Commenter in "New Yorker" seeks info on tortured, murdered uncle/detainee's body

By GottaLaff

The Salt Pit

Jane Mayer has a piece out in the New Yorker that is a must-read. It concerns the death of a detainee, and includes a revelation about the unintended identification of the detention C.I.A. officer who was allegedly responsible:

In an apparent oversight, however, the identity of the manager of the Salt Pit at the time of Rahman’s death appeared recently in a public document. The officer, who continues to work for the C.I.A., is mentioned by name in a footnote in the October, 2009, legal response to allegations of unprofessional conduct filed by lawyers for Jay Bybee, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel. The Bybee document was released last February by the Justice Department. Apparently unnoticed at the time, it revealed both the surname of the Salt Pit manager and the identity of the victim, Rahman.

[UPDATE, April 1, 6:40 P.M.: In an interesting disappearing act, unspecified government officials have now mysteriously redacted the name of the C.I.A. officer in charge of the Salt Pit from the public record described above. The document is easily accessible on the House Judiciary Committee’s Web site (pdf). But where footnote No. 28 previously identified the surname of the Salt Pit manager, as of April 1st, the name has been blacked out. The victim’s name, however, is still visible. It was evidently too late to keep that out of the public eye after the A.P. story.]

The story is horrendous, the deeds unspeakable. But something on that page caught my eye in Comments:

can you please tell us about the death body of rehman from where we can get it i am his nephew

Posted 3/31/2010, 11:32:10pm by sulimankhail

Think about that for a moment.

A news story about the death of a detainee at a black site causes a person who identifies himself as family, as the nephew of the victim, to try to locate the body after eight years... in a comment under the post.

He is asking for help in getting the body of a family member back. In Comments.

Assuming "sulimankhail" is who he says he is, what does this tell you? How does it make you feel that torture and murder has been done in our name... and now a prisoner's relative has to leave a comment under a story in the New Yorker in order to find the remains of his uncle?

I'm ashamed, and I am sickened.

A related story drives the point home:

Michael Sulick, head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, told a student audience last week that the spy agency has seen no fall-off in intelligence since waterboarding was banned by the Obama administration.

Be proud, BushCo.

****

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Secrets of CIA 'ghost flights' to be revealed

By GottaLaff

Protest in support of Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed outside the American Embassy, London, February 17, 2009. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

We continue the practice of rendition today, although the ObamAdministration insists torture is a thing of the past. Speaking of the past, seems that at least one facilitator of torture at "black sites", aka "corporate collusion", is busted:

Confidential documents showing the flight plans of a CIA "ghost plane" allegedly used to transfer a British resident to secret interrogation sites around the world are to be made public. The move comes after a Sussex-based company accused of involvement in extraordinary rendition dropped its opposition to a case against it being heard in court.

Lawyers bringing the case against Jeppesen UK on behalf of the former Guantánamo Bay detainee, Binyam Mohamed, claimed last night the climbdown had wide-ranging legal implications that could help expose which countries and governments knew the CIA was using their air bases to spirit terrorist suspects around the world.

Jeppesen UK, a division of the Jeppesen Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boeing, is alleged to have provided a range of services that allowed planes owned by shell companies operating on behalf of the CIA to fly suspected terrorists to "black sites".

Jeppesen is alleged to have provided flight planning services, secured permits for travel, arranged fuel provision and filed flight plans for the clients in the knowledge that the planes were being used for extraordinary rendition.

"Jeppesen's embarrassing U-turn vindicates our fight to expose corporate collusion in torture," said Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal charity Reprieve, which has led the campaign on behalf of Mohamed. "Binyam Mohamed, and perhaps many others, are one step nearer to making the directors of companies stop and think before they commit criminal acts for profit."

According to an affidavit signed by a former employee, Jeppesen's managing director, Bob Overby, told his staff that "we do all the extraordinary rendition flights". Sean Belcher, a former technical writer for the company, said Overby claimed that the CIA "spared no expense" when it came to paying for Jeppesen's services.

Jeppesen, of course, denies this. But, oops! There's a little something we like to call "evidence":

But after Mohamed's London lawyers, Leigh Day & Co, presented a large volume of evidence - running to 419 pages - which they claim proves the company's involvement in the rendition process, the British arm of the firm withdrew its attempt to have the case struck out.

Meanwhile, the ACLU is bringing its own case:

The US government is seeking to have the case against Jeppesen dismissed, saying it would breach national security. But Jeppesen UK's decision to drop its opposition to fighting the case in a British court means a wealth of confidential information relating to the alleged rendition process will become public.

And of course, another story similar to Fayiz al-Kandari's comes to light:

Mohamed, an Ethiopian who lived in Britain, was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan and handed to the US. He alleges that before his transfer to Guantánamo Bay he was held in prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, beyond the reach of law. While in Morocco, he alleges that interrogators tortured him by using blades to cut his penis and chest.

Reprieve's renditions investigator, Clara Gutteridge, said the CIA could not have acted alone and the case would raise questions over which governments were complicit in extraordinary rendition.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Did the CIA lie to the Red Cross? And about those criticisms of President Obama's policies...

