The rationalization is always the same. For the
security of the homeland, or the fatherland, or whateverland, the government
needs the freedom to act with no "interference" or accountability.
NEW YORK (AP) -- 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 Washington Post reported.
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....
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, it said.
The CIA and the White House, citing
national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded
Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony
about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is
known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are
employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be
detained or for how long....
Although the CIA will not acknowledge
details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach,
arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency
be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as
necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even
by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo
Bay....
Click here to read the whole story
The Gulag
We all have our own reasons for respecting the
basic, unalienable rights bestowed on humanity by the Creator. In my case, my
spiritual tradition will not allow me to view humanity and human rights along
national lines. My love of democracy has taught me that everyone deserves a fair
trial of some kind. My God, what if someone is in there by mistake? What if
someone grabbed the wrong person? And even if some of those detained are guilty,
do we not still bear some responsibility to see that basic human rights are
upheld?
Secret prisons, secretive interrogation methods, no
accountability, no provisions made for even the most basic of human rights. We
treat serial killers better than this. Is this my country, the land that I love?
Is this the United States of America, the beacon of hope and freedom and the
champion of individual rights?
What the hell is going on here?
rlp
