From: gajendra singh <kgajendrasingh@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 02:29:45 +0530
Subject: Wikileaks Confirm--Part II-AFTER FAST FOOD AND STREET GANGS,
NOW US FRANCHISED TORTURE
To: Gajendra Singh <kgajendrasingh@gmail.com>
Cc: GAJENDRA SINGH <kgsingh@yahoo.com>, gajendra singh <gajendrak@hotmail.com>
http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2010/10/wikileaks-confirm-part-ii-after-fast.html
*Wikileaks Confirm Western Culture of Torture & Lies *
*Part II*
*AFTER FAST FOOD AND STREET GANGS, NOW US FRANCHISED TORTURE** ** *by K.
Gajendra singh , 11 December, 2005**
http://www.mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2854&Itemid=143
Tell us about the CIA flights.
The US does not torture.
Tell us about the black sites.
The US does not torture.
"Let me be clear," has been a popular Ms Condi Rice refrain this week about
US rendition of terrorism suspects. For many, she has been everything but
clear. [From Der Spiegel]
At the end of her 4 day, European safari Rice reached Brussels for a meeting
with NATO foreign ministers to explain the US position on torture .But she
dodged questions on secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. At the dinner,
according to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, she
reiterated, "in the United States, international obligations are not
interpreted differently than in Europe." NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer said the next day, "it is my impression that Secretary Rice ...
cleared the air. You will not see this discussion continuing" at the NATO
headquarters.
The revelations of CIA franchised torture centers in east Europe and
elsewhere, worse than Abu Gharib and Guantanamo has exposed the lawlessness
permeating the Bush Administration, whether on the legality of US led
invasion of Iraq ,violation of Human Rights and Geneva conventions . Or for
that matter other international Treaties.
Ms Rice and the Bush administration were hoping for a fresh start with
Germany after an acrimonious relationship with the previous government of
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, which had vociferously opposed the illegal US
invasion of Iraq .In the new broad based German coalition led by US friendly
right wing leader Chancellor Angela Merkel there was a hope of making up,
but the visit ended in confusion and Merkel was put on the defensive.
Gerhard Schröder's Socialists are part of the coalition and the German media
and people had questions about covert prisons and secret arrests including
of an innocent German citizen, who overshadowed Rice's talks with Merkel at
the start of the visits in Berlin on 6 December, and then to Bucharest and
Kiev, ending with discussions in Brussels.
In Berlin Rice declined to answer most questions, even after Merkel called
for "a certain degree of transparency" on the issue regarding any possible
knowledge by the previous government of CIA activities in Germany involving
German citizens These questions have erupted following a cascade of media
reports led by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel about US use of airports
in Europe for CIA flights to transport terror suspects to a network of
secret jails for questioning. Khaled Masri a German citizen on holiday in
Macedonia was picked up for questioning as a suspected terrorist and
tortured in Afghanistan for five months last year before being released on
grounds of mistaken identity. Merkel said that the United States had
acknowledged responsibility.
"The American government admitted its mistake," Merkel said. Rice said she
could not talk about the case specifically but added, "Any policy will
sometimes result in errors, and when it happens we will do everything we can
to rectify it." "The American government admitted its mistake," Merkel said.
Rice said she could not talk about the case specifically but added, "Any
policy will sometimes result in errors, and when it happens we will do
everything we can to rectify it."
Facing an angry Parliament, Merkel said her foreign minister, Steinmeier, an
ex- top aide of Schröder, would face a special parliamentary committee to
answer questions about how much he knew about the covert prisons and the
practice called rendition, in which terrorist suspects captured by the
United States were sent to other countries, some of which with records of
torturing prisoners. Steinmeier reportedly had access to all intelligence
dossiers and cases including those with the interior minister Otto Schily,
who was reportedly told about the Masri case but has remained silent.
It may be recalled that in May 2004, the White House had dispatched US
Ambassador Daniel R. Coats to Schily to tell that the CIA had wrongfully
imprisoned Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, with a
request that the German government not disclose what it was told even if
Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of covert action
programs designed to capture terror suspects abroad on thin or speculative
evidence and transfer them to countries with secret bases would have serious
ramifications .*The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has
captured an estimated 3,000 people, including several key leaders of al
Qaida, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to
know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made.
