CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons.
What’s wrong with this news? Answer: That it’s news. The prisons, which I don’t have a problem with, are no longer secret…
Secret Terrorist Prisons
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That this came from the WaPo makes me think it is from the CIA.
It is further evidence of the existence of an element within the CIA opposed to this administration.
Can you say Valerie Plame.
The leaker should be prosecuted just as the Left would have Whitehouse officials be so treated.
La Shawn:
This prison stuff is one more indicator that we need conservative Supremes.
I just can’t wait to hear Ginsberg order the CIA to release prisoners in these foreign lands, just as liberal Justices base decisions on foreign laws.
But they select LIBERAL foreign laws – in truth, if these prisons are being managed under “foreign laws”, they are no doubt not as “kind and gentle” as American prisons.
Hearsay is that some are in Eastern Europe – no doubt former Soviet prisons. Just the kind of place no one wants to be.
Since a majority of the Supremes have been leaning toward putting themselves in charge of conducting the war, why wouldn’t one want these guys in a prison in a foreign country?
I thought you were a Christian woman? You don’t have a problem with people (some of whom are innocent) being tortured by the United States government?
Here we go with the “Christian” stuff. You non-Christians are so inanely predictable. Right, “Stone,” I have no problem with our government “torturing” innocent people. Unbelievable. I thought you heathens were more rational than that. (sarcasm off) – Admin
This is the kind of thing that makes me snarl like Nathan Jessep in A Few Good Men: “You [expletive deleted] people. You have no idea how to defend a nation. All you did was weaken a country today. That’s all you did. You put people’s lives in danger. Sweet dreams, son.”
Seems to me that, if “secret prisons” exist, they must have some purpose, right? Maybe to be able to hold and interrogate the most dangerous of terror suspects, away from the kind of people that have forced us to turn our “official” prison camp into “Club Gitmo”? There are jobs that must be done in this war effort, and, if the Left makes it impossible for us to do them one way, well, they will be done another way…
Quite frankly, I think Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and a few others ought to test out these secret prisons for a couple of years and then report back to us on their treatment…oh, we better let Kerry and Jane Fonda in on the experiment too…they’re such experts.
No offense but I do have a problem with secret prisons. We are a nation of laws and to the extent that this undermines the rule of law, it is to be avoided. Let’s be frank – these prisons are secret not because we are afraid that terrorists might learn their location and launch a rescue raid but so that their legal status is cloudy, allowing our laws governing torture to circumvented.
The idea that the prison at Gitmo is some sort of Club Med is laughable. It’s a prison.
These people are might all well be terrorist or they might be like the prisoners at Gitmo who were held without due process for three years and then released. Why released? Well in Afghanistan we had bounties on the Taliban which resulted in a bunch people being called members of the Taliban in order to collect the bounty. Given the lack of Pashtun translators in the US Army, these people were then sent to Gitmo. So far the tribunals have released 146 have been released.
What’s interesting is that some of these guys released ended fighting us again in Afghanistan. This is entirely surprising considering they were incarcerated without a trial for three years. I doubt very much I would like the US either after undergoing that experience.
Two of the prisons are located in Poland and Romania. LaShawn perhaps I missed it but exactly what is your stance on torture? What about due process?
I think I see the 2008 Democratic Platform now:
1. Due Process for terrorists though out the world.
2. Don’t lock up terrorists without a trial: They will just end up being mad at you.
Hey, if the guy doing the dirty terrorist stuff isn’t in a uniform, you just have to treat him like any other street perp and consider him innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Wow! What a deal, we approach the terrorists with all the accommodations of developed, codified Western law and they get to blow things up and walk away.
Sounds like a plan to me.
Well Heliotrope that was well reasoned. If you can’t tell I am being sarcastic.
What’s your approach to deal with the problem? Secret prisons, secret evidence the defendent cannot see, Stalin style show triels with a forgone conclusion?
