Italy Convicts CIA Agents of Kidnapping and Rendition

Well, at least there's justice for 'extraordinary rendition' victims in one jurisdiction in this world.

In the case of Abu Omar who was snatched from the streets of Milan in 2003 and rendered to Egypt to be tortured (known as the 'Imam rapito affair' in Italy), Human Rights Watch weighs in:

(Milan) - An Italian court's conviction of 23 agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for kidnapping is an historic repudiation of the CIA's crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. The Milan court also found that two Italian officials illegally collaborated in CIA abuses.

The judge said he could not pronounce any verdict against five of the seven Italians on trial for the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam because they were protected by the state secrecy doctrine. Of the 26 Americans who were on trial, all of them in absentia, the court found that three were protected by diplomatic immunity guarantees.

Robert Seldon Lady, alleged to be the CIA station chief in Milan at the time of the kidnapping, received an eight-year sentence, the most serious penalty that the court handed down in the case. [See his 'I was only following orders' defense here. -catnip]

"The Milan court sent a powerful message: the CIA can't just abduct people off the streets. It's illegal, unacceptable, and unjustified," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism program director at Human Rights Watch. "Both the Italian and US governments should now be on notice that justice authorities will not ignore crimes committed under the guise of fighting terrorism."

...

The verdicts today also stand in stark contrast to a disappointing decision issued on November 2 by a US federal appellate court in New York, which dismissed the suit brought by Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar. Arar was detained while in transit at John F. Kennedy airport in September 2002, then rendered by the CIA to Jordan and Syria, where he was brutally tortured for nearly a year.

Arar won't find justice in the United States - not when Obama has decided to continue the rendition program while providing legal cover for CIA agents who flagrantly break the law. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... His administration may have walked away from the 'Global War on Terror" moniker of Bushco but it's obviously still very much in play.

And, if you followed the Niger/yellowcake forgery story closely, you'll remember this name:

The Italian defendants included Gen. Nicolò Pollari, the former head of SISMI, Italy's military intelligence service, who was forced to resign over Abu Omar's abduction and rendition, and Pollari's former deputy, Marco Mancini.

in 2005, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported, as translated by The American Prospect, that in the 2002 run up to the Iraq war, Pollari had a suspicious meeting with then deputy National Security adviser Stephen Hadley.

The paper goes on to note the significance of that date, highlighting the appearance of a little-noticed story in Panorama a weekly magazine owned by Italian Prime Minister and Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi, that was published three days after Pollari's meeting with Hadley. The magazine's September 12, 2002, issue claimed that Iraq's intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat, had acquired 500 tons of uranium from Nigeria through a Jordanian intermediary. (While this September 2002 Panorama report mentioned Nigeria, the forgeries another Panorama reporter would be proferred less than a month later purportedly concerned Niger.)

The Sismi chief's previously undisclosed meeting with Hadley, who was promoted earlier this year to national security adviser, occurred one month before a murky series of events culminated in the U.S. government obtaining copies of the Niger forgeries.

Thick as thieves (and forgers and kidnappers and torturers and murderers) - the lot of them.

Crocodile tears from one of those found guilty:

EXCLUSIVE: Convicted CIA Spy Says "We Broke the Law"

One of the 23 Americans convicted today by an Italian court says the United States "broke the law" in the CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.

"And we are paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorized and approved this," said former CIA officer Sabrina deSousa in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson.

DeSousa says the U.S. "abandoned and betrayed" her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping. She was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.

Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), a member of the House Intelligence Committee told ABC News that the trial was a disaster for CIA officers like DeSousa on the frontline.

"I think these people have been put out there. They've been hung out to dry. They're taking the fall potentially for a decision that was made by their superiors in our agencies. It's the wrong place to go."

Just which part of kidnapping is illegal and is punishable under the law didn't DeSousa understand? The Nuremberg defense rears its ugly head once again. And exactly how is she "paying" for anything? She's free, obviously. No one rendered her to Italy to actually stand trial.

And having Hoekstra as your number one defender? What a joke. The minute he calls for prosecutions of Bush administration officials - those "superiors", let me know.

Related:

Scott Horton: Judgment in Milan
 
 

Was Abdurahman Khadr telling the truth?

In 2004, one of Omar Khadr's brothers, Abdurahman, shared what seemed like a fantastical story with PBS' investigative show Frontline. His now infamous tale involved quite an incredible journey through several countries - from Afghanistan to Gitmo in Cuba and onto Bosnia where he claimed to have worked as a CIA informant. With no way to actually prove his CIA connection, he has remained under a cloud of suspicion since he went public. Both he and child soldier Omar Khadr have been smeared with guilt-by-association charges by those who believe that they hold the radical views expressed by their notorious parents and other family members.

None of that is news, of course, but what reminded me of Khadr's adventure was this article in The Independent this past week that might actually lend some credibility to his story: Exposed: MI5's secret deals in Camp X-ray - How MI5 attempted to recruit prison camp inmates

MI5 secretly tried to hire British men held in Guantanamo Bay and other US prison camps by promising to protect them from their American captors and help secure their return home to the United Kingdom, The Independent has learnt.

Khadr is a Canadian but the first officials he spoke to in Afghanistan when he was picked up were British because, as he explained to Frontline:

Why would the British come and see you?