*
Masri says he underwent coercive interrogation and confinement for five
months before being released, two months after the CIA concluded it was a
case of mistaken identity. He is suing former CIA director George Tenet with
the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In filing the suit in
Washington, the ACLU said it was seeking to "reaffirm that the rule of law
is central to our identity as a nation".
In another instance, according to the Washington Post, the CIA seized Hassan
Mustafa Osama Nasir, an Egyptian refugee known as Abu Omar, from a street in
Milan. The agency then told Italian anti-terrorism police that he had fled
to the Balkans - a piece of disinformation. The deception worked for more
than a year, until the Italians discovered that the CIA had whisked off to
Egypt, where he was reportedly interrogated and tortured.**
*US refused the Red Cross access to all detainees *
The state department's top legal adviser, John Bellinger admitted for the
first time in Geneva that the US has not given the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to all detainees in its custody. But he gave
no details about where such prisoners were held. He said ICRC had access to
"absolutely everybody" at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which
holds suspects detained during the US war on terror.
On Friday, Adam Ereli, the State Department's deputy spokesman, said the
United States would not alter its position after the ICRC president said in
Geneva that his organization was holding discussions to gain access to all
detainees, including those held in secret locations.
Ereli said that the Geneva Conventions requiring humane treatment of
prisoners of war did not apply to certain terrorism suspects seized as
"unlawful enemy combatants," but that, in any case, the United States treats
most of them as prisoners of war. "We're going the extra mile here," Ereli
said, by allowing the Red Cross access to Al Qaida suspects and others held
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan. The Red Cross also has access
to prisoners held in Iraq.
Commentators said that this is likely to increase suspicions that the CIA
has been operating secret prisons outside international oversight.
*UN against US led detentions in Iraq;*
*John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in
Iraq (UNAMI), said that the US military is abusing its United Nations
mandate in Iraq by detaining thousands of people without due process of law.
The Iraqi Government, installed after the US invasion of 2003, is also
guilty of major human rights abuses, including holding people without charge
in secret jails "littered" across the country, John Pace added. Referring to
accusations of corruption among Iraqi justice officials and police, Pace
said illegal detentions were fuelling rather than curbing revolt.*
*"There is no question that terrorism has to be addressed. But we are
equally sure that the remedies being applied … are not the best ways of
eliminating terrorism," he said. "More terrorists are being created than are
being eliminated." UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also voiced concern
about mass detentions without charge, which US commanders say are a
legitimate response to security threats under UN Security Council Resolution
1546, their mandate for occupying Iraq.*
*But Pace said that the system, including the pattern, duration and
conditions of detention, were "not consistent with what is foreseen in 1546"
and complained of "total breakdown" in individuals' rights.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said that
the U.S.-led war on terror has undermined the global ban on torture. This
did not please U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, appointed by Bush
against the wishes of the US Congress. Bolton called Arbour's statement
"inappropriate and illegitimate." U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's
spokesman said that Annan wants to take the matter up with Bolton as soon as
possible. *
--- Reports of the existence of the secret prisons have caused a
trans-Atlantic uproar. The European Union has asked the Bush administration
about these reports. Britain, the current EU president, sent a
two-paragraph letter to Washington late last month for clarifications.
Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said Rice's comments about secret CIA
flights and detention centers for terrorist suspects outside the United
States were "unsatisfactory," Bot told MPs that "rendition" was not
kidnapping as some critics claimed but a speedy process of extraditing
suspects to the US. Normal extraditions through the courts can last for
years, he said. Media reported that the CIA regularly made use of Dutch
airports for secret flights.
The European Union (EU) has threatened to sanction any EU member countries,
which had such prisons on their territories.
*US admits policy of renditions;*
*Ms Rice's successor as National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, told CNN
that "we do not move people around the world so they can be tortured". Thus
dittoing the official line. But Hadley added that the policy of renditions
"has been a practice before 9/11, before this Administration", as well as "a
practice engaged in by a number of countries". *
*What is 'rendition'?*
Rendition is an old western practice beginning perhaps from the days of the
Spanish inquisitions if not earlier. In his memoirs, Field Marshal Wilhelm
Keitel wrote that during the World War II the secret abduction and
'rendition' from Third Reich occupied countries to Germany of suspected
Resistance members - otherwise known as the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog)
Decree - was the worst of all of the orders issued by Adolf Hitler . Nacht
und Nebel-type practices were used by the French to suppress successive
uprisings by Algerian freedom fighters in the 1950s. Since then the practice
of "disappearances" has spread around the globe - according to Human Rights
Watch. Iraq and Sri Lanka accounted for the most cases between 1980 and
2003.
