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Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Thu Nov 03, 2005 at 02:59:00 PM EST
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Human Rights Watch reports that the CIA moved terror prisoners to Poland and Romania. The heads of both countries deny it.

In implicating Poland and Romania, Human Rights Watch examined flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004, said Mark Garlasco, a senior military analyst with the New York-based organization. He said the group matched the flight patterns with testimony from some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terrorism who have been released by the United States.

Finally, this story has legs.

The Pentagon announced in April it was ending the Ghost Air program.

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< Carville's Now Defending Cheney? | Fitzgerald's Probe Moving Forward, Cheney to Cooperate >

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    • Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania | 9 comments (9 topical)
    Re: Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:20 PM EST
    There is something disturbing when countries like Poland, Romania, etc feel justified to claim a higher moral ground than the US. What do you mean by this, wg? What I see is that some people tried to implicate these countries in the story with prisoners without any serious proof. Where is this higher moral ground which disturbs you? How would you react if someone, out of the blue, accused you of taking part in barbaric practices?

    Re: Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:39 PM EST
    Well, wg, you hope that the CIA doesn't keep those people in the United States, and I hope that it doesn't keep them in Poland :). Let's both hope we don't end up disappointed on this, because sure - everything is always possible :). I think that if they wanted to interrogate someone in an inhumane way, they would go to a country, which had a poor record on human rights, with weak judicial procedures, and no independent press. This would certainly eliminate Europe. Asia or Africa would be preferable in my opinion. If such a thing happened, Europe was no more than a stop to refuel.

    Re: Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:44 PM EST
    And now I suppose all those people who eviscerated Dick Durbin for comparing the treatment of detainees to Soviet gulags will now apologize, now that it's apparent that the CIA is using actual Soviet gulags.

    Re: Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:44 PM EST
    I can't say anything for Romania, but I can say something for Poland. It is possible that the prisoners could have been transported through the Polish airspace, but the claim that they were somehow detained in Poland is denied and regared as something highly improbable. Another thing is that in Poland there have never been any gulags. The Soviet Union is a different thing and please do not mistake one for the other.

    Re: Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania (none / 0) (#3)
    by MikeDitto on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:44 PM EST
    No, Poland just had Nazi death camps. Charley you obviously haven't read the story. It states that the CIA has lowered the bar so far that it is detaining and torturing people who have no intelligence value whatsoever. In other words, people who may not have even done anything, let alone been "terrorist psychopaths." Not that there is any possible level of the bar that justifies torturing people and holding them indefinitely without charges.

    Re: Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania (none / 0) (#4)
    by john horse on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:45 PM EST
    Charley, If you are going to be a GOP toady, learn the party line. According to the Bush administration none of the people who are being sent to other countries are being tortured and/or abused. How do they know? They make these countries sign receipts saying that they won't do these type of things. I bet you don't even buy this hardy heaping helping of this bullsh*t from Bush. By the way, how do you know if these folks are innocent or guilty? Even you would admit to being an "islamic terrorist psychopath" if they tortured you enough.

    Re: Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:45 PM EST
    Michael Ditto, your comment about Nazi death camps is at least weird. How does it relate to the topic?

    Re: Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania (none / 0) (#7)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:46 PM EST
    Seb, MD's comment was relating to the fact that while Poland (GWB, "don't forget about Poland") didn't have gulags, they did have nazi death camps. Perhaps you should look at the Polish gov't's actions these days, and not their denials. We don't know the facts yet, but the allegations are very serious.

    Re: Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:46 PM EST
    I know that the Germans built concentration camps on the Polish soil, but to compare it somehow with the present situation it's completely out of the line. These camps were the place of mass murder of millions of people and to have this terrible history invoked here, I think it is preposterous. Even if this alleged story turned out to be true, there would be no comparison to the practice of extermination, which the Germans had performed in Poland during World War II. But let me once again state, what I had stated before - these allegations were not, and still are not supported by any credible evidence. What they had to offer is an information that a CIA plane - possibly with prisoners on board, but nobody knows that really - had landed in a remote airport in the north of Poland. That's it. They have nothing more. Does it justify the claims that there is some secret prison in Poland? Let's be serious. When these groups have something more on the topic, I will be more than willing to look into it, but for now, it's ridiculous. To make a serious allegation, one needs to have serious evidence. Any allegation, which is not supported by serious evidence, is rather a slander. Criticizing Bush is one thing, but doing it at the expense of other nations - this should never happen unless there is a very strong case for it. In this instance, the case is either weak, or inexistent. Sorry, but let's be fair.

    Rights Groups Say CIA Used Poland and Romania | 9 comments (9 topical)