I suspect this might be a political litmus test issue.

Let's assume for the purpose of this thread that it is true that the CIA is running a few secret prisons and taking foreign nationals to these places and treating them however they feel is appropriate to gain intelligence about Al-Qaeda.


CIA Uses Secret Prisons in Europe for Terror Suspects

The questions for debate are:

Do you think that such practice is acceptable by the CIA in order to fulfill the responsibility of protecting the American people? (In this side I would think that the secret part should have remained so for it to work well)

Or do you think that this is an unacceptable misuse of government resources that compromises more of America than it protects?

Or are your opinions on this story (remember for our purposes assuming that the basic story is true) something different than either above option?

Here's another source for this allegation:

Link

If this is true, then I can only agree with Carter. It's a disgrace.

If there is any point at all to the War on Terror, it should be that they are the Bad Guys and we are the Good Guys. It's isn't enough to say that we are the Slightly Less Bad Guys.



(Bold added for emphasis)

If this is illegal in the United States, it should be illegal for agents of the United States to do it in other nations.

If these allegations are true (and I am inclined to believe in them especially after Abu Graib) then the person(s) responsible for overseeing and executing CIA operations should be held responsible and tried in an international court of war crimes. Besides, all this will do is to add to the mistrust the world has about American Government and give more recruits to the "terrorists".

Acceptable to whom? I don't think it is in any way acceptable for a state to arbitrarily decide who is and who is not a terrorist. That is the job of a court of law.

Unfortunately it seems to be perfectly acceptable in the United States for the government to act however it pleases. The Bush administration is now the only government in the world to claim a legal justification for mistreating prisoners during interrogations and I don't see anyone of consequence in the USA complaining about this.

The irony is, that we have a thread right here at AD asking whether America is become a fascist nation. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. Its difficult to tell from my perspective, but one thing to me, is certain. The USA regards the rest of the world with very hostile eyes. Whilst Americans may be granted certain rights and privileges in their country, these are not extended to the rest of the planets population.

America claims to be fighting a war against terrorism, but it employs its own form of terrorism as it does. The kidnapping of people in Europe without recourse to the European courts tells me that I am potentially at risk of being abducted and tortured if some one in America deems I am some sort of threat.

Whilst I don't think this is going to happen any time soon, I cannot, in the light of whats been going on, discount the possibility. I have no special faith in the people of America that puts them above the possibility of becoming a tyrant state. The sterling merits of individual Americans do not guarantee that America cannot become a tyranny since history shows us many examples of how easy going nations can be pressured by circumstances into committing very kind of atrocity.


Yes. Acting in this manner is dangerous because, first of all it allows the mentality that such actions are allowed, even praise worthy and then next thing you know you have US soldiers sending photographic evidence back home where the population can't stomach the truth. I see the same thing happening in Israel where any misuse of those people deemed a threat is over looked unless a camera crew just happens to be nearby and manages to (survive and) get the images out.

Secondly, its dangerous simply because you reap what you sow but I guess if the USA still hasn't learned this from Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, then it never will. It seems as long as the 'homeland' is safe then all is permissable.

The United States is in grave danger of becoming the very thing it has always claimed to stand against. Indeed, it may already be that thing given the position of preeminence of the US military industrial complex and the control it apparently exerts over the US government, and thus, the people of the USA... a people who are largely silent and indifferent and currently giving a good impression of a herd of sheep.

Who guarantee's my rights against the USA? Never mind the likelihood that I am going to be targeted at all, where is my guarantee? What assurance do I have that I am not going to be picked up and whisked away like Khaled el-Masri

My Danish ethnicity?

These point is this, once a country demonstrates that they are not interested in ensuring that innocent foreigners are not imprisoned, tortured, or killed .. nobody in the world can trust it.

Prisoners are being held without any real capability of defending the charges against them. How can a person prove show his innocence without proper access to the charges against him and a chance to defend himself? Isn't this what the Stalinist regimes do?

Regardles sof whether torture yield reliable or unreliable information, it's morally repugnant to torture. The Bible never advocates torture.

Anyone who tortures another human without holding a trial is asserting themselves as being God, because they are declaring that they are sure beyond reasonable doubt that they know the person is guilty. Torturing for information is cruel as well, because by nature you are seeking information that you don't know and the person you are torturing has very little means of disproving that she doesnt know or remember the information.

Besides, as we saw in abu ghraib, most torture is merely a way of entertaining guards.

Any perceived short term gains to a country by using evil and strongarm tactics can only lead to disaster in the long term. Surely God will never require of us to sacrifice our humanity for advancement of ourselves?

Proverbs 16:8

"Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice."

I would have to say that most Americans feel the need to become the politically correct, softer-side of Western Society. I'm confident that this has everything to do with Americans feeling absolutely secure in their surroundings, as 9/11 is often a distant memory in the American psyche.

I would also say that some posts have mentioned that if this is happening, it's similar to Stalinist Russia or other fascist regimes. The argument is that they're being held without due process, etc. My personal opinion is that if the CIA has them in camps/detainment abroad away from public view, these are probably valuable targets. If they're not in GITMO, it's most likely because they possess information that conventional methods of detainment have not elicited. Just a hunch..

As I've mentioned on numerous occasions on AD, the truth is that our safety as a nation is tantamount to civil rights or political correctness. I believe that the media has become the judge and jury on this one already (of course excluding Fox), in that their stories make it sound as if this has been confirmed.

If I were to make an educated guess, not being experienced in these issues, if there were prisons of this nature in Eastern Europe, I would imagine that they've moved or are gone completely... just a hunch. These aren't weekend warriors (like myself!). The CIA is one of the most capable intelligence communities on the planet, with the most financial resources and some of the best experience handling such issues. I'd be very surprised if a half-organized European Union fact-finding excursion will turn up anything significant.

As Moif stated, this policy of CIA's might make the citizens of the US feel more safe but the act itself is horrific. Putting someone in prison without any respect to his rights is something Hitler or Stalin did. There is no court or law involved in this case. Given the moral question marks about the US regarding Abu Graib, I shudder to think what the US has been doing with this policy.