Due process of some type is required. I am not suggesting that terrorist be afforded all the protections we Americans enjoy but rather just what the Supreme Court decided Hamdi v. Rumsdfield. I think the current Combatant Status Review Tribunals system only needs to be slightly modified in order to be a better balanced. Under our current system a total of 178 detainees were released – Because they were neither terrorist nor enemy combatants. That’s right they were people we picked up in sweeps and after a review by a military tribunal were released because they were innocent.
I love this quote
“Don’t lock up terrorist without a trial. They’ll just get mad at you.”
These people were found by a military tribunal NOT TO BE TERRORISTS. Of course an innocent person (and the DOD says 178 out of 505 were innocent) is going to be upset at being held for three years. Why wouldn’t they? Perhaps you are suggesting our own military tribunals are being lenient?
Blow things up and walk away? Exactly where did I say that? Oh that’s right I didn’t.
Britain has being dealing with the problem of terrorism on it home soil for years courtesy of the IRA. They have developed appropriate legal mechanisms for handling terrorists, secret evidence and the like. We haven’t yet so we are doing things I consider distinctly unamerican. Secret prisons, rendition are all unamerican practices.
If rule of law is important to you, these things matter. Quite frankly drunk driving is a much worse problem than terrorism – annually 17,000 Americans are killed by drunk drivers and 500,000 injured. Imagine you will if the war had these sorts of stats.
Quite frankly when did Americans become such cowards?
“What’s wrong with this news? That it’s news.”
Well said. If you haven’t yet seen former Senator Zell Miller’s guest commentary in yesterday’s Atlanta Journal Constitution about the elements within the CIA waging war against President Bush, it’s worth a look (there are links to it on Lucianne’s LDot site).
Taken together with info clicking into place about Joe Wilson’s 1998 – 1999 trip(s) to Niger (note, that’s well before his “yellow cake” mission), and info just out in the Oil-For-Food report, the dots are beginning to connect themselves.
Taking Saddam down cost a lot of people a lot of money. Powerful people, including so-called Americans. Taking President Bush down and/or squashing any further investigations may be their best way of staying out of penitentiaries.
Merry
Our government if you can call it that? has always had secret prisons and secret torture and secret execution. but this is the first time anyone said so to the general public. remember our government trained Saddam’s boys in torture and helped him to build prisons. and remember our CAI Helped in the training of Saddam’s form of CIA.
“The dots are beginning to connect themselves”? What does that mean? Taking down President Bush? What kind of strange conspiracy are you talking about? So the CIA opens secret prisons to interrogate terrorists and then leaks the information to embarrass the president? Ok we just entered the Twilight zone here.
How about you lay out the conspiracy. Two provios though. You cannot mention Clinton nor Vince Foster
I suppose Joe Wilson went public with his allegations knowing how the administration would respond by outing his wife, thereby totally setting them up to be investigated for out his wife.
The CIA isn’t “waging” war on President Bush. They certainly disagreed with the intelligence the Dick Cheney wanted which why the Administration set up the Office of Special Projects in the Pentagon. OSP produced the intelligence that Dick wanted. Nevermind that most of it was faked by Chalabi to get us to invade – things like weapons production facilities under the palaces and Baghdad hospitals. Notice how no one seems to remember those tidbits – because they were proven false.
Ok good night.
Having character means doing what’s right because it’s right. Not because someone told you to or because others are watching.
As Americans, we claim to uphold a higher moral standard than any other nation. When did we lower our standards? Do we believe 9/11 allows us to sacrifice our character? If so, then are we saying that it is okay to suspend morality and character to exact revenge on our enemies. I hope not. We are better than that.
Character requires us as Americans to not torture our enemies in secret prisons. If that is not the case, then we are saying that our own troops were rightly tortured in Vietnam.
Look, everyone, “higher moral standards” are well and good, but this is our survival we are talking about here. Our enemy will exploit our own “higher moral standards” against us and will kill more and more of us while we dither over how we treat these people that want to murder and enslave us all. How high does the butcher’s bill have to go? Do we have to lose a city before we get serious?
I freely acknowledge that, in fighting this battle, we are going to wind up with all sorts of messes we are going to have to clean up later. Fine. But first, we must make sure that there IS a “later.” Our enemy won’t give us a second chance. We have to do what we can now to ensure we have at least one. If that means secret prisons and torture, then so be it. At least it may allow us to avoid a greater horror–like pasting the entire Muslim world with nuclear weapons. Pray it doesn’t have to come to that.
