BLACK SITE, BLACK NIGHT

BLACK NIGHTS OF RENDITION brutally torture both the body of the victim and the body of evidence the torturers seek.  In the use of extraordinary means that seek in the end some “truth” the results so often prove false and who tortures proves false to the civilization he defends.  Critics will say all torture is not equal and they may be right, but all torture is wrong because it affronts the dignity of man and worse for those who believe a man has a soul. Oh, and the “evidence” tortured out has problems at its core, hollow and rotten.

WARS SHOULD BEGIN only for good reason.  Passion later will have its day.  It seems a certain al Libi previously mentioned here gave evidence false to those who sought ”the truth.” Such truth so slam dunked has more recently taken a dunking.

The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.

THE HERETIK NOTED EARLIER just such a cynical probablity  on November 5, when this news on al Libi was first breaking.

So the war begins with lies, a tortured truth Americans will have to endure.  A related question may be how al-Libi’s testimony was found out to be false.  Given the urgency  the White House place on getting intel no matter the cost, the more cynical may ask whether al-Libi was tortured to provide it. At a point when Cheney seeks a torture exemption for the CIA and John McCain would see torture explicitly banned, what kind of “evidence” we get from torture may soon be treated quite harshly.

CYNICISM NOW has its day as rendition has had its nights. Al Libi was tortured and the “truth” was as well.   We end up with the “intelligence” we gained. In the process we lose our minds and our reason and quite possibly our souls.

MORE BLACK MARKS
DAMNED DOD MEMO on torture motivated transfer cited The March 17, 2004, Defense Department memo indicated that American officials were frustrated in trying to obtain information from Ahmad, according to the description of the classified memo in the court petition. The officials suggested sending Ahmad to an unspecified foreign country that employed torture in order to increase chances of extracting information from him, according to the petition's description of the memo.

HOW THE CIA BLEW its prisons cover  Mr. Aftergood said the secrecy of the program may also have been doomed by the sharp increase in the frequency of renditions after September 11, 2001. "This is an ambitious program that crosses many geographical and political boundaries. As such, it's very difficult to keep secret indefinitely," the analyst said. He noted that some conservatives believe some in the CIA who are disgruntled with the Bush administration are deliberately leaking information in order to shut down certain programs. Mr. Aftergood said he did not believe that was the case with the renditions program.
THIS IS AN AMBITIOUS PROGRAM that crosses many geographical and political boundaries?  Though it is not noted, The Heretik suspects some moral boundaries were crossed as well.

ALSO Helena Cobban Perils of the Inquistion. Torture evidence not admissable in UK courts.
PLUS another horror story: Dark Days in Prisons at Home and Abroad. 

CONDOLEEZA RICE statement on rendition and torture. BRITISH UNDERSTATEMENT The defence of the practice of transferring prisoners around the world for interrogation relies a great deal on a definition of torture.  FOUR STORIES unlikely to go away. Al Masri update.

Comments

[blogenfreude]

Who knows what Potemkin Villages are being built in places that are nowhere near any real danger.