Besides, safety of the US (only one nation) is not more important than the rest of the world. Such claims are racist in nature. Please just think how you would feel if some other country, lets take Russia, started abducting people for their "safety".

Just a couple of points. I eagerly await Harry Reid shutting down the Senate to demand accountability for those who leaked these stories.

1 - The press, earlier this year, outed a CIA operation used to render prisoners from other countries to Guantánamo. They listed names, locations, airports and specific aircraft. It was on the front page of the Chicago Tribune.

EDITED TO ADD LINK TO ARCHIVE OF THIS TRIBUNE ARTICLE. (commondreams don't need no stinkin' copyright!)

2 - Now, the fact that there are foreign prisoners in secret locations is leaked. Perhaps we can no longer safely render these prisoners to Cuba because our airline has been compromised? A stretch, but just maybe.

Could it just be possible that some in the CIA disagree with our current policies and are trying to compromise this effort by leaking classified info? Isn't this a national security threat?

edited to respond to Fma - For decades, Israel had to abduct ex-Nazis and other Palestinian terrorists because no nation would extradite them or respect Israel's claim for justice. Was this wrong as well? Are they racists?

Well, my friend, if Americans were engaging in terrorist acts against other nations, I'd hope that they took the interest in their own safety and did just that.

If we had a terrorist cell called "X", and Russian interests had been attacked ten times in the past ten years, by "X", I'd hope that they'd get off their laurels and begin to attack "X" at it's source here in the states. The frank reality is that Americans are not such international terrorists.

It's not racist, in that if this were the case we'd be rounding up outspoken-militant muslims all over the country. (I can't say that I'd shed a tear on that one...) However, we're not. There's no paddy-wagon wandering the streets of Dallas (a wonderful hotbed of Muslim activity) picking up Middle-Eastern men wearing beards.

I assure you, the CIA isn't indiscriminantly abducting men and women from Middle Eastern nations, hoping that by chance there is information that they can share. It not only would be counter-productive but a misuse of resources...

Actually, Stalin held The Moscow Trials. Aside from predetermined verdicts the accused had the legal system stacked against their favor. That’s why I’m opposed to Bush tinkering with military tribunals for Gitmo detainees. Apart from the appearance of stacking the tribunal against the defendant it brings into question the very credibility of the U.S.’s military tribunal system's ability to bag the bad guys and release the good guys in cases unrelated to the GWOT.

Do you think that such practice is acceptable by the CIA in order to fulfill the responsibility of protecting the American people?
This largely depends on whether a person believes you can extract verifiable, actionable information through torture. I don’t, so I have to answer no and sincerely hope Congress has a supermajority necessary to overturn Bush’s veto threat on McCain's anit-torture bill, hamstringing the CIA’s ability to keep black sites open for business.

Or are your opinions on this story (remember for our purposes assuming that the basic story is true) something different than either above option?
Like the Gitmo Koran “scandal” this black-site story is resurfacing. The Salt Pit site appeared in newspapers earlier this year and was not been challenged by the government. I don’t doubt the existence of these black-sites.

Nothing in the WOT has so distressed me as the whole torture and prisoner mistreatment issue, because it can't be excused as a mistake but is simply evil! I have been even more distressed by the American publics unwillingness to confront the issue and insist on its investigation, punishment for those responsible, and measures to prevent its repetition. When the Abu Ghraib evidence surfaced I spent many evenings on street corners standing on an orchard box hooded in black with electric wires attached to call attention to it. In general, people chose to deny or ignore the evidence and attempts to call it to their attention.

I mention the military abuse of prisoners because it is clear that to anyone who studies the issue that the military abuse had is origin in the association of military personnel with the treatment that intelligence people were authorized to use with prisoners. The practice began immediately after 9/11 with authorization at the highest level over objection from the FBI.

Not only is the practice morally unacceptable but it is unproductive and unreliable in the information it generates. It also generates a long lasting desire for revenge, particularly among Muslims. I heard an ex-FBI agent on NPR, who had previously had responsibility for interrogating terrorist suspects using lawful method make these very points yesterday. He thinks we will reap the consequences of this desire for revenge in increased terrorist recruitment and activity for decades if not generations.

I have written many letters to my congressman and senators and participated in several delegations to talk with them and their aides since this horrible issue first surfaced. (See UFPPC Lobbying.) The McCain Amendment No. 1977 to the Defense Appropriation Act of 2006 represents the first legislative vehicle or action to offer an opportunity to at least stop future abuse of prisoners. The amendment passed the Senate by a vote of 90 to 9 and prohibits both the military and other government entities from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of prisoners. Unfortunately, the House version doesn't contain this language. The Senate leadership appointed 3 of the 9 members who voted against the amendment to the conference committee to reconcile the 2 bills. Meanwhile the Vice President is lobbying not only to take out the language covering the CIA but to include language specifically granting authorization for such activities to the agency. If this effort is successful it would be very difficult to get either branch of Congress to vote down the reconciled bill, given the reluctance of being accused of not supporting the troops. Such a bill would be far worse than a bill without the McCain Amendment. I urge everyone to write to their senators and representative to urge them to pressure the conference committee to accept the McCain Amendment as written and to vote against the entire defense appropriation bill it it contains the Vice President's language codifying the CIA's abuse of prisoners.

I don't think that the fact that the prisons are "secret" alone makes them illegal, immoral, or unethical. They may be giving the detainees Twinkee and Kool-Aid breaks in the afternoon, it remains to be seen. Actually I think that the professionals at the CIA would probably be more apt to running a "tight-ship", with less chance of freelancing, than reservists in A-G...



Quite frankly, and with all due respect, I don't think anyone on this board, or in the media, really knows enough about what is going on in them to make an informed answer.

I will hazard to say that i sincerely hope my government is not subjecting prisoners to torture in my name.