Erbo has his hand on the wheel, but can’t find the gas. We are fighting an idealogical and moral war. The more we act like the barbarians they claim us to be, the more they are right.
The nation that condemned the Soviet Union’s gulags and the prisons in VietNam now has their own…do you not see the problem here? America, once the shining beam of hope has been reduced to another oppressor. That opressor has a face- GW Bush.
Oh, and as an aside- I thought you would find this interesting…
Mr. Dawes, you might want to skim through Rich Miniter’s book, “Disinformation.” Unless, of course, you’d rather not see some of the Anti-US myths debunked.
Mr. DeSpain, “the dots are beginning to connect themselves” does not allude to a conspiracy theory, it refers to the fact that enough information is now becoming available to begin making sense of a few things.
“Making sense of things” essentially boils down to “follow the money.” Some of the “dot connections” can be found in the just-released UN Oil-for-Food report. Nothing about Vince Foster comes up, nor Clinton directly. Clinton friend and associate Marc Rich, though? Make of that what you will.
right back atcha 
1): The CIA is not one monolithic entity, it’s an organization composed of thousands of individuals of widely diverse levels of character and principle – or lack of same; and covering the entire range of ideological and political leanings or beliefs.
Leaks of classified information “from someone in the CIA,” by definition, are put out there by rogue elements within that organization. Every CIA employee with security clearance high enough to access classified data, is prohibited from disclosing it.
2): It is SOP that any CIA ‘errend’ assigned to non-Agency personnel, includes the messenger’s signature on non-disclosure contracts before he or she is sent on the errend. Publishing op-eds about such an errend is generally precluded, but someone in the Agency neglected standard requirements with Joe Wilson.
3): The Robert Novak column did mention Valerie Plame’s name – which Novak found listed in “Who’s Who,” and then confirmed she was employed at the CIA by calling someone in the Agency (not someone in the White House) – but it did not disclose her prior ‘covert’ experience or status. That was first published after the Novak column by David Corn in The Nation, and Joe Wilson was the only named source in the Corn article.
But Plame was reportedly first “compromised” in 1994 by Aldrich Ames, the apparent reason she was moved to a desk job at Langley.
4): It was the (former) CIA Director who said finding WMD in Iraq was a “slam dunk.” So, exactly WHO is the “They” you claim “certainly disagreed” with “the intelligence Dick Cheney wanted…?”
Oh! You mean the factions within the CIA running roughshod over the Director of that organization, using distortions and leaks of classified information to try to sabotage a Presidential election? That’s probably why Porter Goss was brought in to clean house.
5): You’re right, that “no one seems to remember … tidbits” like weapons (production facilities) under palaces and Baghdad hospitals…” but “proven false” isn’t fully accurate. Weapons, gas, and full gas-protection clothing and gear were found in hospitals and schools, if you recall.
Sleep well.
Merry
Well Merry a bit better response – not hyperbolic.
1) I don’t need a lecture about the CIA – I can guarantee I know more than 99.5% than most Americans. Please note that the prohibition against leaking classified information – it spans everyone everyone in government – the White House included.
2) I am willing to bet that Joe Wilson was well aware of that practice as this was the second time he had been tasked by the Agency. I also bet he said fuck it. I am no Joe Wilson fan but if he runs naked through the woods screaming George Bush is a liar
3)Clearly you need to re-read the indictment by the prosecutor. Official A (Karl Rove) confirmed it to Novak. When Novak called the CIA press office, he was ASKED not to disclose Plame. He did anyway.
4) A whole mess of people in analysis who said the VP was visting Langley every day asking analysts to re-visit bits of intelligence that OSP produced. “using distortions and leaks of classified information to try to sabotage a Presidential election?” Exactly what do you mean by this? I need an example really to understand what you are getting at.