Well this is after I was put in jail, you know. … I don't know, they told me, "Well there's no Canadian embassy so we are responsible for any Canadians here in Kabul under detention." …

Then they moved us from that jail to another jail which was the Afghani intelligence jails. There is a lot of them but the third intelligence directorate jail. They kept us there and that's where the Americans first interrogated me and then Canadians, the RCMP. They kept me there for a month and a half and then they moved us from there … to another jail.

The British story has a twist, however:

One of the men, Richard Belmar, was told he would be paid "well" for his services if he was willing to work undercover for MI5. A second detainee, Bisher Al Rawi, was told that if he agreed to work for the security service he would be "freed within months".

Three other detainees were threatened with rendition and harsh detention regimes if they did not co-operate with their British and American interrogators.

But MI5 failed to honour the promises made by its agents, a former agent has told The Independent.

The source, who is close to the MI5 officers who conducted the interviews, has confirmed that "assurances" had been given to the British men while they were held in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. But he said that senior officers in London had cleared the actions of its own officers but later reneged on the promises. This is backed up by sworn testimony lodged in the High Court from the former detainees.

As the article notes, these British agents want the public to know that they had approval from those in charge - that they were not some rogue players in this situation. That's why these details have now come out.

Considering the international intelligence community's collaborations during this period, it suddenly seems even more probable that Abdurahman Khadr was in fact telling the truth. There is very little else to explain the strange facts involved in his incarcerations, releases and subsequent travels that ended with his return to Canada without even a whisper of any charges being laid for his purported role in the so-called war on terrorism.

Working for the CIA

[Frontline:][Tell us about your first contact with the CIA.]

[Khadr:] The first contact with the CIA … it was the meeting where, you know, they started asking me questions. They told me that we know you've been talking to the British and you were very cooperative. And can you help us in this place, can you help us in that? I said well I've already told this to the British. I'll help you anyway. I just want to get out. …

...

Editor's Note: FRONTLINE asked the CIA to confirm or deny Abdurahman Khadr's story but the agency declined to comment. However, Abdurahman did submit to a polygraph examination at FRONTLINE's request, in which he was asked about his work for U.S. intelligence, being paid for it and being flown on a small jet to Bosnia for his mission there. On all major aspects of his story, Abdurahman passed the polygraph.

Protecting Torturers: Pt 2 - Rahm Makes it (More) Official

Rahm Emanuel on ABC's This Week:

GEORGE: Does [President Obama] believe that the officials who devised the policies should be immune from prosecution?

RAHM: Yeah. What he believes is, look, as you saw in that statement he wrote, and I’m just gonna take a step back, we came up with this and worked on this for about four weeks, wrote that statement Wednesday night after he had made his decision and dictated what he wanted to see, and Thursday morning I saw him in the office and he was still editing it. What he believes it that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided, they shouldn’t be prosecuted.

GEORGE: But what about those who devised the policy?

RAHM: Yeah, but those who devised the policy, he believes that they were uh should not be prosecuted either. And it’s not the place that we go — as he said in that letter, and I really recommend that people look at the full statement — not the letter, the statement — in that second [to last] paragraph. This is not a time for retribution. It’s a time for reflection. It is not the time to use our energy and our time in looking back and in a sense of anger and retribution. We have a lot to do to protect America, but what people need to know: This practice and technique, we don’t use anymore. He banned it.

This doesn't surprise me at all but it has come as quite the sideswipe to Obama supporters who believed that he would eventually...sometime...when he wasn't busy...later...get around to actually holding somebody responsible for these horrendous acts.

There's no denying now that Obama's not interested in doing so at all.

The latest reasoning from those starry-eyed supporters (as spied over at Daily Kos? Maybe Obama doesn't want prosecutions but (somehow miraculously) AG Holder will defy him and go ahead with prosecutions anyway.

Obamafiles, meet reality. Justice means never having to say you're guilty.
 

Protecting Torturers

Along with the release of partially redacted Bush administration torture memos in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on Thursday, Obama made the following statement (in part):

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.

Going forward, it is my strong belief that the United States has a solemn duty to vigorously maintain the classified nature of certain activities and information related to national security. This is an extraordinarily important responsibility of the presidency, and it is one that I will carry out assertively irrespective of any political concern. Consequently, the exceptional circumstances surrounding these memos should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities. I will always do whatever is necessary to protect the national security of the United States.

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.

The United States is a nation of laws. My administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.

The United States has been and continues to be a nation that skirts the laws. And if letting torturers get away with war crimes is one of that nation's "ideals", I expect to see pardons of those who were convicted of the Abu Ghraib torture atrocities from the Obama administration sometime soon.

Outrage mixed with many simply failed attempts to rationalize Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA perpetrators have been sprinkled through the so-called 'progressive' American blogosphere since Thursday in response to this "news". Well it's not news, for one thing.

Leon Panetta was quite clear during his confirmation hearing that his opinion matched that of Obama's when it came to this matter ie. no prosecutions. And what could possibly justify this position?

(Panetta) Having said that, I also believe as the president has indicated that those individuals who operated pursuant to a legal opinion that indicated that that was proper and legal ought not be prosecuted or investigated and that they acted pursuant to the law as it was presented to them by the attorney general.

Not only that, Obama's DOJ will be more than happy to defend you from prosecution too. So, the bottom line is that if some government lawyer writes a rationale that flies in the face of the law, the US constitution and international treaties, your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to act like an imbecile, pretend that you're not breaking any laws and just follow orders because, when push comes to shove, the US government has your ass covered.