As to whether or not that encourages terrorists, I think the point is moot. Radical Islamists don't need any excuse other than the fact that I'm not one of them to want me dead.

I guess also what constitutes "torture" is open to debate. Some of the stuff I saw coming out of A-G was less than I experienced in a fraternity hazing, and I don't wake up in cold sweats with nightmares about it. (In fact I am snickering now thinking about it!)



I guess my answer fits here. I'm adopting the "wait and see" approach. Once all of the stories come out, we can sift through them and see if we can find any discernable truths...Then if there is impropriety, bring them to justice...

Actually, it shouldn't be subject to debate. Torture is pretty clearly defined in American Law and international treaties signed by past US governments. One of the distressing things about this issue is the attempt by administration lawyers to redefine torture in legal memoranda between the White House and the Justice Department. The most infamous of these "opinions" was withdraw soon after it saw the light of day.

I certainly wouldn't have wanted to have been a member of your fraternity. Did they force you to stand around with a hood over your head covered in your own excrement? Perhaps they threatened you with a snarling dog and let one get close enough to bite you severely? Or maybe you were forced to masturbate in the presence of strange women? Or maybe one of your sorority sisters put a leash on your neck and led you around on all fours naked? Or perhaps you were forced to stand hooded on a box with electrical leads attached to your hands and penis and told you would be electrocuted if you fell? Of course you would have had reason to believe it wasn't real and that would have made quite a difference, wouldn't it? Did one of your fraternity buddies get put in a sleeping bag and punched until he died and then get stored on ice where other posed insultingly with his body?



You just told us that we don't know what's going on. Just how do you expect the stories to come out of a secret gulag? And if they did, why would you expect any "justice." We certainly haven't seen any for the real instigators of Abu Ghraib and similar activities in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Iraq.

Do you think that such practice is acceptable by the CIA in order to fulfill the responsibility of protecting the American people? (In this side I would think that the secret part should have remained so for it to work well)

I see nothing about torture here, so the objections against that practice is moot.

I wonder to myself what the CIA did during the Cold War with captured Soviet agents. Do you suppose they extradited them to the US? Do you suppose they let them go? Or do you suppose they kept them at some secret location in Europe, Asia, or elsewhere? Perhaps a place described as a "Soviet-era compound"?

The more I think on it, the more the terrorist situation reminds me of James Bond type spy business. Foreign agents (in this case Al Qaeda) want to damage American interests. Some may have information, some may be active in sabotage or attack. It is hard to tell what they know, what they are doing or why. All you know is that they are the enemy. What to do in such a quandary?

Locking them up at a secret base and interrogating them seems appropriate. To publicize their capture gives the enemy clues into techniques and agents used to capture them. Keeping it secret means that we can get other "bad guys".


Or do you think that this is an unacceptable misuse of government resources that compromises more of America than it protects?

Taking enemy agents "off the board" seems to be in the interest of the US at this point.

Of course the Catch 22 here is when to release them. What if we got the wrong guy? When is the capture no longer a risk to reveal? That's a very difficult decision to make. I wonder what we did with Soviet agents?

Ted, the real instigators are the guys blowing themselves up to kill innocents. Just to be clear. The instigators you refer to have been sent to jail and courtmartialed.

You completely demean victims of gulags with your rhetoric. Millions of Soviets died from overwork, starvation and exposure. To use this term for some secret CIA holding pens is inflammatory and ridiculous.

Also, you have focused completely on prisoner mistreatment in these secret prisons. There have so far not been accusations of this, other than our hypothetical example to start the topic.

I was not in a fraternity, but about half the stuff you listed - yes, this was typical fraternity hazing, at least before the sensitivity police took over. Go rent School Daze by Spike Lee and have a look.

My opinion is that all prisoners or detainees should be treated according to the provisions of the Geneva Convention. If our military are held to such a standard, certainly the CIA should be.

The terrorists didn't instigate "our" prisoner abuse but the abuse certainly created more terrorists or at least more insurgents. These techniques weren't invented by a bunch of inept national guard MPs. They were techniques used at Gitmo and elsewhere by the CIA and carefully crafted to be the most effective possible against Muslim sensibilities. It's all but certain that their use on prisoners flowed from Gitmo to Afghanistan and then to Iraq probably abetted by General Miller. General Sanchez clearly issued directives authorizing the use of some of the techniques including dogs. It is a total miscarriage of justice to punish the privates and sargents and ignore the intelligence officers, civilian contractors, military officers, and secretary of defence who also bear responsibility. If there is nothing to hide, why has there never been an investigation that could look all the way up the chain of command?



I said nothing about the victims of the Soviet gulags. I used the term because it aptly describes a secret prison where people are held without recourse to any due process whatever. You always like to deflect the discussion to something entirely unrelated. How about it? Do you support the McCain Amendment?



We know that the "glove came off" after 9/11. We know that these techniques were used by the CIA at Gitmo. We know that "extraordinary renditions took place around the world with the CIA transferring prisoners to third countries where they were tortured. (And occasionally released as innocent after torture.) We know that the President has threatened to veto the McCain Amendment that forbids such treatment and that the Vice President and his new assistant, who helped draft the original "torture" memorandum, is busy lobbying the conference committee to exempt the CIA from the McCain Amendment and include language specifically allowing the CIA to engage in such activity. What are we suppose to conclude, that the CIA wants secret prisons to avoid embarrassing the families of the detainees?

You are losing me here. The Soviets had due process - plenty of show trials were held. The prisoners at Gitmo have all had hearings, despite what most keep saying. Did WWII POW's have trials or were they just captured and held?

gu·lag also Gu·lag ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gläg) n.
A network of forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union.
A forced labor camp or prison, especially for political dissidents.
A place or situation of great suffering and hardship, likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a forced labor camp.

Ted, I guess that many of us just aren't shocked by accusations of dogs and fake menstrual blood. My guess is that these tactics have been proven effective if they are still in use.

