America's secret gulag

Aboard Air CIA
The agency ran a secret charter service, shuttling detainees to interrogation facilities worldwide. Was it legal? What’s next? A NEWSWEEK investigation

By Michael Hirsh, Mark Hosenball and John Barry
Newsweek

Feb. 28 issue - Like many detainees with tales of abuse, Khaled el-Masri had a hard time getting people to believe him. Even his wife didn’t know what to make of his abrupt, five-month disappearance last year. Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, says he was taken off a bus in Macedonia in south-central Europe while on holiday on Dec. 31, 2003, then whisked in handcuffs to a motel outside the capital city of Skopje. Three weeks later, on the evening of Jan. 23, 2004, he was brought blindfolded aboard a jet with engines noisily revving, according to his lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic. Masri says he climbed high stairs “like onto a regular passenger airplane” and was chained to clamps on the bare metal floor and wall of the jet.

Masri says he was then flown to Afghanistan, where at a U.S. prison facility he was shackled, repeatedly punched and questioned about extremists at his mosque in Ulm, Germany. Finally released months later, the still-mystified Masri was deposited on a deserted road leading into Macedonia, where he brokenly tried to describe his nightmarish odyssey to a border guard. “The man was laughing at me,” Masri told The New York Times, which disclosed his story last month. “He said: ‘Don’t tell that story to anyone because no one will believe it. Everyone will laugh’.”

Read the rest of the story here:

msnbc.msn.com/id/6999272/site/newsweek/

Another more detailed report on the same story:
guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/s … 57,00.html

There’s an old saying that goes…

Meaning don’t be suprised about the capablities of someone, Especially the CIA :s

I am sure that the outrage would also extend to many detainees suspected of terrorism that France, by law, can keep without putting on trial for up to three years. This policy was instituted during the Algerian bombing campaign during the mid 1980s and is today in fact still in effect. I believe that other European countries have similarly tough policies and would therefore love to hear how the US policy of detaining prisoners and interrogating them in Guantanamo and Afghanistan would differ from said practices? Anyone?

US policy differs in the sense that the US actually makes frequent use of it, the others don’t.

Actually I am not aware which European countries have abuse/torture as part of their policies, but are you in fact admitting that the US does?

Actually Rascal you are quite wrong. Since the mid1980s hundreds if not thousands of people have been detained by the French government. If you want to talk about which nations have actually discussed when and how to implement a torture policy, you would do well to read Germany’s newspapers. This has been a debate in your country since 1999. If in fact torture, abuse and such detentions are of such major concern to people around the world, they might want to first examine their own country’s policy about said matters before launching into the usual diatribes against America and how it does not conform with international law, etc. Would you like me to repost all the information from the previous threads from sites such as Amnesty International documenting Germany’s use of torture and the widespread abuse that asylum seekers and illegal immigrants receive at the hands of the German police? Would you like all the information reposted again on the French government’s detention policies and use of heavy interrogation methods to deal with suspected terrorists? Just let me know if you need to see all that again or can you scroll down to the previous threads yourself?

Fred,

If France, Germany and whoever are arresting innocent people and holding them for months without trial while torturing them to confess to crimes they didn’t commit, then by all means I would condemn them harshly. However, I’m not really sure if this is the case because I’ve heard nothing of that (in recent times). Of course, Germany did it a LOT of horrible things during WW II, but that was the Nazi era, and as you are aware, we fought a war to stop that madness.

But what is your point? France and Germany do bad things, so it’s OK for the USA to do even worse things? If the USA can justify arbitrary arrest and torture, then how is America any better than China or North Korea? I’d like to tell you Fred that I don’t consider myself a bleeding heart liberal or a leftist, nor do I particularly want to emigrate to France, but I have a problem as I watch the USA becoming more and more like Nazi Germany. Yes, I’ve got a problem with simply scooping up innocent people from the street, flying them to Afghanistan, and torturing them to obtain confessions for crimes they didn’t commit, all in the name of protecting “freedom”.

And you’d better be careful Fred, because maybe some computer glitch will tag you and you’ll find yourself enjoying a free vacation in some torture chamber. Once this kind of practice becomes routine, nobody is safe.

