OMFG! This is beyond outrageous, is this true?

[originalpckelly]

"The procedure was developed by Central Intelligence Agency officials in the mid-1990s who were trying to track down and dismantle militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, particularly Al Qaeda. At the time, the agency was reluctant to grant suspected terrorists due process under American law, as it could potentially jeopardize its intelligence sources and methods. The solution the agency came up with, with the approval of the Clinton administration and a presidential directive (PDD 39), was to send suspects to Egypt, where they were turned over to the Egyptian mukhabarat, which has a reputation for brutality. This arrangement suited the Egyptians, as they had been trying to crack down on Islamic extremists in that country and a number of the senior members of Al Qaeda were Egyptian. The arrangement suited the US because torture is banned under both US and international law.

The argument for rendition made by defenders of the practice is that culturally-informed and native-language interrogations are more successful in gaining information from suspects. For instance, interrogators of one terrorist suspect prayed to Mecca five times per day in the presence of the suspect until he became willing to talk <15>. Nevertheless, there have been many reports of the use of torture by these governments on suspects rendered to them.

The first individual to be subjected to rendition was Talaat Fouad Qassem, one of Egypt's most wanted terrorists, who was arrested with the help of US intelligence by Croatian police in Zagreb in September 1995. He was interrogated by US agents on a ship in the Adriatic Sea and was then sent back to Egypt. He disappeared while in custody, and is suspected by human rights activists of having been executed without a trial.

In the summer of 1998, a similar operation was mounted in Tirana, Albania. Wiretaps showed that five Egyptians had been in contact with Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy. During the course of several months, Shawki Salama Attiya and four militants were captured by Albanian security forces collaborating with US agents. The men were flown to Cairo for interrogation. Attiya later alleged that he had electric shocks applied to his genitals, was hung from his limbs, and was kept in a cell with dirty water up to his knees.


Examples

* "'Snatches', or more properly 'extraordinary renditions', were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgement of the host government ... The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.'"<16>

* Michael Scheuer said, "In 1995, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt, making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally—including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea. "What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian," Scheuer said. "It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated." Technically, U.S. law requires the CIA to seek "assurances" from foreign governments that rendered suspects won’t be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was "not sure" if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed."<17>"

OMG! People is this crap real? I bet that's why the Congressional Dems haven't been going after Bush for his war crimes! Those son of bitches must have made a deal or something, because this would have been in the 9/11 report wouldn't it? I've been getting that feeling for a while, but this really fucking scares me! I mean who can we trust? GODDAMMIT I TRUSTED AL GORE!!!!!! HOW COULD HE???? This is such an inhumane practice! God I hope it isn't real.

[meegbear]

1. I don't know ...

how about some links or sources

[originalpckelly]

4. I went to read it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#1990s

It is Wikipedia, so that is why I questioned it. But if this is true our country is in more trouble than we thought. We could be running from a wolf right into a fox den.

[acmejack]

2. Yes it is.

[originalpckelly]

5. NOOO! How do you know, where did you find out?

I don't honestly think I have been so upset in my entire life, and the past few days have been pretty bad.

[madokie]

7. You know I wonder if it would be possible to have a democracy

fair and open to all, no under the table shit going on, all above the board. Personally I would think so.:shrug:

[NMDemDist2]

3. link? n/t

[GetTheRightVote]

6. I hope it isn't real either, for who can we trust if not ??

:kick:

[originalpckelly]

8. There would literally be absolutely no hope whatsoever...

this may be the real reason some of those DLCers voted for the bill, they have been doing the crap themselves.

[Tesha]

16. Can you trust John Hutson, ex-JAG of the Navy?

> I hope it isn't real either, for who can we trust if not ??

Extraordinary Rendition is quite real, and we have definitely
used it.

I have personally heard John Hutson, ex Judge-Advocate General
of the United States Navy and now dean of the Franklin Pierce
Law School speak out against it, both in an address to the
New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union and in hearings before
the Congress.

It is very real, it is very awful, and our government is doing
it in our name. And now, withthe aid of 12+ Democrats, our
Congress has pretty much given their blessing to exactly this
sort of thing.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hutson

Tesha

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. 12 Democrats + Gore, apparently.