Hopeyness is dying on the vine as Naomi Klein skillfully observes. Even Obama's new dog, whatever Michelle is wearing today and/or Obama's visit to Latin America aren't providing the much-needed escapism in the face of this pesky torture stuff.

It's been quite an interesting exercise to watch those who railed against torture while Bush was in office suddenly do an about face and support Obama's refusal to carry out his treaty obligations to prosecute the offenders.

Ironically, back in 2005, Bush said this:

"The only thing I issued was, don't torture. That's the policy of the government," he told a Knight Ridder reporter. "And we don't torture. And if there is torture, we will bring people to account."

And they did. At least as it applied to Abu Ghraib. (Stunning contrast, I know. But somebody had to point it out.)

The new Democratic president, on the other hand, has absolutely no interest in prosecuting anyone for torture and his people may have had something to do with Spain's AG refusing to prosecute the Bush 6.

Obama said he had not had direct contact with the Spanish government about the case but "my team has been in communications with them."

What do you suppose his team had to say about those prosecutions? Go right ahead?

And if you think you'll just hang onto that hopeyness because Obama might actually go after the Bush 6 himself some day, think again. The Bush administration, enabled by numerous Democrats and now sanctioned by this president, ensured that those in command remain untouchable.

The strikes against Obama keep piling up and it ought to be very clear that he will not be the champion of human and civil rights some made him out to be. He is not the second coming of Lincoln or MLK, after all. (Surprise!) Au contraire, political viability is at the top of his priority list.

For someone who touted himself as a Washington outsider who was going to bust in and change the place, (so he said, anyway), his actions to this point have shown that he's just decided to pull up the most politically comfortable chair in town while holding court just like every other politician there. He will not sacrifice his political career for something as apparently inconsequential as the rule of law or human rights. That is not going to change.

Mr "post-racial" and "post-partisan" is now also Mr "post-torture prosecutions". For someone who's already written not one, but two autobiographies in his short life, isn't it kind of odd that he excuses away his unpopular political actions by insisting it's better to look forward all of the time? Just how long does he think that attitude is going to keep him propped up?

And just like those of us who screamed for impeachment were pushed to the back of the so-called 'progressive' bus by the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Dem party online faithful (and operatives), we might as well get used to sitting in the crappy seats for a whole while longer. Because, just as Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, Joseph Stiglitz and others have been excommunicated by those Democrats who have complete faith in the financial gospel according to Obama, Geithner, Summers and the rest of the Goldman Sachs hacks now in government, you can expect to be keeping company with those radical, fringe lefty groups like the ACLU, Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Watch if you believe all torturers and those who gave the orders and legal justifications should be prosecuted.

I know who I'd rather be sitting with. How about you?

Related:

You can read the actual memos here.

The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means
 

Panetta on Why Torturers Shouldn't be Prosecuted

During his confirmation hearing on Thursday, Leon Panetta, Obama's choice to be the next head of the CIA added the following after responding to Senator Carl Levin that he believed water boarding was torture:

Having said that, I also believe as the president has indicated that those individuals who operated pursuant to a legal opinion that indicated that that was proper and legal ought not be prosecuted or investigated and that they acted pursuant to the law as it was presented to them by the attorney general.

If that doesn't smack of the Nixonian maxim that "it's not illegal if the president does it", I don't know what does.

What Panetta is saying is that even though the legal opinion that allowed Buscho to sanction torture may have been unconstitutional, the law was the law was the law at that time. In effect, the torturers were only following orders. Well, that defense didn't fly at Nuremberg and it surely should not be used by this administration in any form to absolve torturers.

Not only that, Panetta (who stated that he's agreeing with Obama's beliefs on this matter, you'll note) does not even believe these torturers should be investigated. And that might be all right - if the US was a dictatorship.

But, I suppose this is all moot anyway considering that the Military Commissions Act not only provided cover for torturers but granted CIA agents retroactive immunity.

Let's face it, Bush and his torturers will never be brought to justice in a US court. There is no will for it in government. The Democrats are busily "looking ahead" so they can avoid assigning responsibility for the crimes of the past - believing that somehow that will assuage the Republicans and make them more amenable to deal with. (Or perhaps they're covering up their own complicity in those crimes.)

I can't imagine that it's comforting for Dem party supporters to know that Obama and Panetta both believe that if a president orders an unconstitutional law, those who carry it out get a free pass.

Or maybe it is. I don't know. I'm not a Democrat or an Obama supporter...
 

Olympic-sized Shame

It will be, and should be for everyone watching, nearly impossible to really enjoy the 2008 Olympics knowing the horrendous backdrop in which it is set - a modern-day China that is centuries behind in the way its government treats its native peoples and those it has colonized in places like Tibet.

As Johann Hari writes in Britain's The Independent:

...many of us want to believe we are being tolerant – and even anti-racist – by sticking our fingers in our ears when it comes to the conflict within China. Why? Because our silent societal taboo: we aid and abet the Chinese dictatorship every day. Through our government. Through our corporations. And – crucially – through our choices at the till. At some semiconscious level, we don't want the Chinese people to be allowed to speak and assemble and think freely – because it would mean we had to pay more.

How many times have you chosen a store item, seen the label "Made in China", felt a tiny twinge of guilt - aware of the many human rights abuses of the Chinese government - yet bought the item anyway because it was cheap? Companies like Wal-Mart count on that appeal:

...there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to "Buy American," has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States.

That's what human rights have become in this world: cheap.