In Latin America, the technique was successfully internationalized under
"Operation Condor". The operation, conceived and effectively implemented
under Chilean president Augusto Pinochet, brought together the intelligence
agencies of Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay, as well as Pinochet's
own secret police chief, Manuel Contreras, in 1975. Although not a charter
member, Brazil also participated. The objective was to "enhance
communications among each other and integrate tactical operations in
tracking down, secretly detaining, torturing and terminating [the lives of]
critics or suspected militants, who were often referred to as 'terrorists',"
according to Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the Washington-based
National Security Archive (NSA).
So what is new !Yes , Western leaders and media keep on maligning eastern
governments for similar practices .In many cases the techniques have been
taught by western agencies to the agencies of their allies in the East e.g.
CIA to Savak or to Pakistan's ISI and Jihadis during the Afghan war against
USSR. Israel's Mossad almost openly implements and teaches rendition
techniques to any takers.
Important Rice visit to Romania;
Ms Rice's 4 hour stop over in the Romanian capital Bucharest, was an
important bilateral visit .She signed with the Romanian Foreign Minister
Mihai Razvan Ungureanu a bilateral agreement for use of Romanian military
bases at Mikhail Kogalniceanu, Babadag, Cincu and Smardan, with President
Traian Basescu watching at the Cotroceni Palace. Ms Rice also had talks with
President Basescu on bilateral relations and cooperation within the Black
Sea region and in the Balkans, as well as the cooperation in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Romania also announced that it would not withdraw troops from Iraq.
--- For USA and EU, the Romanian location is very important militarily and
as a vantage point for trade with Caspian basin and Central Asia across the
Black Sea. USA had used Romanian air bases during the March 2003 war on Iraq
, when Nato ally Turkey had refused to let US open a second front against
north Iraq from South east Turkey and permitted its Nato Inchirlik air base
only for humanitarian flights .
*How ever ,as the author pointed out to the Romanian leaders in his recent
meetings along with the foreign media based in Bucharest that Romania must
avoid showing too close an affinity with US policies of torture .There are
around 100,000 Muslims , mostly Tatars and tens of thousands of Israelis
visit Romania for rest and recreation . Over a few hundred Romanian Jews had
migrated to Israel. Romania has a history of anti-Semitism. The November
2003 bombings of a Synagogue in Istanbul were to punish for the pro Israel
policy of Turkey, which also hosts hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists
.When President Basescu, soon after his election, visited Iraq to show
solidarity with USA, three journalists accompanying him were kidnapped.
Their capture and release remains a mystery. *
*Poland**;*
Romania and Poland are two very pro US countries, described by US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as new Europe (an appellation the countries
rejected) which was chided by French President Jacque Chirac when they had
sided with USA on the question of US invasion of Iraq, against the general
EU policy of opposition and neutrality.
Poland appears to be centering the CIA's secret detention network in Europe,
with bases there holding a quarter of the 100 detainees estimated in such
camps worldwide.
"Poland was the main base for CIA interrogations in Europe, while Romania
played more of a role in the transfer of detained prisoners," Marc Garlasco,
a leading analyst at Human Rights Watch, was quoted by Polish daily Gazeta
Wyborcza.
Garlasco said that the CIA maintained two detention centers in Poland, which
were closed only after the Washington Post broke the story last month. He
said the allegations were based on information from CIA sources and other
documents obtained by Human Rights Watch. "We have leads, circumstantial
evidence to check but it's too early to reveal them," Garlasco added.
Polish authorities have repeatedly denied the existence of secret jails of
any form on Polish territory, with Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkieicz
saying this week he would fully cooperate in human rights probes into the
allegations. On 11 December, he ordered a detailed probe to "check if there
is any proof that such an event took place in our country. It is necessary
to finally close the issue because it could be dangerous to Poland." Said
Marcinkiewicz's spokesman, Konrad Ciesiolkiewicz.