Muslim terrorists have killed more than 3,000 people SINCE 9/11 (Pakistan, Israel, London, Madrid, Indonesia, etc.) but not one attack has been successful in the USA. If that is because of secret prisons in Poland full of Al Qaeda, OK by me. That's why I voted for this guy. Sure wasn't for his fiscal policies.

Torture and prisoner abuse is evil and we should keep our focus on that issue and the conditions such as secret prisons that can enable it. I hate to let you distract the issue into another of your off subject tangents. However, as a final remark on the subject I will point out that my Wesbster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, published in 2001 before any of these issues came up, includes the definition: "3. any prison or detention camp, esp. for political prisoners."

I know that jumping on the word "gulag" as you have is among the Republican talking points. However, my use is a perfectly proper one. I suppose you restrict the word "crusade" to the Christian attempts to seize and control Palestine? Do you also restrict the word "ghetto" to an area of a city to which Jews are restricted? Languages grow and change and words that originated with narrow meaning acquire broader ones.




Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Just because terrorists have chosen to hit easier targets closer to home, don't attribute the lack of attacks in the U.S. to Bush policies. Overall terrorist attacks outside of Iraq increased by a factor of 4 in 2004 according to the State Department. Do you think the prisoner abuse might have contributed to this increase? Without a doubt it contributed to the insurgency in Iraq. However, that's beside the point. It's simply evil and beneath what this country is suppose to stand for!

While the terrorists were killing 3,000 (which I question) our little war in Iraq was killing from 30,000 to 120,000 depending on which count you accept. It's hard to know for certain since our military doesn't regard it as necessary to account for dead Iraqis.

And this is how you justify it? Israel, Pakistan, and Indonesia are all known to engage in the sort of shady human rights abuses that we are talking about... and as you said, there have been numerous terrorist attacks the world over despite their use. I'm sure it's unintentional (because nobody likes to chop off their own legs) but you've just admitted that the sort of practices you are engaged in don't work!

Of course, maybe they do work. You seem to have some sort of unwavering faith in illegal detentions, torture, etc. So, aside from the fact that other nations use them (whoops... that was the argument you made which makes no sense), what rational do you have for supporting this approach? Is it the "cliched football movie dialogue" of George Bush et al, the fact that nobody has been able to document successful applications of these tactics, or the evidence that this approach to security in fact increases the number of terrorists out there, despite yielding no palpable benefits? Wait, again, those are all reasons to disagree with the CIA's intelligence gathering techniques. I keep getting confused because nobody has actually provided a good reason to support them beyond aphorisms about "the terrorists started it" and crude moral waffling.

I am onboard with UltimateJoe entirely. I see absolutely no logical or reasonable argument supporting the use of secret detention centers by the CIA.

Even if the the captives were being served hot chocolate and truffles by a horde of vestal virgins in these camps their basic human rights will STILL have been violated when they were removed form society without any due process. As soon as Americans begin rationalizing excuses for our government to suspend its most basic assumptions about human rights then we are on the slippery slope to losing everything.


However, lets avoid the slippery slope- don't mess with my human rights- argument.
Instead, lets try to argue the devil's advocate and find good reasons for these camps to exist:

1.) They are a good source of much needed intelligence?

Well, no and no. Torture is ineffective at best. It seems to me that we should be going with our strengths. Americans are good at gathering high tech data. Clearly more information could be garned fro ma suspected terrorist by bugging, tracking and scanning every aspect of his/her life in order to pick apart the network of connections.
This, however, would be slow and would require many resources. It seems that the only benefit, from an intelligence gathering point of view, that such camps would have is that they are cost effective. You can get lots of people wiht limited manpower and hope to get a little info.
This administration already proved that it is not so good at surreptitious information gathering when it leaked the name of the Al Quaeda double agent being used by the British. Apparently they aren't willing to try again?

2.) Jailing suspected terrorists, no matter how illegally, makes us safer here at home?

Well, no, it doesn't. No one here has been able to counter the argument that this type of behavior leads to MORE recruiting of new terrorists around the world. Until somone can provide proof that more are being jailed than are being recruited I will not accept this argument.
Also, as I remember from the Abu Graib incident, the day after the news broke over 300 prisoners were freed. The ones interviewed all has stories of torture and mistreatment. If they were horrible terrorists why were they freed when the pressure came on? I don't buy the argument that we are expertly gathering known terrorists. I get the feeling that our government is fishing with a long dragnet and, sometimes, throwning back the ones that aren't keepers.

3.) We need to develop this sort of operational ability for future use in protecting the country from any number of enemies so we may as well hone our ability now?

Well this is the best one I can think of. It is still repugnant. It annoys me to no end that we are unable to find subtle, intelligent and eloquent methods of tracking potential terrorists. Perhaps brute force is the only answer and will be in the future.
I, however, think that the present leadership (a lot of them) are just unsophisticated and too cheap to do it the right way. Hey, maybe the American people are the cause of this! Perhaps our demands for the cost of this war to be reined in has led the CIA to this....

Do you think that such practice is acceptable by the CIA in order to fulfill the responsibility of protecting the American people? (In this side I would think that the secret part should have remained so for it to work well)

The use of torture by U.S. troops (wether military or intelligence officers) is totally unacceptable and shamefull. Although some of you try to justify these acts (or at least try to marginalise the effect) do not forget that almost ALL your most important allies (Europe) are upset by these horrendous practises. Anti-Americanism is fueled by practises like this. The U.S. is rapidly loosing its moral authority in the world and if things continue in the near future you might find yourself completely abandoned by your allies (leaving you VERY vulnerable for outside attacks!).

Realize that the whole world is becoming sick and tired of the dominance of the U.S. in the world and the way it is displaying its power. Things like torture, eventhough its practise is as old as time itself, could be the last drups before the bucket flushes over. I am not only talking about radical Muslims, I am talking about a world-wide reaction against the U.S. on multiple levels.

Please, follow TedN5's suggestion and make sure these practises stop. Not only for the innocent people who have become traumatised during their captivity, but also for the credibilty and respect of your own country. The path you are currently following leads to nowhere.