And we further cheapen them not just by the shopping choices we make but by turning the other way when faced with the stark reality of oppression and cruelty dressed up in the guise of healthy capitalism or fighting for our freedoms in the wars we endlessly fund and excuse.

The subjugation of human rights is big business. While the current outrage in the US is over the furor about the Iraqi government oil profits not being directed to reconstruction (guess what, Americans? you destroyed the place, you didn't impeach the warmongers, you fix it), have you heard anyone lately complaining about the fact the the CIA's "black budget" is classified?

Although figures are not available after 2000, the Inspector General calculated the CIA has siphoned $1.7 trillion in 1998, $2.3 trillion in 1999 and $1.1 trillion in 2000. This entire CIA funding process, of course, has dubious constitutional authority, but is allowed by various Congressional enactments and secret approval given by the Executive branch and high-ranking congressional leaders.

Trillions of US dollars unaccounted for - used for foreign coups, torture programs, secret prisons, kidnappings, murders, and covert ops that no one will ever know about - and Americans are complaining that the Iraqi government has $80 billion stashed away for its future?

So, while George Bush is predictably performing political theatre by scolding the Chinese government over its human rights abuses - (is this the face of a man who's seriously concerned about human rights?) - a message from a president who once mused about how things would be so much easier if he was a dictator (and he's been a de facto one anyway, considering the lack of congressional willingness to oversee his long list of abuses and crimes) - the shade is still very much drawn over what the CIA and world leaders do behind closed doors in the name of "furthering capitalism" or "protecting national interests" while pretending to care about rights. Code phrases for patting each other on the back while looking the other way as ordinary people are severely harmed by whatever policies they choose to cook up without ever consulting the very people they're supposed to represent. See: Energy Policy, Cheney ie. the death of the Kyoto Protocol and the massive enrichment of oil tycoons and war profiteers thus resulting in US corporate monsters like Exxon-Mobil running teevee ads suddenly trying to convince everyone how "green" they are. It's all one gigantic propaganda farce.

China is just another link in that chain and far be it for any corporation's employees to actually state what's really going on, as CNN's Jack Cafferty found out earlier this year when he was forced to semi-apologize for stating the truth about China's governmental "goons and thugs" - an apt description of most world leaders at one time or another. And, as Cafferty noted, China owns so much US debt that although the USA likes to tout itself as Number One in every possible way, it's actually becoming a subsidiary of China's wealth. How's that for back door colonization?

The biggest dollar surplus country today [2006] is China. Globalization is in fact just a code word for dollarization. The Chinese Yuan is fixed to the dollar. The US is being flooded with cheap Chinese goods, often outsourced by US multinationals. China today has the largest trade surplus with the US, more than $100 billion a year. Japan is second with $70 billion. Canada with $48 bn, Mexico with $37 bn and Germany with $36 bn make the top 5 trade deficit countries, a total deficit of almost $300 billion of the colossal $480 deficit in 2002. This gives a clue to US foreign policy priorities.

What is perverse about this system is the fact that Washington has succeeded in getting foreign surplus countries to invest their own savings, to be a creditor to the US, buying Treasury bonds. Asian countries like Indonesia export capital to the US instead of the reverse!

The US Treasury and Greenspan are certain that its trade partners will be forced to always buy more US debt to prevent the global monetary system from collapsing, as nearly happened in 1998 with the Russia default and the LTCM hedge fund crisis.
[...]
But debt must be repaid you say? Does it ever? The central banks just keep buying new debt, rolling the old debts over. The debts of the USA are the assets of the rest of the world, the basis of their credit systems!

The second key to the Dollar System deals with poorer debtor countries. Here the US influence is strategic in the key multilateral institutions of finance—World Bank and IMF, WTO. Entire countries like Argentina or Brazil or Indonesia are forced to devalue currencies relative to the dollar, privatize key state industries, cut subsidies, all to repay dollar debt, most often to private US banks. When they resist selling off their best assets, tehy are charged with being corrupt. The growth of offshore money centers in the Caribbean, a key part of the drug money cycle, is also a direct consequence of the decisions in Washington in the 1970's and after, to deregulate financial markets and banks. As long as the dollar is the global currency, the US gains, or at least its big banks.

This is a kind of Dollar Imperialism more slick than anything the British Empire even dreamed of. It is a part of the current America "Empire" debate no one mentions. Instead of the US investing in colonies like England to earn profits on the trade, the money comes from the client states into the US economy. The problem is that Washington has allowed this perverse system to get out of all control to the point today it threatens to bring the entire world to the point of collapse. Had the US instead promoted long-term policy of investing in the economic growth and self-sufficiency of countries like Argentina or Congo, rather than bleeding them in repayment of unpayable dollar debts, the world would look far less unstable today.

Again, the US government - Republicans and the precious Democrats - have allowed this situation to become what it is today. That's why Bush's little scold has absolutely no meaning. All of the major world powers are in these abuses together. No need to wonder why the genocide in Darfur continues or why a leader like Hugo Chavez poses such a threat to this world order.

While the mainstream media has now been forced to at least provide some coverage of China's human rights abuses, aided by groups like Amnesty International which has thankfully been on the case for decades, the spotlight is at least now shining on the continual suffering in Tibet, the plight of parents under house arrest who lost children in the Sichuan province earthquake now forbidden to speak to foreign journalists about how the Chinese government's shoddy building standards contributed to those deaths, the continuing oppression of members of religious groups like Falun Gong, the ever-present deadly threat of unbelievable pollution, the jailing of political dissidents and the seemingly never-ending list of other governmental abuses of the Chinese people - all aided and abetted by western governments.