And Sherrod Brown... and other "urban progressives". As long as they support the rights of upper-class people to do what they want in the privacy of their bedrooms (typically, to watch Fox) I guess it's OK...

Anyone besides me suspect that the day an AFFLUENT white person (not just any old bum, mind you) runs afoul of these laws will be the day "Americans start to care", in the phraseology of Clinton, Obama et al?

[Warpy]

9. Wrong. Restricted rendition began under Poppy Bush

To the great shame of Democrats everywhere, Clinton allowed it to continue.

Stupid simply removed all restrictions.

[originalpckelly]

10. This is so bad, how could someone do that?

Well you what this means, we will have six seat in the box at the trial instead of two. I have never been so upset. We cannot make exceptions for such sick and sadistic and inhumane behavior, ever.

[qazplm]

11. I always thought of rendition as being

we send one of OUR most wanted terrorists to another country to have him interrogated for US.

If Talaat Qassem was one of EGYPT's most wanted terrorists, and we sent him back to Egypt, then how is it rendition simply because we helped get him?

[originalpckelly]

13. Remember Mr. Arar, he was tortured when he was sent to one of...

those foreign countries. This is the Middle East, the governments all torture there. This is not some innocent mistake, we are talking about the torture of people.

We may need something like the Church Committee to get to the bottom of the torture shit, because I don't really believe we can trust these people anymore. These "Democrats" did this in our name, and they are going to pay for that.

[Buzz Clik]

12. Why would anyone be surprised by this?

And it didn't start with Clinton, or Bush41, or Reagan.

Wake up, people. The vote in Congress simply made it official: the United States tortures prisoners.

Here's another shock for you: The United States supports, trains, and finances terrorists.

[Lerkfish]

14. school of the americas ( i think that's the name) was always a CIA

torture instructional school.

the difference is, think about it, EVEN WITH bushco stuffing all their loyalists in the CIA, the CIA STILL refuses to continue the torture program.
As I've said in another post, how frigging sick is the program that even the CIA doesn't want to do it anymore?


We are in the very bizarre situation of hoping the CIA saves us from torturing people.

[Buzz Clik]

15. good post. n/t

[Finder]

17. It didn't begin in the 90s and was common throughout the last...

half century. It was a cold war tactic and commonly practiced by our intelligence services, MI5 and MI6 as well as Mossad and other agencies.(covertly)

Oversight committees in our various congresses have placed limits on the practices and whistleblowers have testified publically.

Intelligence agencies are for the most part non-partisan.

The conflicts we are engaged in now are different. By allowing these practices overtly we have made a big mistake.IMO

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. The US turned captured Egyptian terrorists over to Egyption

authorities.

I don't have a problem with that.

This wasn't saying that we were using the Egptians as proxies, that Clinton was sending Yemenis or Lebanese to Egypt. Just Egyptians, wanted Egyptian criminals. Sounds sort of like extradition agreements, to me. You know, treating the criminals like criminals. Bush's adventure in Iraq may have distracted us from it, but there are real terrorists out there, and remanding captured terrorists to their home coutries seems like a reasonable way to deal with them. It should, in fact, be standing policy if we receive assurances that they will be tried and judged. If the terrorist's home country reneges on those assurances, that's on their head.

This is clearly different than the secret prisons and the detention of third party invisible suspects, rendition of a suspect who is from country A, captured in country B, sent to be tortured in country C, at the request of country D (the US), the Bushco method.

[grizmaster]

19. There's nothing new about what used to be called "EXTRAORDINARY" rendition

except that it used to be "extraordinary". Clinton had a handful of nasty folks rendered as did many of his predecessors.

It's bush that changed it from extraordinary to routine and upped the numbers into the hundreds (or thousands depending on who you count).

[originalpckelly]

20. This sort of practice is un-American...

And it is going to stop as soon as possible. This is a war crime and these people will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

[grizmaster]

26. Oh it's definitely a crime

but I'm not so confident they will ever be punished.