P.S.

An extra from a nice source provided by Amlord in a different discussion:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110007491


You may have the feeling you are fighting terrorism in the Middle-East and justify the use of torture in regard to possible terrorist suspects, it is clear that the real fight against terrorism going to be fought in Europe.

Do you think that such practice is acceptable by the CIA in order to fulfill the responsibility of protecting the American people? (In this side I would think that the secret part should have remained so for it to work well)

Well, I agree for the most part with Renger and others above. This is unacceptable for all of the same reasons as the rendering of suspects to foreign governments who are willing to interogate them especially "roughly" should be unacceptable.

Or do you think that this is an unacceptable misuse of government resources that compromises more of America than it protects?

I copied this statement a while ago and lost the link, but kept it as a potential signature to use, as I am in fundamental agreement with it:

"The best I can do is suggest that when our most senior officials keep publicly branding every adversary as a terrorist and endeavor to link them all to the outrages of 9/11 while denying the applicability of conventional law of war provisions, they must bear some responsibility for the unfortunately all too predictable results. As a nation we need to recognize that wars are fundamentally about achieving desired political results, not a game where winning specific battles or scoring more enemy kills counts. Those who contributed to developing the law of war, as well as professional soldiers who followed it regardless of whether violations were likely to prosecuted or not, recognized at least implicitly that how militaries conduct themselves during conflict can impact the outcome. Surely the international fallout over Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo abuses, and the most recent Afghanistan incident should drive this point home to even the most jaundiced observer."

It may be beside the point for you, but I enjoy living my life. If these prisons help, great. Why is the burden of proof on me, when the lack of attacks is self-evident proof that we are keeping terrorists from attacking us here? Propter hoc we had jihadis attempt to bomb LAX, smuggle explosives over the border from Canada, light their shoes on fire, etc. etc. etc.

If you cared about dead Iraqis, you would be happy that they are not being raped and tortured by Saddam Hussein and his henchmen. As I stated earlier, a 10-year old with a slide rule could do the math that less innocents have died since our invasion than would have during an average 2-year period of being governed by a psychopathic dictator.

Similar to the "iraq body count" site, there is a terrorist attack body count here. It's a biased site, but the events are all listed with dates, and I've heard of all of the big ones listed. 3205 dead since 9/11/01. Here are the casualties for the first 4 days of November.



Here we go with "abuses" again. What evidence do we have of abuses in these secret detention centers?

Again, we have the "killing the terrorists makes more terrorists" argument. Bin Laden himself said that he was emboldened (read: creating more terrorists) by our running away in Somalia (after engagements with a kill ratio of 100:1). How does emboldening terrorists create less of them?

Again, if no attacks on US soil in 4 years = less security, I just don't know how to debate you on this.

We are debating secret CIA detention facilities. We are not debating torture by US troops! And if we are so "vulnerable" - again, why no attacks? Could it have anything at all to do with the fact that guys like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin Al-Shib are in a secret jail somewhere?

Can all of you "Poor Joe Wilson - Karl Rove should go to jail" folks please explain to me how the Washington Post running this story is not a "treasonous" (to borrow your words) offence, worthy of investigation and jailing the leakers? How can you defend this hypocrisy?

I really do not see your point here. Do you really think that at this moment the U.S. actually winning the war on terror? The fact that after 9/11 no other attacks occurred on U.S. soil does not mean the tactics employed by the Bush administration have made the world a safer place for the average American. I cheer every time a known terrorist is being caught, but I realize very well that his place will be filled up in no time. Winning a battle is not winning the war and up till now it seems that even with a victory resistance continues to grow.

The fact is the U.S. needs the world and her allies more then ever. International cooperation is essential to minimize the threat posed by international terrorists. Instead of making sure this is going to be a joint operation (preferably under guidenance of the U.N.), the actions and attitude of Bush and his administration are causing major problems in the international relations.

You cannot claim you are fighting in the name of freedom and democracy if you cannot uphold the most basic standard: respect for human rights.
As long as your government (supported by large parts of the American public) continue to marginalise torture practises (Abu Graib) and unlawful detainments (Gauntanamo, secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe) and view them as justifiable means in the war against terror, the U.S. will gradually loose its credibility completely.

You may think the U.S. is powerful enough to deal with a complex threat like international terrorism, the fact is that in reality you need allies. As long as your administration does not begin to listen to the rest of the world and treat her allies and supporters more like equals and at least pay more respect towards human rights, I predict difficult times for the U.S. and the world.

You know, it is this kind of statement more than anything else on this forum (including the stuff that is against the rules) that infuriates me the most. The reason? Unlike some partisan rant, or flame, or whatever you are trying to pass this off as intelligent debate. When people simplify discussions to the point of irrelevance in order to "prevail" they have won nothing except self-congratulation; and to me this is what you have done. Why? Because you have made a logical connection (secret CIA prisons reduce terror) without offering any real substantiation. Sure terrorists attack on American soil have declined since 9/11... but so what? How many "jihadist" (I really don't like that word) attacks have their been in hte last five years? One. How many were there in the 1990's? One. Some improvement. You have not demonstrated in any meaningful way how these prisons are working? Instead, you have engaged in the sort of logical bootstrapping that can justify just about anything:

I've been told that people find me funny when I go out. I think this is because invisble "moonbeams" that travel through walls bounce off my aura and alter peoples perceptions of me. Now, go ahead and disprove me... I've satisfied your criteria for a logical deduction, so clearly the burden of proof lies on you.

Now... I was about to go tackle the rest of your post, but I realized that I would be playing right into your hands. Whether you realize it or not, you are deflecting, and doing a half-way decent job of it I should add.

Good God...I can't believe some are still using Ken Mehlman talking points and trying to make a credible argument here. It used to be laughable - now it's just plain disturbing.