In the days to come, however, we will again be treated to clips of Chinese Olympic volunteers learning proper etiquette (no spitting!) so as not to insult foreign visitors while the networks will go out of their way to no doubt show the tourist attractions of China as if that can provide cover for the horrendous reality so many Chinese people suffer daily. People like those forced out of their homes (in an effort not unlike the US eminent domain scheme) in order to beautify the country as Chinese government leaders attempt to save face.

There's nothing small about the Olympics but even the massive spectacle of a show put on by the Chinese government can't hide its true shame. In the end then, we are all victims - the athletes, the spectators who just want to watch some friendly competition - knowing that, as Amnesty International reports (video), China's human rights situation has become worse since it was awarded the games. The idea that the Olympics would bring positive changes for the Chinese people is a myth.

Let the (political) games begin continue...
 

The Torture Hasn't Ended

I'm on a bit of a hiatus. Might be back this weekend.

In the meantime, as the New York Times reported on Thursday, the Bush administration has been torturing people without apology or a sense of conscience - justifying the extreme procedures via secret legal memos whose existence have just been revealed and which two senate committee chairs are now asking for from a non-responsive White House.

Watch the Homeland Security torture spokesperson Fran Townsend in action as she attempts to deny the torture while justifying the need for it:


And about that claim that the US isn't using those secret CIA prisons anymore? Another lie.
 

Some Censored Portions of the Arar Report Released

Newly released portions of the Arar Inquiry report which had previously been censored - apparently to protect CSIS, the CIA, the FBI and the RCMP - show that Canadian security officials knew that information they relied on that damned Arar to a one year stay via "extraordinary rendition" in a Syrian jail had been obtained through the use of torture and that he most likely would be tortured as well.

The Globe and Mail offers the following summary but you can read the documents here (.pdf file - the previously censored material is highlighted by bold text).

Newly declassified findings of Judge O'Connor's report indicate a host of foreign agencies shoulder the blame for what happened:

• Investigating Mounties had no experience in dealing with the CIA before 2001, but a relationship began to develop after the Sept. 11 attacks that year.

• As anticipated, information from abroad – likely the statements by Mr. El Maati* – found its way into Canadian searches and interviews conducted in January, 2002. "When applying for search warrants, Project A-O Canada relied on information obtained from a country with a poor human rights record." The report adds that "no assessment was made of the reliability of that information."

• In the fall of 2002, the information was still being treated as credible. "In September 2002, the RCMP filed an application for a telephone warrant … [it] referred to [Ahmed Abou El Maati's] confession to the Syrians that he undertook pilot training at the request of his brother and that he accepted a mission to be a suicide bomber by exploding a truck bomb on Parliament hill."

• Even though the RCMP was made aware that the confession was extracted by "extreme coercion," they insisted that it was "still accurate and continues to be true." In this period, RCMP investigators had heard of Mr. El Maati's complaints of torture but dismissed them as "damage control" and asserted the confession corroborated their earlier investigation of him.

• It was the CIA that sent questions to Canada about Mr. Arar when U.S. border guards arrested him in October, 2002. The CIA, which sent him to the Middle East in shackles aboard a leased Gulfstream jet, appears to have been driving the process to send Mr. Arar to Syria.

• Canadian officials were knowledgeable about the U.S. practice of "rendering" suspects to harsh interrogations third-countries. "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him," one CSIS official wrote in an email on October 10, 2002 – two days after Mr. Arar was quietly sent to that country, and on to Syria, for questioning.

• CSIS visited Syria once Mr. Arar was in custody and came back with the impression that officials there "looked upon the matter as more of a nuisance than anything." He remained jailed there for nearly a year.

(* Truck driver Ahmad Abou El Maati, just two months after 9/11, “confessed” in Syria to plotting a truck bomb attack in Canada at the behest of his brother, who is still considered a fugitive al-Qaeda suspect.

The truck driver has since returned to Canada, uncharged, and recanted his statements as purely the product of torture. He has also expressed regret that he was forced into naming Canadian associates of his, including Maher Arar, including saying that he saw the telecommunications engineer in Afghanistan in the early 1990s.)

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Canadian intelligence agencies knew about the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" practices since that program was authorized by Clinton in 1995. But, for the RCMP to expect that a warning it sent out with the supposed intel it had on Arar would cause the CIA not to act without its permission shows how incredibly naive Canadian officials chose to be in this case.

Again, members of Project A-O Canada had little experience or training to
assist them in handling the information-sharing challenges confronting them. This was a new environment for them. For example, they had never dealt with the CIA. As observed by the Assistant Criminal Operations (CROPS) officer, with “A” Division, Inspector Garry Clement, the CIA had a lot more latitude than law enforcement agencies when it came to the war on terror. Project A-O Canada was dealing with American agencies that were more sophisticated in matters of national security and might not always play by the rules Project members would expect.

Considering the CIA's shady reputation and history of illegal, covert activities - including projects like MKULTRA in Canada - one would think the average Canadian intelligence official would know better than to trust the CIA to do everything above board.

To suddenly feign surprise, after providing information on Mr Arar that was false and that was known to have been coerced via the torture of El Maati (a fact which, as the newly revealed portions reveal, was not presented to the judge who handled the telephone warrant in this case) truly rings hollow.