Now that this law has decriminalized their previous actions it's hard to get past ex post facto to recriminalize their war crimes in a way that they'll be punishable under American law. Of course there is still the International court, but we'll have to get Congress to allow for the extradition to bring them to justice there.

[originalpckelly]

21. Remember the interview Clinton had with Keith...

anyone remember Clinton saying there was already an (exception or exemption, which ever one of those were used) in the Army regs. that allows this sort of thing? That is our starting clue.

[The2ndWheel]

22. Why is this shocking?

Did the idea of torture just pop up out of nowhere? All of a sudden the CIA just came up with these ideas? We've been doing it for decades.

We, that's funny. The giant secret entities which run our lives and are more important than life having been doing it for decades.

Much better.

[flyarm]

24. the difference is pissy pants is having people plucked off streets

in their own countries..like the Italians who were kidnapped .. that the italian government wants our cia guys arrested and charged for kidnapping their citizens..

see now someone who works for our government or catches our government doing dirty deeds in their country can now be swept up and kept forever not able to disclose the dirty deeds..that our government is committing in their own country ..and no one will be the wiser..

this is pissy pants own gulag now..

aren't we all so damn proud to have our own gulag??????:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

fly

[TayTay]

23. What is your source for this?

Was this from a book or an online source.

[originalpckelly]

25. My source was Wikipedia, but look at post #16 for the confirmation.

It is sickening.

[razors edge]

27. We were trained in torture at Paris Island S.C. in 1981,

It was not very elaborate, nor were we tested on the subject matter, nor was it documented. We were also trained in avoidance of Geneva Convention Law of War restrictions.

[stanwyck]

30. Did you have to undergo waterboarding?

I've heard that Marines are subjected to "waterboarding" during training? True?

[razors edge]

31. not that I saw

this was 1981, we were being shown techniques to get info quickly, that left permanent disfigurement, burns etc, I think it was as much to check our reaction to the idea of torture as anything else.

Edit: the gas chamber is a real slice of heaven though.

[stanwyck]

36. they still do the gas chamber

my son was at Parris Island four years ago. The gas chamber experience endures.

[Cerridwen]

28. Here's an ACLU link...

Beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day, the Central Intelligence Agency, together with other U.S. government agencies has...transfer(ed) foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism to detention and interrogation in countries where -- in the CIA's view -- federal and international legal safeguards do not apply...interrogation methods are employed that do not comport with federal and internationally recognized standards...

The current policy traces its roots to the administration of former President Bill Clinton. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, however, what had been a limited program expanded dramatically, with some experts estimating that 150 foreign nationals have been victims of rendition in the last few years alone...In the words of former CIA agent Robert Baer: "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear -- never to see them again -- you send them to Egypt."

(much more at link)

[leftchick]

32. do you have a link for this?

I really am not surprised. The CIA has been known for some really scary shit for years now. Decades.

[acmejack]

33. "There were 70 cases before the Sept. 11 attacks"-George Tenet

snip>
The practice of transporting a prisoner from one country to another, without formal extradition proceedings, has been used by the government for years. George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has testified that there were 70 cases before the Sept. 11 attacks, authorized by the White House. About 20 of those cases involved people brought to the United States to stand trial under informal arrangements with the country in which the suspects were captured.

Since Sept. 11, however, it has been used much more widely and has had more expansive guidelines, because of the broad authorizations that the White House has granted to the C.I.A. under legal opinions and a series of amendments to Presidential Decision Directives that remain classified. The officials said that most of the people subject to rendition were regarded by counterterrorism experts as less significant than people held under direct American control, including the estimated three dozen high ranking operatives of Al Qaeda who are confined at secret sites around the world.

http://www.intel-dump.com/archives/archive_2005_03_06-2005_03_12.shtml

[acmejack]

34. ******Authorizing PDD 39 Signed BY WJ Clinton******

SUBJECT: U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism (U)

It is the policy of the United States to deter, defeat and respond vigorously to all terrorist attacks on our territory and against our citizens, or facilities, whether they occur domestically, in international waters or airspace or on foreign territory. The United States regards all such terrorism as a potential threat to national security as well as a criminal act and will apply all appropriate means to combat it. In doing so, the U.S. shall pursue vigorously efforts to deter and preempt, apprehend and prosecute, or assist other governments to prosecute, individuals who perpetrate or plan to perpetrate such attacks. (U)

We shall work closely with friendly governments in carrying out our counterterrorism policy and will support Allied and friendly governments in combating terrorist threats against them. (U)

Furthermore, the United States shall seek to identify groups or states that sponsor or support such terrorists, isolate them and extract a heavy price for their actions. (U)

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm

[silko]

39. Which part of PDD-39 refers to this practice?

It's a heavily redacted document but what has been unclassified does not show that Clinton approved sending terror suspects to governments that would torture them.

