NY Times Editorial: Legalized Torture, Reloaded

national | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Thursday October 27, 2005 13:22

by redjade

October 26, 2005

Amid all the natural and political disasters it faces, the White House is certainly tireless in its effort to legalize torture. This week, Vice President Dick Cheney proposed a novel solution for the moral and legal problems raised by the use of American soldiers to abuse prisoners and the practice of turning captives over to governments willing to act as proxies in doing the torturing. Mr. Cheney wants to make it legal for the Central Intelligence Agency to do this wet work.

[....]

But Mr. Cheney's proposal was even more ludicrous. It would give the president the power to allow government agencies outside the Defense Department (the administration has in mind the C.I.A.) to mistreat and torture prisoners as long as that behavior was part of "counterterrorism operations conducted abroad" and they were not American citizens. That would neatly legalize the illegal prisons the C.I.A. is said to be operating around the world and

obviate the need for the torture outsourcing known as extraordinary rendition. It also raises disturbing questions about Iraq, which the Bush administration has falsely labeled a counterterrorism operation.

more at
http://tinyurl.com/b4aqu

---

Note:
Now that the Bush Admin wants to legalise torture, I wonder what Bertie's position is on the Torture Planes coming through Shannon?

That would be a good Dáil Question.

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Comments (6 of 6)

Wash Post: Vice President for Torture

Mon Oct 31, 2005 23:39

Vice President for Torture
Wednesday, October 26, 2005; A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501388_pf.html

VICE PRESIDENT Cheney is aggressively pursuing an initiative that may be unprecedented for an elected official of the executive branch: He is proposing that Congress legally authorize human rights abuses by Americans. "Cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners is banned by an international treaty negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the United States. The State Department annually issues a report criticizing other governments for violating it. Now Mr. Cheney is asking Congress to approve legal language that would allow the CIA to commit such abuses against foreign prisoners it is holding abroad. In other words, this vice president has become an open advocate of torture.

Washington Post: CIA's Secret Prisons

Wed Nov 02, 2005 12:26

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons
Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas
System Set Up After 9/11

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, November 2, 2005; A01

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al
Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to
U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

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 hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's
unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of
foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information
about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly
all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert
actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black
sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and
congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in
the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top
intelligence officers in each host country.

[....]

The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European
countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S.
officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt
counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could
make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.

[....]

The Eastern European countries that the CIA has persuaded to hide al
Qaeda captives are democracies that have embraced the rule of law and
individual rights after decades of Soviet domination. Each has been
trying to cleanse its intelligence services of operatives who have
worked on behalf of others -- mainly Russia and organized crime.

full text at
http://tinyurl.com/e4r7t

Rumsfeld Denies UN to Guantanamo Detainees

Wed Nov 02, 2005 19:58

November 2, 2005 by Agence France Presse

Rumsfeld Denies UN Rights Experts Access to Guantanamo Detainees

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused UN experts access to detainees at a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dismissing a hunger strike there as a publicity stunt.

The Pentagon last week invited three UN human rights experts to "observe" operations at the Guantanamo detention center but the officials have said they will go only if they are allowed to interview prisoners privately. In rejecting that, Rumsfeld said the International Committee of the Red Cross already has "complete and total access."

"And so we're not inclined to add the number of people that would be given that extensive access," he told reporters at a Pentagon press conference.

The ICRC as a matter of policy does not make its findings public in order to preserve its access to prisons that might otherwise be closed to them.

The UN special rapporteurs, on the other hand, would be expected to report what they see or hear while visiting Guantanamo.

The Pentagon's invitation last week came in the midst of a three-month-old hunger strike that defense lawyers say has involved as many as 200 detainees in protest over their indefinite detentions.

"I suppose that what they're trying to do is to capture press attention, obviously, and they've succeeded," Rumsfeld said.

N313P: Poland and Romania Home of CIA/KGB Gulags?

Thu Nov 03, 2005 10:21

Poland and Romania marked as likely locations for CIA camps
http://euobserver.com/?aid=20243&rk=1

Speculation is mounting on the possible location of camps where the CIA interrogates al Qaeda suspects in eastern Europe, with Poland and Romania being earmarked as the most likely spots.

The question on the exact location of the CIA facilities comes after a Washington Post report on Wednesday (2 November), which revealed that the US intelligence branch has detained top al Qaeda suspects somewhere in eastern Europe.

[....]

But Human Rights Watch, a leading US-based NGO, has identified Poland and Romania as likely locations for the camps, according to press reports.

"We have a high degree of confidence that such facilities exist in at least Poland and Romania", said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of the NGO, according to the FT.

Human Rights Watch referred to the flight records of CIA aircraft transporting prisoners out of Afghanistan as one piece of strong evidence.

Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza also refers to "sources" earmarking Poland and Romania as the camp locations.

According to the paper, a CIA prison plane, the Boeing 737 N313P, landed in Poland in the north-eastern regional airport of Szymany in August 2003.

Both Poland and Romania are seen as staunch allies of the Americans, having offered full support for Washington’s military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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NY Times Editorial: Legalized Torture, Reloaded

Comments (6 of 6)