5) I am sorry but 15 year old nerve gas canisters and chemical protection suits do not a weapons programme make. Chalabi brought forth a guy who claimed to work in a weapons lab under various palaces and the hospital in Baghdad. How many of those panned out – none of them. We spent a billion dollars looking for them and couldn’t find any. You don’t have a weapons program and not leave traces – it’s simply too hard. You have any idea how many conventional weapons are buried throughout the country? I have seen pictures of 10 acre fields full of 155 MM shells. What’s remarkable is the tremendous lack of WMD?
Why no WMDs? Well some reports that I have read stated that many of the scientists running these clandestine programs were mostly embezzling the money. Saddam would come ask “How is the program doing?” They would trot out a prototype of some sort and say, “We need X dollars to build it.” People then running the program would abscond with the cash. So Saddam thought he had a program, we thought he had a program, when in actuality he had neither. At the same time Achmed Chalabi, who wanted to run Iraq, is producing numerous false documents to show a huge weapons program. Chalabi has admitted this publically which is why I find this whole debate somewhat funny.
So no WMD in Iraq. Everyone thought he was hiding something – it turns out he wasn’t. We are now stuck trying to democratize a nation without a single democratic institution or a history of democracy. People seem to forget that we were told 6 months and we would be out, and Chalabi could run the place for us. The Project for a New American Century actually believed that.
Please stop defending the Plame leak with the CiA is “at war” with the President. It’s turns out that all those analysts over at the Agency I know were right and the Bush people were wrong.
Let’s see what George Will – arch conservative and founder of the National Review had to say about it
“[E]ven if she was safe in Washington when the identity of her employer was given out, it does not mean that her outing was without consequence. We do not know what dealings she might have been engaging in which are now interrupted or even made impossible. We do not know whether the countries in which she worked before 1997 could accost her, if she were to visit any of them, confronting her with signed papers that gave untruthful reasons for her previous stay—that she was there only as tourist, or working for a fictitious U.S. company. …
The importance of the law against revealing the true professional identity of an agent is advertised by the draconian punishment, under the federal code, for violating it. In the swirl of the Libby affair, one loses sight of the real offense, and it becomes almost inapprehensible what it is that Cheney/Libby/Rove got themselves into. But the sacredness of the law against betraying a clandestine soldier of the republic cannot be slighted.”
You can read the rest here
” I can guarantee I know more than 99.5% than most Americans” says Mr. DeSpain.
We have now been lucky enough to meet the nearly smartest person in America and so it is the time for all peons, ants and slugs feeding on pond scum to just shut up.
“(T)he law against revealing the true professional identity of an agent is advertised by the draconian punishment” says Mr. DeSpain.
Take the bar bet on this one, for there is no such law.
“……all those analysts over at the Agency I know were right…”says Mr. DeSpain.
That claim is in no need of Fisking as it is near farce just in the reading.
Personally, I come to this blog with an interest in what is being exchanged. But I am never receptive when someone stomps in with a fire-hose to blast the local hoi poloi against the walls.
Elitism, in any guise is fundamentally condescension.
I apologize for my directness.
A Christian does not pick and choose when to be a Christian. Either one is guided by “What would Jesus Do” or one is not. Taking prisoners based on probable cause can be appropriate. But secret prisons, torture, and extended lockup without being charged and without the opportunity to have competent legal counsel — those are supposed to be Nazi or Soviet horrors, not our own.
” But secret prisons, torture, and extended lockup without being charged and without the opportunity to have competent legal counsel — those are supposed to be Nazi or Soviet horrors, not our own.” writes Anomalocaris.
Our Constitution permits the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus within our borders and against US citizens. (See martial law and President’s wartime powers.)
In a “Geneva Convention” type war, we can take prisoners of war and hold them until the formal cessation of hostilities. That is an age old practice. It is not unusual for POW camps to be in “secret” locations.
We are engaged in a war against terrorism with no rules of the Geneva Conventions or other set of international agreements to follow. To hold terrorist prisoners on “probable cause” is not a far stretch. To hold them in prisons of cooperative countries does not seem that strange. We are not shipping US citizens abroad to circumvent their Constitutional rights. Specifically why should the location of the foreign prisoners of the war be an issue?