*Rice in Ukraine of US franchised revolution;*
Ms Rice visit to Kiev was to express solidarity with US protégé President
Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine. *US organizations across the board had spent
hundreds of millions of US dollars last year to get him elected in a US
franchised election organized through street revolutions , a process which
was begun with the overthrow of Milosevich in Serbia and then perfected in
Georgia . Street revolutions failed dismally in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan
with Russia and China with central Asian states vociferously opposing US led
franchised revolutions.*
The sheen has come off the so called Orange revolution with Yushchenko's
rich partner the Prime Minister quitting his company .The Ukrainian masses
are unhappy with the results of the revolution with bribery and other
scandals on increase. Russia on which Ukraine is dependent for its energy
needs is squeezing Kiev. Next year's Parliament elections would be a litmus
test for the Yushchenko regime.
*Shift in US Policy?*
By the time Ms Rice reached Kiev, there was apparent shift in her position.
She said that Washington now viewed its responsibilities under a UN treaty
as banning the cruel or inhumane treatment of prisoners anywhere. She
appeared to give the torture question a clear and broad interpretation.
Referring to the UN Convention against Torture (CAT), ratified by USA in
1994, Rice said that "as a matter of U.S. policy, the United States'
obligations under the CAT, which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading
treatment - those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are,
whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States."
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, described the new approach by
Rice as "existing policy." But when pressed repeatedly by reporters, he
would not say whether the United States took steps to ensure that countries
to which it transferred prisoners lived up to promises against using
torture.
Rice's shift produced some confusion in Washington, possibly reflecting
tensions among the State Department, White House, Congress and the Pentagon
on how narrowly to define some tools available .These can include techniques
known as water boarding, in which a prisoner is strapped to a plank and
dunked into water to create a sense of being drowned. Rights groups say that
these methods have been used on prisoners at the U.S. base at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere.
*No rendition for torture –George Bush;*
President Bush, referring to the process known as rendition, under which the
United States has turned detainees over to other countries reiterated: "We
do not render to countries that torture. That has been our policy, and that
policy will remain the same."
But wrote Naomi Klein in the Guardian "It's [ torture] a history
exhaustively documented in an avalanche of books, declassified documents,
CIA training manuals, court records and truth commissions. In his
forthcoming book, A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy synthesizes this
evidence, producing a riveting account of how monstrous CIA-funded
experiments on psychiatric patients and prisoners in the 1950s turned into a
template for what he calls "no-touch torture", based on sensory deprivation
and self-inflicted pain. McCoy traces how these methods were field-tested by
CIA agents in Vietnam as part of the Phoenix program and then applied in
Latin America and Asia under the guise of police training.
"It is not only apologists for torture who ignore this history when they
blame abuses on "a few bad apples". A startling number of torture's most
prominent opponents keep telling us that the idea of torturing prisoners
first occurred to US officials on September 11 2001, at which point the
methods used in Guantanamo apparently emerged, fully formed, from the
sadistic recesses of Dick Cheney's and Donald Rumsfeld's brains. Up until
that moment, we are told, America fought its enemies while keeping its
humanity intact."---
"Illegal detention and torture are also war crimes. Starting with the
exposure of prisoner abuse at Abu Gharib and Guantanamo, cascading
revelations have established that these cases exemplify a pattern of abuse
authorized at the highest levels of government. Human rights groups like the
Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and
Human Rights First sued in U.S. and foreign courts against Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and others for breaching the U.S. Constitution and the
Geneva Conventions. The Senate's 90-9 vote to restore the military's
traditional prohibition against torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners
prompting the Bush administration to threaten a veto, sets the stage for a
major confrontation over adherence to both the Geneva Conventions and the
U.S. Constitution. "
Paul Craig Roberts, Hoover Institution senior fellow and assistant secretary
of the treasury under Ronald Reagan, has charged Bush with "lies and an
illegal war of aggression, with outing CIA agents, with war crimes against
Iraqi civilians, with the horrors of the Abu Gharib and Guantanamo torture
centers" and calls for the president's impeachment. Anne-Marie Slaughter,
dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and former president of the
American Society of International Law, declares: "These policies make a
mockery of our claim to stand for the rule of law. [Americans] should be
marching on Washington to reject inhumane techniques carried out in our
name." Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, whose single
handed resistance to US policies, including sit-ins near Bush's Texas ranch
,brought various opposition groups together ,insists: "We cannot have these
people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail."
--
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." --
Albert Einstein !!!
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