If stripping away many of our civil liberties, searching my 5 year old daughter's baby purse, investing $300 billion into a war in Iraq, wasting away 2000 American lives and the families their deaths destroyed, wasting 30,000 Iraqi lives, torturing civilians under the guise of antiterrorism, and creating secret prisoner camps has did anything to keep us safe over the last 5 years, then we need to bring back Clinton.

Under Clinton's watch, we never got attacked by international terrorism after Al Qaida attacked us the first time at the World Trade Centers in the early 90's. For ten years, Clinton didn't have to do anything Bush has done and he kept us just as safe if we use your line of logic. Al Qaida declared war on us then and they are as intent as they were back then to destroy us now. And the Bush administration has been very clear to say that we will be attacked again.

And to make matter worse, the number of terrorists is increasing exponentially. Ten years ago, our allies and the countries afraid of us would have helped to reduce those numbers (i.e. Afghanistan). Presently, they are telling us to go to hell.

We don't live in a vacuum. If we're hearing about Cheney asking for torture, hearing about prison camps, and the death of 30,000 innocent Iraqis, so does the rest of the world. We can't defeat terrorism world-wide on our own, but jab a stick in the world's eye every chance we get.

Please don't insult our intelligence by using lame talking points. If you sleep better at night because we torture people, throw foreigners into prison camps, and violate civil rights locally and abroad, more power to you. But don't attempt to reconcile that absence of morality at our expense.

If we were to learn of these types of stories involving different countries at different locations, we'd be outraged. At least I can be intellectually honest enough to admit it. And that helps me sleep at night.

I think this is another major American political divide. The people and politicians who share my side of the debate get the worst of it because when faced with dangerous elements we tend to value human rights and liberties first (for all) and the best possible security second.

Yet in the short term when fears are higher, many Americans feel that an America first and security before liberty is the right path.

I understand this take but I do not share it.

To solve the qualms of people like me I think a compromise has been reached where American security is quietly assured to be reached in a hypocritical manner, in the style of black-ops.

It surprised me that so many were happy to expand the power and funding of the CIA on an almost wholesale basis in the aftermath of 9-11. In fact politicians who had voted against CIA funds in the 90s were called to task in post 9-11 elections.

This would be more acceptable and less hypocritical to me, if we presented our foreign policy more in a manner depicted by Oliver North as he explained the logic of breaking the law to defend the American people in the 1980s.

If we openly stated that we practiced old-fashioned real-politik where war was only an extension of foreign policy and the stronger nations deserved and earned the right to meddle in the affairs of weaker powers, than we would have a more honest foreign policy.

Instead we tend toward idealism in our foreign policy. We fight for the free world, for democracy, to stop evil-doers. We do it because it is the selfless right thing to do. Yet when we look at our policies closely the hypocrisy comes through and I think almost all of us in this country know this and ignore or support it.

During the Cold War we fought against communism and propped up puppet dictatorships that violated human rights around the globe. In supporting a corrupt and stifling government in Vietnam we dragged ourselves into a quagmire because we did not represent a will of the people, yet we could not acknowledge that the will of the people of Vietnam was probably behind Communist/Nationalist Ho Chi Minh.

Here we talk about extending democracy. To me it is the freedoms and liberties of humanity that we are supposed to be for, yet to achieve this greater good we seem willing to tolerate the stifling of human rights, the holding of political prisoners, and the creation of indefinitely detained individuals who slip through carefully crafted loopholes to become personas non-grata.

It is when we compromise our values that we begin to act immorally. What was that that Sun-Tzu said, "That wars are won in the temples before the fighting begins." Is that about it?

I do not believe in black-ops. I do not believe in shadow figures running around with the ability to exist outside of international law poisoning the world against us with their illegal operations.

The CIA should be an intelligence gathering information. It should be empowered in areas necessary to gain intelligence with some powers of espionage that blur the lines of international law, but we should not place ourselves above international law.
We should not be empowering secret forces to act to protect American interests illegally. And we should not adopt the tactics of brutal dictators to try to shape the world to our preferred contours.

I believe in collective security. I believe in greater transparency. I believe in avoiding wars as often as possible and using negotiations and international actions against aggressors.

In the formation of the UNited Nations we participated in the creation of a universal declaration of human rights. This is what we should work to extend. this is the freedom and democracy we should be modeling to the world. Secret prisons and people being deprived of real due process rights based on their existence as human beings is not in the long term best interests of the American people.

I am fully aware there are those who feel otherwise. But his is my opinion on this subject.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights




We should honor our word as we expect signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to honor their's.

We are diminished every time we violate this oath by anyone directly or indirectly employed by our government.

I stumbled upon a news item today that tears yet another hole in the "they are at Gitmo because they are dangerous to us" argument. Clearly our government is using the broad broom in its sweep for terrorists.

These men were jailed in Gitmo for three years for writing a spoof about Bill Clinton.

It seems that one of the most important aspects of the use of secret detention camps is the ability to hide mistakes. Our government has been very good at mitigating the effects of its screwups, usually by hiding them until people no longer care.

Anyone on this board could provide a huge list of examples of this informational delay.
Having these "secret" camps simply provides for a much longer delay.

1.) Irrelevant. If, at this point, we have acted upon information gathered via illegal torture, debating or not acting on its method of gathering is moot at best. Do I think, if we are still or ever was using torture, is acceptable? No, I do not.

2.) If by resources you mean time and (the most horrid claims I have ever read) forcing a person to stand awake for more than twelve hours with no air conditioning is unacceptable, then no. Torture is more than just discomfort or degradation.

DR, this not the first time you've said this to me, and I don't get it. I haven't watched the Sunday news shows in months, I don't go to republican websites, I only listen to NPR and non-screaming talk radio (Hugh Hewitt mostly). I have no idea what Ken Mehlman is saying. If you find my connection between safety and what our government is doing faulty, attack the argument.