There is definitely enough blame to go around and while Bush repeated again during a press conference today that that the US does not torture, anyone with any knowledge of the CIA's history should have known better than to believe that Mr Arar - or anyone in CIA custody - would be safe.

The judge who ordered the release of these censored passages should be applauded for shedding ever more light on exactly how these ugly covert actions operate because, as much as the Bush administration bloviates about its so-called respect for human rights, the reality is painfully obvious: they'll do anything if they think it will advance the "war on terror", even if that means siding with people and other governments who use torture.

And the Democrats certainly don't get a free pass on this issue either, some of whom helped pass the Military Commissions Act - enabling prosecutorial immunity for CIA torturers - and further eroding legal rights by enabling the passage of the FISA bill last week. The heavy-handedness of the US government is institutional.

This isn't over yet. US officials must be held accountable.

Update: See my related post - Video: The Abuse of Secrecy in the Arar Affair
 

Random News & Views Roundup

Note: It seems I can post to my blog tonite but I can't view it. &%@%$$ Blogger. Update: they seem to have fixed the problem.


- So I was sitting on the step yesterday when I saw a Calgary Police Service car drive by with a "Support the Troops" ribbon and thought I should update last week's post about city council debating the issue of whether to allow those ribbons to be displayed on municipal vehicles. It turns out that the council did the right thing, imho, and refused to allow such a policy. I wonder if those cops got that memo.

- And, speaking of city council, I'd sure like to know what the big hold up is with approving secondary suites. Don't they know we have a housing crisis in this city?

On to international affairs:

- According to The Independent, Pakistan's Foreign Minister says the US military will not be allowed to go after al Qaeda in his country.

This response definitely echoes neocon sentiments about silly little things like sovereignty:

"You cannot stop the stream. You have to shut the camps, which are all in Pakistan," said Barnett Rubin, a senior fellow at New York University's Centre on International Co-operation. "If they were in Afghanistan they would have been bombed by now."

He added: "Up until now, the government of Pakistan has not authorised this except for some very small, deniable covert operations. Either Musharraf changes his policy, or the US carries out operations in Pakistan without the consent of the government."

Just send in the CIA "snatch or kill" teams, a NYT editorial asserts.

And, if you believe this, I have some nice swamp land to sell you:

The agency’s history of ill-conceived covert political operations from the 1950s through the 1970s may cause some to worry. That agency, however, no longer exists. Congressional hearings and legislation, as well as fear of casualties, have given the clandestine service its own case of risk aversion, though it seems less severe than the Pentagon’s.

Right. That's why CIA agents have immunity from prosecution for torture. Risk averse, my ass.

- US ambassador Ryan Crocker met with Iraq's al-Maliki and Iran's ambassador to Baghdad Hassan Kazemi Qomi on Tuesday in a lengthy meeting that was variously described in media reports as "heated" and "difficult".

Qomi maintained that Iran has no connection to insurgent groups, Crocker said, adding that the U.S. government "has no question" about the connection between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Shiite militias. Critics have pressed Crocker and other American officials for conclusive evidence of such ties, a request the ambassador dismissed Tuesday.

"This is not something we're trying to or we need to prove in a court of law," Crocker said, adding that insurgents captured by American troops have told investigators they are backed by Iran.

Get with the program, Qomi. Whatever the Bush administration says is true. They don't need no stinkin' evidence. You should know that by now.

- Meanwhile, the NYT reports what those of us (who aren't in denial) already knew: U.S. Is Seen in Iraq Until at Least ’09

The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008. “Sustainable security” is to be established on a nationwide basis by the summer of 2009, according to American officials familiar with the document.

The detailed document, known as the Joint Campaign Plan, is an elaboration of the new strategy President Bush signaled in January when he decided to send five additional American combat brigades and other units to Iraq.

So tell me again why the Democrats are waiting for Petraeus' September report as if it's going to say anything other than "we need more time"?

- Bush sucks (and blows), but we already knew that.

The historic depth of Bush's public standing has whipsawed his White House, sapped his clout, drained his advisers, encouraged his enemies and jeopardized his legacy. Around the White House, aides make gallows-humor jokes about how they can alienate their remaining supporters -- at least those aides not heading for the door. Outside the White House, many former aides privately express anger and bitterness at their erstwhile colleagues, Bush and the fate of his presidency.

Bush has been so down for so long that some advisers maintain it no longer bothers them much. It can even, they say, be liberating.

Well, at least freedom is on the march for somebody.

Oh, and in case you didn't know, the intertubes are evul:

"A lot of the commentary that comes out of the Internet world is very harsh," said Frank J. Donatelli, White House political director for Ronald Reagan. "That has a tendency to reinforce people's opinions and harden people's opinions."

So there you go, the truth sucks too.
 

Video: Coming Soon - the CIA's 'Family Jewels'

Via The CNN Beard:


Wolf's underlings are slacking on getting the show's transcripts up, but I wanted to highlight Brian Todd's meaningless reassurance that "today there is far more oversight in congress". Yet, as he points out, the wiretappings, kidnappings and other criminal activities are still going on anyway. So what's the use having more oversight? If congress doesn't just rubber stamp whatever the CIA is doing - Republicans and Democrats, by the way - Bush creates his own ways to get around congress and the laws.

Whatever these "family jewels" reveal, they will be received by an American public that knows it has absolutely no control over what the CIA does because what it chooses to do is all in furtherance of Amercian global supremacy and exceptionalism - and those are doctrines that I think I can safely say most Americans support anyway. Oh there's outrage every now and then - about so-called "extraordinary renditions", about torture, about CIA-fueled coups oversees or one or the other CIA operation. Nobody really blinked an eye much when the news broke that Italy charged several CIA agents for allegedly kidnapping an Egyptian cleric. Why should they? Bush is protecting the agents and won't extradite them to stand trial.