Do I miss something?

[acmejack]

35. Good Source on Rendition.

snip>
The procedure was developed by Central Intelligence Agency officials in the mid-1990s who were trying to track down and dismantle militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, particularly Al Qaeda. At the time, the agency was reluctant to grant suspected terrorists due process under American law, as it could potentially jeopardize its intelligence sources and methods. The solution the agency came up with, with the approval of the Clinton administration and a presidential directive (PDD 39), was to send suspects to Egypt, where they were turned over to the Egyptian mukhabarat, which has a reputation for brutality. This arrangement suited the Egyptians, as they had been trying to crack down on Islamic extremists in that country and a number of the senior members of Al Qaeda were Egyptian. The arrangement suited the US because torture is banned under both US and international law.

http://www.answers.com/%22extraordinary+rendition%22?nafid=3

[ryanus]

37. Relax. It's much worse than that

You are falling down the rabbit hole.

[silko]

38. I don't know who wrote the Wikipedia entry

but he managed to confuse three different things.

Sending wanted Egyptian citizens to Egypt itself is not rendition. That's called extradition and there is nothing wrong with that. Whether the Egyptians torture them or not is not the US's responsibility but theirs. You don't want to say that we should get every single prisoner out of Egypt just to save them from torture, do you?

The word 'snatch' itself means "to attempt to seize something suddenly" and nothing more. It means sending US agents or troops covertly to another country and capture suspected terrorists. What the US government would then do with the suspect is another matter.

There is nothing wrong with apprehending terror suspect using covert action (even while it is indeed against international law just like spying) -- in fact this is one of those tools absolutely necessary to counter terrorism. If US agents had managed to snatch Mohammed Atta et al. in Germany or in Spain or in Saudi Arabia -- without the approval of the governments of those countries -- you wouldn't be here now talking about torture because 9/11 wouldn't have happened and the whole issue would be in fact a non-issue.

With regard to the "example" with Gore the author ignored parts of Dick Clarke's book (Against All Enemies) thus creating the impression that Gore urged Clinton to send a terror suspect to some prison overseas.
In reality, there is not a word about what to do with the guy after he would be captured -- and certainly not a word about sending him to be tortured -- , just whether to use covert action to get him. The name of the suspect was not revealed but it's irrelevant since the mission failed.

Here is the relevant part from Clarke's book:

****************
Snatches, or more properly 'extraordinary renditions', were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgment of the host government. One terrorist snatch had been conducted in the Reagan administration. Fawaz Yunis, who had participated in a hijacking of a Jordanian aircraft in 1985 in which three Americans were killed, was lured to a boat off the Lebanese shore and then grabbed by FBI agenst and Navy SEALs. By the mid-1990 these snatches were becoming routine CSG activity. Sometimes FBI arrest teams, sometimes CIA personnel, had been regurarly dragging terrorists back to stand trial in the United States or flying them to incarceration in other countries. All but one of the World Trade Center attackers from 1993 had been found and brought to New York. Nonetheless, the proposed snatch in Khartoum went nowhere. Several meetings were held in the White House West Wing with Berger demanding the snatch. The Joint Staff had an answer that they used whenever asked to do something that they did not want to do:
- it would take a very large force;
- the operation was risky and might fail, with US forces caught and killed, embarrassing the President;
- their "professional military opinion" was not to do it;
- but, of course, they would do it if they received orders to do so in writing from the President of the United States;
- and, by the way, military lawyers said it would be a violation of international law.