By the way, here’s an even better article (I publishing this link last week in another thread, but if you missed it last time it’s very much worth a read):

newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6

cheers,
DB

Might as well repost this all. What short memories (selective?) there seem to be…

[quote]Under French law, they could remain locked up for as long as three years while authorities decide whether to put them on trial – a legal limbo that their attorneys charge is not much different than what they faced at Guantanamo.

Armed with some of the strictest anti-terrorism laws and policies in Europe, the French government has aggressively targeted Islamic radicals and other people deemed a potential terrorist threat. While other Western countries debate the proper balance between security and individual rights, France has experienced scant public dissent over tactics that would be controversial, if not illegal, in the United States and some other countries.

France has embraced a law enforcement strategy that relies heavily on preemptive arrests, ethnic profiling and an efficient domestic intelligence-gathering network. French anti-terrorism prosecutors and investigators are among the most powerful in Europe, backed by laws that allow them to interrogate suspects for days without interference from defense attorneys.

The nation pursues such policies at a time when France has become well known in the world for criticizing the United States for holding suspected terrorists at Guantanamo without normal judicial protections. French politicians have also loudly protested the U.S. decision to invade Iraq, arguing that it has exacerbated tensions with the Islamic world and has increased the threat of terrorism.

Many of the anti-terror laws and policies in France date to 1986, when the country was grappling with Palestinian and European extremist groups. Since then, the government has modified and expanded those laws several times, gradually giving authorities expanded powers to deport and detain people.

Saudi officials prepared to deport Ganczarski back to Germany, but when German officials indicated they lacked the evidence to arrest him, Saudi authorities arranged a detour, putting him on a flight with a connection through Paris. When Ganczarski arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport on June 2, 2003, he was detained for questioning by French police.

Seventeen months later Ganczarski remains in a French jail, under investigation for alleged conspiracy in the Tunisian attack. French investigators have claimed jurisdiction in the case because French nationals were among the casualties in the Tunisia attack.

Over the past decade, Bruguiere has ordered the arrests of more than 500 people on suspicion of "conspiracy in relation to terrorism," a broad charge that gives him leeway to lock up suspects while he carries out investigations. [/quote]

How many total are in Guantanamo? 600? 800? How does this differ from the 500 in France?

washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy … ge=printer

[quote=“Rascal”]US policy differs in the sense that the US actually makes frequent use of it, the others don’t.

Actually I am not aware which European countries have abuse/torture as part of their policies, so are you in fact admitting that the US does?[/quote]

And how did the French catch “Carlos the Jackal”? After being betrayed by the Muslim government in Sudan, French intelligence put him in a straightjacket, refused him water (he has just had an operation), and flew him back to France ignoring international law in the process. :smiling_imp: :smiling_imp:

As to Germany, please see below. There is far more where this came from so just let me know if you need more…

This is an excerpt only. Be sure and read the whole report.

web.amnesty.org/report2004/deu-summary-eng

[quote=“fred smith”]As to Germany, please see below. There is far more where this came from so just let me know if you need more…

This is an excerpt only. Be sure and read the whole report.

web.amnesty.org/report2004/deu-summary-eng[/quote]

Ah, Fred,

It’s really hard debating with you. Yes, yes, I know, France and Germany are awful, we should just nuke them and get it over with. Now that I’ve conceded that, I’d like you to return the favor by addressing the topic of this thread, which I started. The topic was about the USA’s secret gulag. Specifically, I want to know how you feel about this? What do you think about the mounting evidence that the USA is simply scooping up people who are suspected of supporting terrorism (often with little or no evidence) and shipping them to third world countries to be tortured? Do you have any problem with that? Or is it just fine? Please see if you can answer this without mentioning France or Germany.

Thank you, and have a nice day,
DB

Fred, Germany does not have such policies. That there have been some similar cases and that there is/was a debate if such policies should be implemented does not prove that there are such policies. Else why where the police officers investigated and convicted?