Torture is clearly a sticky problem. We argue constantly in our Constitutional society about “cruel and unusual punishment.” There is no doubt that what constitutes “torture” is also subject to endless argument.
I am not sure it is necessary to jump immediately to the Nazi, Stalin, Pol Pot comparisons especially since that is a leap of such extraordinary distance in philosophical temperament.
Personally, I have great difficulty getting the screams of Nick Berg out of my head. I am predisposed to believe that in dealing with these terrorists that we are dealing with true evil.
My religion instructs me to renounce the devil and all his works. Where is the example of the terrorists acting in any sense within the basic understanding of the Golden Rule?
The terrorists act is base and evil ways. We have not responded to their acts in base in evil ways. Even the abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghrib hardly rise to the levels of common Sharia punishment or the outrages of the terrorists. This does not excuse the abuses at our hands and those abuses sure did get plenty of investigation and punishment.
Mr. DeSpain, I do not want to abuse LaShawn’s hospitality and comments section, so I’m abbreviating here. If you want substance, send me an e-mail address: mjwhitney1@earthlink.net – I use blocking, so there’s a “request” delay.
1): Most of those who’ve read more than two or three Forsyth or Clancy novels ‘know more about the CIA than most Americans;’ still, “more than 99.5%” is quite impressive, and I’m a comparative nitwit.
Still, my point stands: The CIA (and every other institution or organization including, within limits, the Roman Catholic Church) is not a monolithic entity.
2): Joe Wilson is a proven liar. That says it all.
3): I’ll have to re-check the IC site to see whether Fitzgerald, or media assumptions, identified “Official A” as Karl Rove. Grand Jury secrecy being what it’s claimed to be, and thus far no allegations of wrongdoing re: Rove, I would think Fitzgerald naming him would constitute prosecutorial misconduct.
4): “Using distortions and leaks…” LaShawn’s original item, which all of this backing and forthing is about, was… about what? Oh, yeah, LEAKS of classified info.
By the way, it was William Buckley, not “arch conservative George Will,” who founded the National Review.
But so what? Victoria Tsoning (that’s as close as I can get to her surname) wrote the law in question, because of Phillip Agee’s little stunts identifying intelligence officers abroad, and the resultant death of Athens Chief of Station Dick Welch. She has stated that the Plame, etc., situation is a misreading and misuse of the law.
Anyway, I like her, and I’m not crazy about George Will. That’s good enough for me.
Merry
Dear Heliotrope,
Even accepting your point that today the United States finds itself enmeshed in world of much terrorism, well, we all agree about that. The question is, what is our best response to it? Of course, at every opportunity, we must pursue a known terrorist, or even a suspect terrorist. But once we have a suspect in custody, he or she is just that — a suspect — until proven guilty. To show the world that we are not like the Nazis and we are not like the Soviets, we have to live up to our values. No secret prisons, no torture, no sexual humiliation or abuse, and full opportunity for legal counsel.
You would want no less, if you had the misfortune of being taken prisoner in some foreign country.
Nicholas Berg was beheaded in Iraq because of our mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, some of whom were actually innocent. Actions have consequences.
Sincerely,
Heliotrope – Did I ever attack you? Did I ever call you names? Well my 99.5% might be a slight exaggeration, I apologive for that. I never meant to condescend but rather I wanted you to be aware that I am very aware the CIA isn’t a monolithic entity. However I have worked with CIA analysts in the past so my claim to knowledge isn’t without merit. You started by lecturing me about the CIA not being a monolithic entity. Trust me I am well aware of this. I see you doubt that claim. That’s your prerogative.
I am not certainly stomping in with a fire house. In fact I am not sure what you mean by this. In fact since you attributed a quote Bill Buckley to me (and in fact I put George Will for Bill Buckley’s name, talk about your Freudian typos.)
Another thing guys – this post was about secret prisons and what a bad idea they trully are. Not the war in Iraq.
I think secret prisons are a BAD idea and no one here stepped up to defend the idea. I realize Plamegate is an easy topic to fall into but I think this is seperate issue.
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