Fletcher School professor Richard Schultz came to similar conclusions about how the US military would refuse to fight terrorism prior to September 11. His study is summarized in the article "Show Stoppers" in the January 21, 2004 Weekly Standard.

The first time I had proposed a snatch in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law.
Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South AFrica. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said: "That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of internationl law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy it a terrorist. Go grab his ass." We tried but failed.
****************

Fawaz Yunis was snatched then he was put on trial in the US and convicted, not tortured in a foreign prison.

In the October 1989 issue of this Journal, I wrote a brief essay concerning
the U.S. Constitution and law enforcement abroad. 1 I called attention to the
case of Fawaz Yunis, a Lebanese national who was arrested on the high seas
by U.S. officers and brought to the United States for trial on charges of
aircraft hijacking and hostage taking.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=79269230


Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, there was a very significant conviction yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that ought to be noted--the conviction of Fawaz Yunis. This is a rare occurrence when we can take pride in an accomplishment in our battle against terrorism.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1989_cr/s890315-terror.htm

Just because Gore wanted to get a terrorist does not mean he wanted to send him to Syria or Egypt etc.
He said 'go grab his ass' not to 'send him to x, y, z country'.

Moveover, Gore said back in 2002 in his speech on Iraq that when the question is survival or law you choose survival. He didn't think that was such a choice with regard to Iraq but he does think that capturing a real terrorist with covert action is precisely in that category and frankly I don't give a shit whether it is against international law or not.

[Uncle Joe]

41. I agree with your post silko,

and welcome to D.U.:hi:

[KittyWampus]

42. Silko, you've only got 3 posts so far, but this one about Rendition

is very, very helpful.

Welcome to DU and thanks for the info it was presented very well.

[Judi Lynn]

40. I read it was initiated by Ronald Reagan.

Although I can't remember where I read the other article recently, here's another which might shed some light, at least:

Milan Snatch
Extraordinary rendition comes back to bite the Bush administration.
By Tim Naftali
Posted Thursday, June 30, 2005, at 5:16 PM ET

A generation ago, during the Reagan administration, the United States abducted its first fugitive overseas in an FBI-CIA operation codenamed Goldenrod. No foreign government was involved in the September 1987 snatching of Fawaz Yunis, who was wanted in the U.S. courts for his role in the hijacking of a Jordanian airliner that had American citizens onboard. Yunis was lured onto a boat off the coast of Cyprus and taken to the high seas, where he was arrested in international waters.

The Reagan administration did not undertake this kidnapping lightly. Then-FBI Director William Webster had opposed an earlier bid to snatch Yunis, arguing that the United States should not adopt the tactics of Israel, which had abducted Adolf Eichmann on a residential street in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1960. But after years of ineffective counterterrorism operations, the U.S. government was eager to strike back. In 1984 and 1986, during a wave of terrorist attacks, Congress passed laws making air piracy and attacks on Americans abroad federal crimes. Ronald Reagan added teeth to these laws by signing a secret covert-action directive in 1986 that authorized the CIA to kidnap, anywhere abroad, foreigners wanted for terrorism. A new word entered the dictionary of U.S. foreign relations: rendition.

The goal of the early renditions was to ensure that terrorists understood that they could not escape their day in U.S. court. But since launching its war on terror, the administration of George W. Bush has expanded the practice to "extraordinary rendition," which includes kidnappings of foreign suspects so they can be turned over to authoritarian allies like Egypt for interrogation sessions that likely involve torture. Last week, when 13 CIA agents were charged with kidnapping by an Italian court, it became clear that an extraordinary rendition had taken place in a democracy in defiance of its independent judiciary—a development that undermines the U.S. crusade for democracy worldwide
(snip)

http://www.slate.com/id/2121801/

[RestoreGore]

43. What's Your Source For This?

[StellaBlue]

44. I have only a link:

http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States-Present/dp/0060838655/sr=8-1/qid=1159638052/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0271288-3070459?ie=UTF8&s=books

[Cleita]

45. I remember reading bits of news articles buried way back

in the Los Angeles Times about this practice in Clinton/Gore's second term. In a nation that was at that time obssessed with Monica Lewinsky and then Chandra Levy, it got scant notice.