Take a glance at the Amnesty International Report which cites frequent and ongoing abuse of asylum seekers and refugees and illegal immigrants. It details these abuses over many years. While it may not be the “official” policy of the German government, Schroeder and his asswipe Fischer have done nothing to stop these abuses. Why is it okay for Germany to get off the hook simply because this is not official. It is like Germany signing onto the Currency Stabilization Pact only to break the treaty when inconvenient. That is not the official policy of Germany either but the end result is the same: Germany does not care about nor respect international law.

As to the comments regarding these detainees, I would have to see more evidence about this than just the claims of someone who says he was detained and that there was not reason for it. How many of those that were released from Guantanamo have actually returned to fight us again on the field? We have documented several such cases. Quite frankly, I am with the French on this one. Let’s err on the side of caution. I seriously doubt that any (and certainly not many) of these detainees just happened to be out walking on the street where they were scooped up for no reason. Most were caught fighting on the battlefield or were turned over by the security agencies of other nations, most notably Pakistan. Either way, they were going to be detained and many if given the choice would I believe rather be in Guantanmo than say an Afghan or Pakistani or even Saudi jail. What would you say?

I say that all this is a necessary evil and one where all the immorality is posited on one side: The one doing the incarceration. It is a very nice moral equation: The US government is to be damned for all eternity if even one innocent is captured and detained unjustly. But then how many on the left or those otherwise earnest moralizers are willing to take the blame for the innocent civilian deaths that may occur because someone with a very credible case based on circumstantial evidence was released? This is very different from letting off someone who most believed murdered a wife of family member for lack of evidence. The chances of more murders are very slim. The chances of mass murders from terrorism are however infinitely more incalculable. Therein lies the difference and I do not see anyone on the left adopting the moral responsibility to answer to the innocent victims of any further terrorist acts which may occur because someone was released from detention to satisfy their need to respect international law.

"In November 2002, a newly minted CIA case officer in charge of a secret prison just north of Kabul allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets, according to four U.S. government officials aware of the case.

The Afghan guards – paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision in an abandoned warehouse code-named the Salt Pit – dragged their captive around on the concrete floor, bruising and scraping his skin, before putting him in his cell, two of the officials said.

As night fell, so, predictably, did the temperature.

By morning, the Afghan man had frozen to death.

After a quick autopsy by a CIA medic – “hypothermia” was listed as the cause of death – the guards buried the Afghan, who was in his twenties, in an unmarked, unacknowledged cemetery used by Afghan forces, officials said. The captive’s family has never been notified; his remains have never been returned for burial. He is on no one’s registry of captives, not even as a “ghost detainee,” the term for CIA captives held in military prisons but not registered on the books, they said.

“He just disappeared from the face of the earth,” said one U.S. government official with knowledge of the case.

The CIA case officer, meanwhile, has been promoted, two of the officials said, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the matter. The case is under investigation by the CIA inspector general."

washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy … ge=printer

The point is not weither or not some countries use or don’t use brutal police forces, kidnapping, torture etc…Because they all do. Maybe we should debate on which country is using these methods the most.
In any case, it’s wrong.
DB, your post is adressed to the American Gov and its gulag. OK. I think everyone could agree this is wrong and I don’t see anyone saying otherwise.
But JS pointing out the French, German and all the other govs not listed is true too and equally wrong.
America happens to be in the spotlight these days, but it doesn’t make other govs less guilty of their own crimes.

[color=blue]The same logic applies domestically.[/color]

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Justice Statistics

Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994:

"Among nearly 300,000 prisoners released in 15 States in 1994, 67.5% were rearrested within 3 years.

67.5% of the prisoners were rearrested for a new offense (almost exclusively a felony or a serious misdemeanor). 46.9% were reconvicted for a new crime."

police state
: a political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures.

[color=blue]March 13, 2005

THE PENTAGON’S investigations of its own abuses of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have taken on a predictable pattern. Officials compile voluminous reports – there have now been 10 – detailing shocking mistreatment, widespread violations of laws and the Geneva Conventions, and failures by senior military commanders and civilian officials up to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. They then conclude there was “no policy of abuse” and duck the question of whether anyone above the low-ranking personnel now being prosecuted should be held accountable.

The report delivered to Congress last week by Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III, which was intended to fill the gaps of previous reviews, provides a blatant example of this whitewashing."[/color]

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar … Mar12.html