Secret Prisons
It's no longer a secret that the CIA has been holding terror suspects in secret prisons, including a newly uncovered area in the eastern bloc:
In fact, this has apparently already occured. Mamdouh Habib has publically stated that he was taken to Egypt, where he was tortured and where he confessed to crimes under torture he now says he did not commit, before he was taken to Guantanamo Bay. His trial has been complicated, however, because a key witness, an Al Qaeda leader arrested and detained in Afghanistan, has just escaped.
So let me just reconstruct this little nightmare: The Senate has stated that it is illegal for any prisoner of any kind taken by the US to be treated without regard to the Geneva Convention. The CIA has, for the last 4 years, set up an intricate system of detainment centers and positions aroudn the world, in secret, as well as exploited relationships with torture-friendly allies in order to "extract" that so-called valuable information from detainees [which thus far has proven unsatisfactory and confusing, at the very best]. The witnesses, for those suspects who are allowed to go public with their claims of innocence, are held in various other prisons, presumably some secret, without even enough security to gurantee their safety or detention.
Catch-22 much for a terror suspect in the New World? Catch-22 much for the value-system of a humanitarian America trying to do the best thing in the world, and consistently failing...?
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 paper said Tuesday.It's also not hard to suspect how this might be abused, and might be an avoidance tactic intended to dodge Geneva Convention humanitarian agreements. In fact, keep in mind that after last month's 90-9 anti-torture vote, Dick Cheney and others called for the CIA to be exempt from being held liable for committing torture.
In fact, this has apparently already occured. Mamdouh Habib has publically stated that he was taken to Egypt, where he was tortured and where he confessed to crimes under torture he now says he did not commit, before he was taken to Guantanamo Bay. His trial has been complicated, however, because a key witness, an Al Qaeda leader arrested and detained in Afghanistan, has just escaped.
So let me just reconstruct this little nightmare: The Senate has stated that it is illegal for any prisoner of any kind taken by the US to be treated without regard to the Geneva Convention. The CIA has, for the last 4 years, set up an intricate system of detainment centers and positions aroudn the world, in secret, as well as exploited relationships with torture-friendly allies in order to "extract" that so-called valuable information from detainees [which thus far has proven unsatisfactory and confusing, at the very best]. The witnesses, for those suspects who are allowed to go public with their claims of innocence, are held in various other prisons, presumably some secret, without even enough security to gurantee their safety or detention.
Catch-22 much for a terror suspect in the New World? Catch-22 much for the value-system of a humanitarian America trying to do the best thing in the world, and consistently failing...?
posted by General Stan at 11:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home