Since US embassies are on US soil, I consider the 5000 casualties in Kenya and Tanzania to be 'attacks on US soil.' I would also consider the Khobar Towers an attack on the US, given that it attacked our armed forces. Given that 9/11 happened 8 months into a new administration, it's pretty safe to lay some of the blame on the prior administration. Clinton's response to these attacks was impotent - take a look at what George Tenet wrote in his book, which paints him as borderline treasonous.

Ten years ago - in 1995, Syria and Iran were funding terrorism, Lebanon was a vassal state to Syria, Islamic terrorists were active in Chechnya, Dagestan, Indonesia, Phillipines.... 2 dozen US servicemen were killed in bombings by Hezbollah in Saudi Arabia....Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire weapons, shooting at American and British planes, bribing the world with oil vouchers... How exactly were our allies and fearful nations willing to help us?

An open invitation to everyone here - please give me the 'terrorist census' for the past 30 years, to support one of the following:

- declining
- steady, with new terrorists replacing dead ones at a 1:1 ratio
- growing slightly
- growing exponentially

Thanks.

You know as well as anyone that there is no census. You also know that such demands are childish and unproductive. You want to set clear terms for this discussion, so be it. You have made a positive connection between illegal detentions and security. PROVE it. I have already demonstrated elsewhere that terrorist attacks across the world have increased dramatically over the last fifteen years, and in the last five as well. Sure, there hasn't been any on U.S. soil in the last four years... then again, a decrease from one to zero is way too small to have any analytical value.

Please, for the love of all that is intelligent and rational, offer something besides your "well I feel safer" diatribes to explain how this policy is working. So far you have not done so.

In various threads it has been demonstrated that the number of terrorists have increased, that attacks have increased, that American casualties have increased, that international support for U.S. policies have decreased and that the United States is engaged in all sorts of practices that are outright illegal, or at the very least hard to justify. So far your only refutation is



You call that debating... honestly? Without any substantiation your leaving this argument to stand on it's own... and that is obviously not working.

And please don't forget the USS Cole, as it was also an unprovoked attack on American interests.

Please also remember that Mr Clinton had more than one opportunity to take Bin Laden, but he was too busy watching golf or entertaining...
(see Deriliction of Duty by Col Robert Patterson)

For the love of Pete... please, please drop this lie. Bill Clinton is not the precipitator of the 911 attacks. This has been thoroughly debunked more than once. Click here.

A "liberal" whipping boy is a good apology for the current administration as long as nobody researches the allegation.

While Wertz' post was indeed admirable, I believe that aevans176 was referring to this audio tape of a Clinton speech where he says:


While Clinton tried to spin it later, even denying what he said on 60 minutes, it is worth pointing out:
- in order for the Saudis to 'take him' someone must have 'had him' to give...
- "had committed no crime against america" was not true because Bin Laden was named in an indictment for training those who attacked US troops in Somalia in 1993

David Brock's attempted debunking of this tape is not one of his better efforts. He quotes the 9/11 commission's conclusions regarding a completely different matter. What Clinton officials said is in direct contradiction to what Clinton himself said. On tape.

That's all well and good, but you have yet to actually justify your position. At what point should we just leave this debate on the assumption that you will never actually bother proving your positivist assertion? In case you forgot, this thread is for discussing the possibility of the CIA using quasi-legal secret prisons, and the potential justifications thereof. You made a connection between such tactics and increased security... Such justifications put the onus on you, as they remain unsubstantiated until you substantiate them. So I guess the question I'm asking is if you have any interest in participating in this debate?

Just in case we all forgot, the questions for debate are:

Do you think that such practice is acceptable by the CIA in order to fulfill the responsibility of protecting the American people? (In this side I would think that the secret part should have remained so for it to work well)

Or do you think that this is an unacceptable misuse of government resources that compromises more of America than it protects?

Or are your opinions on this story (remember for our purposes assuming that the basic story is true) something different than either above option?

1) Well, when the CIA captures a person whom possibly is planning to kill those whom it hates or disagrees with, a simple yes and no questioning could happen, but I doubt for the possible killer to say what the CIA is looking for. So not saying I accept torture, what other method would work, giving the rather extreme position of our current enemy in the world.

2) I think that would depend entirely on how successful it is, which at this point on don’t know where to find any data on such… I guess it may come down to all is fair in love and war? At least that is what my wife just suggested

I guess the same way they came out of A-G, Gitmo, et al. Some stories have legs, others are fabricated. That's why we have investigations, and trials as appropriate, when a charge is made .


That I'm aware of, there have already been almost a dozen pleas & convictions, with sentences of up to ten years dispensed. Senior level commanders have received reprimands, reduction in rank, and been relieved of command for indirect roles in not keeping their commands under control. In case you might not know, for a career officer who has spent a lifetime in the military that packs a mighty punch.

There have already been numerous investigations to try and determine if it went any higher up, and they have yet to find evidence of it. If someone has first hand knowledge of any "real instigators", they should come forward.
Anything other than that is just "grassy knoll" conspiracies. I know there are some who would rather there were more to it, and will make their "evidence" fit their desire. Nothing any court could do to anyone would be enough to them.

Do you think that such practice is acceptable by the CIA in order to fulfill the responsibility of protecting the American people? (In this side I would think that the secret part should have remained so for it to work well)

Absolutely not. Torture is counterproductive and creates more problems than it (intends to) resolve. The mere fact that these prisons are hidden in remote corners of the world speaks volumes. If such interrogations/torture were being conducted in Anytown, USA, does anyone think the American people would stand for it?

Or do you think that this is an unacceptable misuse of government resources that compromises more of America than it protects?

Yes. I’m offended that every American citizen is tarnished by the actions of this government. I find it outrageous that the grand high poobahs of the US are actually stumping to legalize torture! To me, that’s just sick. At least other countries know that what they're doing wouldn't be considered legal anywhere in the world (well, maybe soon in the US, if some have their way).


For those not familiar (as I wasn't), waterboarding means strapping someone to a board and dunking them under water long enough to make them think they are going to drown, then lifting them out just before you actually kill them. Not torture, according to our man Bush.