So, whatever else these "family jewels" expose, it seems the American publics' senses have already been dulled for decades to the point that nothing the CIA does can actually be seen as surprising anymore. The "jewels" will make interesting reading for political junkies, historians, journalists and bloggers but their revelations will, no doubt, be eclipsed by the next scandalous starlet or blonde woman in peril news story. Remember, Paris Hilton gets out of jail next week and she's making the interview rounds. What do you think Larry King will be talking about? Those boring old CIA stories or Paris' time in the school of hard knocks (where the guards' jingling keys so disturbed her equilibrium)?

And besides, there's that trusty "congressional oversight" to rely on to make sure everything's on the up and up. (Just ignore the fact that congress' approval ratings are in the toilet at a laughable 14% and that Bush sits at 26%. Trustworthy government indeed.)

For those who are interested, Common Dreams has more.
 

Tenet Justifies Torture

Via an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: I have to ask you a question on allegations the CIA, your agency, engaged in torture. You've said there was no torture. You won't describe what the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used against al Qaeda suspects involved.

But Khalid al-Masri[sic], a German citizen born in Lebanon, he wrote a piece in the "L.A. Times" saying this: "I was handed over to the American Central Intelligence Agency and was stripped, severely beaten, shackled, dressed in a diaper, injected with drugs, chained to the floor of a plane and flown to Afghanistan..."

Is that true?

TENET: I don't believe what he says is true. But let me say this. Let me say this about this whole torture question. In the after math[sic] of 9/11, we lived with a palpable fear of how much we did not know about what was going on in our country.

Senator McCain started a great debate here. Here's what I would ask people. I know that the program we engaged in saved lives, thousands of lives. I know it helped us against al Qaeda.

Policymakers, the president, the Congress determine where you want to be in the moral continuum. We are a country of laws and a country of values. Tell us where you want to be. Make it very, very clear to us. Have consensus on it.

Don't let the pendulum swing back and forth. Give you intelligence community clear instructions, and we'll follow them.

BLITZER: In a war, if American POWs were exposed to the same "enhanced interrogation techniques" that these expects were exposed to, would that be appropriate?

TENET: Well, you never -- look, Wolf, I would never -- I don't know what they'd be exposed to. And I don't want to talk about techniques. Here's the only thing I would say to you again.

Make a determination of where you want us to be. Tell us what the right thing to do is. We'll do it.

I know that in that time period after 9/11, we understood the risks. We understood we were on new territory. The president authorized. The attorney general said it was legal.

We briefed the chairman and ranking member of our oversight committees. Nobody was hiding anything. We were in a -- we were in a tough environment.

If you don't want to do it, that's fine with us.

BLITZER: One example. Could you give us one example? Because you say it saved thousands of lives. These techniques? Can you give us an example?

TENET: Well, we found out about additional airline plots against the East and West Coast of the United States.

BLITZER: Thanks to these techniques?

TENET: Thanks to these techniques. We found out about that surveillance of financial institutions in New York thanks to these techniques. We found out about plots in Karachi thanks to these techniques. We identified people we never knew about who were planning further terrorist attacks against the United States thanks to these techniques.

BLITZER: So if you had to do the techniques over again, you'd do them?

TENET: Well, it's not that you would do them. If you're authorized and it's legal and it's briefed -- and we play in a system of laws and governance. It's not just us.

You know, in the time period that I lived in, and the threats that we faced, and the issues we were dealing with, and -- Wolf, where are you going to be if you're holding someone who you know is coming to kill you and your family tomorrow afternoon, and you didn't do what you thought you needed to do to get the data? What would you be saying to me today?

You would be saying me, you didn't do your job and you didn't save lives. Well, that's extreme, isn't it? Well, that's what we were living with at the time.

So, all Tenet needed was clearance from Bush, which he got thanks to Gonzales and Yoo - all of them in panic mode after 9/11 - although the CIA's history of using so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" goes back decades.

Tenet chooses, conveniently, not to believe El-Masri whose lawsuit has been thrown out of court on "state secrets" grounds and even though the CIA admitted that it had mistaken him for an al Qaeda member named al-Masri when it kidnapped him.

In April 2004, CIA Director George Tenet learned that El-Masri was being wrongfully detained. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice learned of his detention shortly thereafter in early May and ordered his release.[3] El-Masri was released on May 28 following a second order from Rice.[3] American authorities met with him and agreed to release him if he agreed never to tell the story of his ordeal to anyone.

In other words, this administration doesn't want those real "techniques" exposed because they know the damage that'll cause. It doesn't matter what Tenet does or doesn't choose to believe. If Bushco had any credibility and faith in its policies that it claims saved so many lives, it wouldn't be so afraid to have to defend them in court.

Tenet - just another man named George who doesn't want to take responsibility for anything and who believes that torture is justified without providing any proof that it actually works.
 

About that 'must-do' list...

Sunday's New York Times editorial board has produced a must-do list, encouraging the Democrats to fight back against the assaults on human rights and civil liberties perpetrated by the Bush administration.

