administration down!!!

And that's just fine with me!

:grr::nuke::mad:

[Moderator]

6. Dac_76

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
news source.

Thank you.

DU Moderator

[WillyT]

7. Hey Moddy, Does That Go For Transcripts Too ???

Or is this an 'Ask the Admins' type of question???

:shrug:

[liveoaktx]

3. Have to add how utterly hypocritcal this is for Bushco to speak

out of one side of mouth about human rights for Iraqis, while deliberately sending off people for torture to countries known for egregious human rights violations.

The big picture in all of this is that the US hand-in-glove with not only enabling human rights violations but creating them.