And as far as I’m concerned, the whole debate boils down to three words:


TORTURE DOESN’T WORK!


So why bother?

Well, what is torture then, chaining a person up and keeping them confined, would that not be some form of mental torture, or physical even… I just don’t get the point of mandating to a certain extent what you can or cant do when what you do to them anyways could be looked at is inhumane honestly. I guess the use of artillery should be outlawed in war because it kills so many people truly in conflict…

I am not saying I agree with torture, heck, I don’t agree with war, does not make the situation any better currently. The people that masterminded blowing up two large buildings full of people with planes full of people I doubt honestly cared about those people, but then we have to turn around and be nice to them, for what.

I don’t think torture should be legal in such an extent until you may have a positive I.D on someone. I disagree with the death penalty because innocent people get it just as much as innocents get locked away. I think the worst part of the whole war on terror mechanism would be to denounce them due process, but that would only apply to American citizens that are taken in really, a system in which are perceived enemy seeks to leave in rubble and fire.

If torture simply did not work, and this being some constant that’s easy to understand, it simply would never reach the point of employment in any situation, truly by those charged with the responsibility of such that would have high training in such areas I would think. So for it to be used in that context then makes no sense save the people committing any acts of torture truly just want to cause pain to someone or people they hate, which in some already documented cases, more so by U.S troops in Iraq I could agree with, but why elsewhere, and for what reason then?

I don’t agree with the eye for an eye philosophy, and only see it as spiral of destruction giving human ignorance, but in that same note, can the U.S sit idly by and be nice to people whom would not bat an eye and threat to use radiation on populated cities after killing all those people on 9-11. I also do not agree with the course of action W took, and feel it fuels are problem more then a cure, but I do advocate the use of force in the situation, the same as you might react to being attacked personally.

The constant beaming message of death to the U.S by Muslim extremists concerns me on the basis of my loved ones and self protection of course, this message has been carried out with devastating results of human misery, not only to those they hate but to the people they love, and in this whole mess the only point of understanding is maybe its wrong to torture them. They could leave a terrorist suspended in a container of Drano up to his neck while being forced to watch military actions against his kind for all I care.

I have seen no allegations of torture in regards to these secret prisons.

Here is a hypothetical situation (which probably happens often):

The CIA gets wind of an operation in Brussels plotting some attack on the New York Subway system. The CIA is tracking one member of the cell and manages to apprehend him.

Do they:

a. Publicly announce the arrest and extradite him to the US.

b. Publicly announce the arrest and try him locally.

c. Secretly detain him, hoping to catch the others involved while getting information from him.

d. Secretly detain him using "all means necessary" to extract information.

e. Do nothing. The US has no authority to detain or apprehend people in Belgium.

It seems to me like we are using option c. Options a and b have positives and negatives to them. In fact, the US has used combinations of options a, b and c (some arrests have been publicized to a good degree).

So the question here is whether or not option c is always the wrong one.

Number of times the word "torture" occurs in the article referenced in the post topic - zero.

Number of times the word "torture" occurs in the debate questions - zero.




The real instigator of Abu Ghraib is on trial in Bagdad, and his co-instigators are either dead or in jail.

I'm going to quote Christopher Hitchens, of Vanity Fair, writing in the weekly standard (a conservative publication).


UltimateJoe, I'll get back to you - gotta work.

Why, carlito, you are absolutely right. My apologies. Those people detained in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere are no doubt right now enjoying milk and cookies with the CIA. Good heavens, where would I get such an idea? Oh, wait, I know! It was in all those other sources I checked.

AI USA

Post Chronicle

All Headline News

Human Rights Watch

Seattle Times

and many more.

The problem with your premise, is it assumes the person who they are detaining are terrorists who have something to hide. My problem (among others) are twofold: first, without due process, there's no way to know if they are terrorists and have something to hide. Secondly, this behavior puts our troops at a greater risk because our behavior gives license for our enemies to do the same to us anywhere in the world (including countries that don't routinely behead people).

If the CIA has some suspected mastermind in some dark back room and feel like they need to pull his fingernails out to get him to tell them whatever they need to hear, that's one thing. If the culprit has a history and the probability is high that he knows something, I might concede that you need to do what you need to do to save lives. I just don't want to know about it.

But that's not what's happening. There is systematic abuse and torture going on that we would never accept if the same were happening to our troops. This is beyond clandestine operations. This is public.

Yes, but if we apply a legal system to these people, and we find those whom are guilty, they never have to speak or tell us anything of good use, unless we use psychological torture of sentences and so on I guess, but they could just tell you anything then.

Last time I checked, way before anything relating to us torturing possible terrorists, I think they were videotaping beheadings of people, because they were non Muslim or U.S related.

So I guess we just hope that if we play nice, they will too? I dont know, it could work...

I'd like to see some evidence of the alleged fact that the CIA's alleged interrogation tactics or capturing and holding procedures actually produces more terrorists.

To be honest, there seems to be a myriad of reasons that have been listed as the causes of creating terrorists. U.S. Foreign Policy, poverty, lack of education, religious fervor. One has to think that since many of these reasons are not going away any time soon, would the CIA's tactics really be an issue as far as "creating terrorists" are concerned?

You are also seeking results that will most likely never be known to the world at large. It is a distinct possibility that, through some form of intimidating and/or somewhat painful interrogation (mind you stuffing a high value target in a sleeping bag and beating him near death is stupid and will get you nothing, and I believe is therefore worthless and wrong) that highly crucial information was gathered and was acted upon.

It is here where we come to the realm of the unknown and have to either believe or disbelieve such results. To ask for them documented is an effort in futility.

I find it confusing that people of all nationalities demand that their government protect them, and demand positive results, but are shocked to hear of the manner by which those results are sought, as if to think that the entire process is similar to that of an old WWII POW movie where the German POW is easily persuaded to give up vital information through a hot cup of coffee and some warm food.

Unfortuantely, that's not how it works. War is an ugly business. We should all know that. Don't ask the questions when you're afraid of the answer.