Here's what that list consists of:

1. Restore habeus corpus
2. Stop illegal spying
3. Ban Torture, really
4. Close the C.I.A. prisons
5. Account for "Ghost Prisoners"
6. Ban extraordinary rendition
7. Tighten the definition of combatant
8. Screen prisoners fairly and effectively
9. Ban tainted evidence
10. Ban secret evidence
11. Better define "classified" evidence
12. Respect the right to counsel

As the editors point out, many of these policies were written into law last fall via the passage of the Military Commissions Act which was developed after the Bush administration was rebuked by the Supreme Court.

Even if the Democrats could use their majority status to overturn that act however, long ingrained American traditions would remain.

There's no doubt that Bush has used his unitary executive power to override and sidestep congress every step of the way since he kicked off his so-called war on terrorism, but it's also important to examine how America reached the point where that type of unchecked power could actually come to exist.

Take the actions of the CIA, for example. Since its formation, it has acted virtually unimpeded through its use of covert operations worldwide in order to do everything from causing coups d'etats to carrying out assassinations. The investigations done by the Church Committee in the 70s were supposed to ensure more oversight - a fact that some people claim actually hamstrung the agency and led to the 9/11 intelligence failures.

While the old CIA may have been noted for the “cowboy” swagger of its personnel, the new CIA is, in the words of one critic, composed of “cautious bureaucrats who avoid the risks that come with taking action, who fill out every form in triplicate” and put “the emphasis on audit rather than action.” Congressional meddling is primarily responsible for this new CIA ethos, transforming it from an agency willing to take risks, and act at times in a Machiavellian manner, into just another sclerotic Washington bureaucracy.

The agency obviously didn't stop taking those risks, as we all know now.

That 2001 article by Stephen F. Knott led to this conclusion, the effects of which we are all now witnessing:

The response to the disaster of September 11th starkly reveals that members of Congress are quite adept at invoking “plausible deniability.” They are often the first to criticize, and the last to accept responsibility, for failed U. S. policies and practices. Oddly enough, a restoration of executive control of intelligence could increase the potential that the president, or his immediate deputies, would be held responsible for the successes and failures of the intelligence community. But this is a secondary consideration, for only by restoring the executive branch’s power to move with “secrecy and dispatch,” and to control the “business of intelligence,” as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay put it in The Federalist, will the nation be able to deter and defeat its enemies.

I wonder how professor Knott feels about endorsing that position today.

Regardless of all of the revelations over the decades of the "work" the CIA is doing in America's name, the mythology of the sexy spy with the nifty gagdets whose death-defeating tactics are pushed by Hollywood and applauded by millions won't end any time soon. Who would dare accuse CIA agents of being treasonous (besides people like Cheney and his henchmen who choose to out them when it's politically convenient rather than protecting them, as they're bound to do)?

While it's the job of the Democrats to try to wrestle power back from the Bush adminitration for those items detailed in the NYT's "must-do" list, the public also needs to remember that their party has used covert methods and actions when they thought it would be expedient as well.

As Scott Ritter notes*:

I personally witnessed the Director of the CIA under Bill Clinton, James Woolsey, fabricate a case for the continued existence of Iraqi ballistic missiles in November 1993 after I had provided a detailed briefing which articulated the UN inspector's findings that Iraq's missile program had been fundamentally disarmed. I led the UN inspector's investigation into the defection of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, in August 1995, and saw how the Clinton administration twisted his words to make a case for the continued existence of a nuclear program the weapons inspectors knew to be nothing more than scrap and old paper. I was in Baghdad at the head of an inspection team in the summer of 1996 as the Clinton administration used the inspection process as a vehicle for a covert action program run by the CIA intending to assassinate Saddam Hussein.

I twice traveled to the White House to brief the National Security Council in the confines of the White House Situation Room on the plans of the inspectors to pursue the possibility of concealed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, only to have the Clinton national security team betray the inspectors by failing to deliver the promised support, and when the inspections failed to deliver any evidence of Iraqi wrong-doing, attempt to blame the inspectors while denying any wrong doing on their part.

Obviously, this culture of covert corruption has a very long history that runs through the administrations of both of the big two parties, yet we're now expecting the current crop of Democrats (including many longstanding members who have been complicit in these affairs) to turn around and bring everything to light in order to end these types of activities? Isn't that rather like the fox guarding the hen house, as the old cliche says?

This Democratic congress may hold hearings, may investigate the Bush administration's horrendous abuses, may even impeach the president (although Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that impeachment is "off the table"), but do they have the power or the willingness to end the disastrous policies of the CIA? Will they stand up to an administration full of ex-CIA officials who now run the White House? And where does the American public stand on these issues?

It's clear the majority are outraged over the Bush administration's abuses, and so they should be. Are they willing, however, to give up the power exercised on their behalf as members of the so-called "greatest country in the world" by CIA agents and those in the numerous other intelligence agencies that are a part of the US government in order to keep them "safe"? My guess would be that only a small minority would actually demand full accountability and transparency and, even if they did, they wouldn't get it from the Republicans or the Democrats who are so entrenched in the use of those powers that they'd be loathe to surrender many of them in the end.

That's the dilemma the American people face, as do those worldwide who've been affected by these covert actions. It's doubtful they'll find much justice any time soon and time is already running out for the Democrats to deal with all of what Bush has wrought prior to the end of his term. Perhaps they should be spending less time speechifying and fundraising on the '08 campaign trail and more time actually working on the business of the country. As for the CIA, the more it changes, the more it stays the same.

* h/t Madman in the Marketplace whose work you can find at Liberal Street Fighter.