By GottaLaff

Is this obstruction of justice? That's what the Washington Independent is asking:

[T]hat’s what Jane Mayer told Alternet’s Liliana Segura: the Defense Department actually hid prisoners from the International Committee of the Red Cross when the humanitarian group first visited the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in 2002.

“That’s an overt act; lying to the Red Cross, hiding prisoners from them,” Mayer said.

Here is an excerpt from Segura's interview that delves further into the lies:

LS: Is there anything in the report in particular that has struck you that you didn't know before?

JM: One of the things that caught my eye last night was that it's clear that the CIA -- and I think you'd have to guess the Department of Defense -- lied to the Red Cross. They told the Red Cross when it visited Guantanamo [in 2002] that it had seen all of the detainees. But what the report says is that some of the detainees -- some of the high-value detainees -- realized when they were finally sent to Guantanamo in 2006 that they'd been there before. They were there. And yet the Red Cross was not allowed to see them. The Red Cross was told they'd seen everybody.

So the CIA and DOD lied to the Red Cross. There were some hidden prisoners in Guantanamo. That's an overt act; lying to the Red Cross, hiding prisoners from them.

And here is some interesting analysis about the Obama administration's policies:

LS: Does this mean that the CIA black sites have been dismantled? Also, what about renditions? Isn't Obama keeping open the possibility of keeping Clinton-era style rendition in place?

JM: [...] Essentially, they claim it's a return to the pre-9/11 Clinton program, which was ostensibly "rendition to justice." But some sources who were involved in the Clinton years have told me it was a very rough business. The CIA has fought very hard to keep the program going in a modified form. We'll see if they can do it in the transparent, legal and humane way the executive orders require. I have my doubts.

I think that there's a ton still to do here. And some of the early positions they've taken -- defending state secrets and denying, as you say, habeas corpus rights to prisoners held in Bagram -- you know, they're worrisome. I think there's more going on here, though, which people haven't really focused on, which is: there's a real tug-of-war going on about the confirmation process. A number of top appointees who Obama wants to put in to handle some of these issues have not been confirmed. The Republicans in the Senate are really holding up people that Obama needs to make changes for the better.

You've got Harold Koh, who's been nominated to be the top lawyer for the State Department. He's a great defender of human rights. His nomination confirmation is in trouble because the Republicans are talking about trying to block him.

And the same thing is true of Dawn Johnsen, who has been nominated for the head of the Office of Legal Council. And there are a number of other top positions that are open that are really important. The Obama administration doesn't have enough staff to handle what it needs to do.

Meanwhile, it's being hit by wave after wave of litigation, because the human rights community's approach in the Bush years was "we're gonna litigate." So there is case after case breaking and requiring action from the Obama administration, which doesn't have its people in place yet. And I think that's part of the problem. So, I'm cutting them more slack then some critics, because I don't think we're seeing everything they want to do yet.

LS: So is what you're saying that they are buying themselves time, adopting these Bush positions or defending them for the moment?

JM: Well they're definitely buying themselves time on Guantanamo, but they haven't bought themselves very much time. They gave themselves 180 days; they've got three task forces, which took a long time to get up and running. I hear from people who are involved in this that it's a really complicated process.

And on the state-secrets cases -- you know, I don't know whose really making these decisions. But again, on accountability, I think it comes back to Obama himself. And he is spread so thin and so distracted by so many other emergencies right now, I'm not sure that he's really giving it the attention that some of us think it needs.

So that's what I think is going on. I'm not sure that I would impute terrible motives to them at this point. I think it's more disorganization and delay.

This would all go back to my wait-and-see posture. Which is why I'm waiting and seeing. And have good posture.

Like Mayer, I have some doubts, but I feel we still don't know the whole story yet. I remain troubled by what Jonathan Turley and others have opined, but as I keep saying, I'm willing to be patient for awhile longer. It's only been a couple of months, after all. I'm still in simmer mode.

CIA Shuts Secret Prisons Under Obama Order

By GottaLaff

This is great news, but all I can think of at the moment is all the damage that's already been done:

The CIA is no longer operating secret prisons used to interrogate terror suspects with harsh techniques such as waterboarding, the agency's director has said.

Leon Panetta confirmed the move in response to an order from Barack Obama, which was one of his first after taking office as US President in January.

"CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites and has proposed a plan to decommission the remaining sites," the spy chief said in a letter to agency employees.

"I have directed our agency personnel to take charge of the decommissioning process and have further directed that the contracts for site security be promptly terminated." [...]

Mr Panetta said the CIA retained the authority to detain suspects "on a short-term transitory basis".

But he added agents would use "a dialogue style of questioning that is fully consistent with the interrogation approaches authorised and listed in the Army Field Manual," which bans harsh techniques.

"CIA officers do not tolerate, and will continue to promptly report, any inappropriate behaviour or allegations of abuse," he said.

"That holds true whether a suspect is in the custody of an American partner or a foreign liaison service."