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Vanished From the Face of the Earth

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Mon May 08, 2006 at 10:00:24 AM EST
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Nat Hentoff's new Liberty Beat column in the Village Voice addresses the CIA's secret prisons. Why isn't Congress demanding an explanation from the President?

The cover has long ago been blown on these dungeons by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, and the ceaseless researchers at NYU law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. And in the Voice, I've been writing on what I can find out about them since the end of 2002.

But the CIA, the president, Alberto Gonzales, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld have nothing to say about these gulags, which are wholly removed from American law and the international treaties we have signed.

The recently released Amnesty International report "Below the Radar: Secret Flights to Torture and 'Disappearance' " contains testimony from three men who were released from CIA secret prisons.

This 41-page report, currently reverberating throughout Europe, also includes a wide range of detailed information about the CIA's kidnapping and "renditions" of suspects to countries known for torturing prisoners. But most revealing are Amnesty International's interviews with the three men from Yemen who were "held in at least four secret US-run facilities . . . probably in Djibouti, Afghanistan, and somewhere in Eastern Europe."

What about the prisoners who will never be released? Will they just vanish from the face of the earth? Hentoff writes:

In the Voice nearly two years ago, I quoted Jack Cloonan, a 27-year veteran of the FBI who, in New York, as senior agent on the FBI's bin Laden squad, headed the investigation of the master Al Qaeda strategist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Cloonan had been directing the interrogation of Mohammed in a once secret CIA interrogation center at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan (which Dana Priest exposed in The Washington Post).

Concerned at the time about the network of still hidden CIA interrogation centers around the world, Cloonan asked: "What are we going to do with these people when we're finished . . . with them? Are they going to disappear? Are they stateless? . . . What are we going to explain to people when they start asking questions about where they are? Are they dead? Are they alive? What oversight does Congress have?"

Background on Amnesty International's report is here. The ACLU has also submitted a report, details here. The European Commission's report is described here.

< UPI: Fitzgerald Close to Deciding on Rove Indictment | Foggo Emails CIA: I Quit >

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    Vanished From the Face of the Earth | 10 comments (10 topical)
    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#1)
    by Al on Mon May 08, 2006 at 10:46:44 AM EST
    Concerned at the time about the network of still hidden CIA interrogation centers around the world, Cloonan asked: "What are we going to do with these people when we're finished . . . with them? Are they going to disappear? Are they stateless?"
    Good questions all. I understand that there are prisoners in Guantanamo who have even been cleared of all wrongdoing by the military tribunals, and still are not released. Not only that; their requests to be allowed to keep a little garden have been denied! These poor people refuse to give up, though. They have taken seeds from the food they are given and planted them in the dirt, which they moisten with water from their ration. There is a campaign to provide these people with seeds through one of their lawyers: See http://www.cageprisoners.com/campaigns.php?id=308 The callousness of the regime that has created these situations has no bounds.

    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#2)
    by Edger on Mon May 08, 2006 at 11:21:35 AM EST
    Al: their requests to be allowed to keep a little garden have been denied! ... The callousness of the regime that has created these situations has no bounds. Al, I think that any allowance to these people by this regime would be the first thread pulled that would begin the unravelling providing the irrevocable eventual evidence for their criminal culpability, and their downfall. Deny to the end...

    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon May 08, 2006 at 12:08:57 PM EST
    Ever look at the retired Chief. He looks like a dead man walking. Maybe the threat of being declassified was making it hard to sleep at night. Poor Fellow at least now he gain regain some sanity. Just think there is already some in disagreement with the newly appointed CIA Chief. I really wonder if being a CIA Officer is really worth it because the thought of being declassified is a death sentence in itself.

    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#4)
    by scribe on Mon May 08, 2006 at 12:29:32 PM EST
    TL: The core problem, shocking as it might sound, is not the system of secret prisons. Those, and the abuses they engender, are bad enough and should be stopped. Rather, the problem is one of precedent. HuffPo today reports W gave an interview - a softball by all appearances - to a reporter from ARD (German television), and reproduces the interview text. In it, the strongest statement - the headline - is W's claim that he wants to close Gitmo. Sounds great, but with this bunch, "sounds great" inevitably is an apple which hides a poison core. W's got a lot of reasons for wanting to close Gitmo. Most importantly, is that it has served its primary purpose - establishing the right of the government to establish secret prisons where the Rule of Law does not run, to hide the prisoners from legal review, and do what the government will to those prisoners. Now, after four years of operation it is becoming convenient to close Gitmo (and move the operation elsewhere) because the administration has exhausted all the craptacular arguments it threw down to avoid judicial review, and review in the Hamdan case is coming, soon. Likely, a little bird on Capitol Hill has let the Admin know (as if oral argument didn't make it clear) that the Admin's gonna lose Hamdan. So, rather than face an adverse judgment (and precedent against a do-anything-we-want military government), the Admin will in all likelihood between now and the end of June decide to close Gitmo (or at least that part of it holding Mr. Hamdan) so as to moot his case and thwart any further judicial review. We saw this cynicism and gaming the judiciary in the Uiguir cases this past weekend. These were the Chinese Muslims captured somewhere in Central Asia and shipped to Gitmo, where it was subsequently found they were a bunch of innocent schlubs. They couldn't be sent home, to China, because their ethnic group is on the Chinese government's dirt list and they would have gone into torture there for nothing at all. So, the Admin held them. A few days ago, the Admin "found" that Albania (of all places) would "accept" the Uiguirs - innocent of everything save being in the wrong place at the wrong time - and not turn them over to China, where they would be tortured (again). The government then shipped them to Albania, apparently without notifying their counsel. The latter were preparing for oral argument of the Uiguirs' appeal to the D.C. Circuit, which had been scheduled for today. So, now, we find out today that the Circuit Court cancelled the oral argument and will hold a status conference in 10 days, while the government's motion to dismiss the appeal as moot is still pending. Any guess how that will be decided? Precedent? We can hold you incommunicado, indefinitely, and if and when it comes down to having to release you because after all you were innocent of anything, we'll send you to a pliable police state where our intelligence services have pretty much a free rein. And, no, you can't sue us, per the Canadian-Syrian guy precedent (name escapes me). The core issue regarding Gitmo and Hamdan is what I call the "Frankenstein issue": The current administration asserts that its powers exceed those granted under the Constitution, that the executive is beyond and has an existence separate from the constitution and cannot be bounded by it. (I'm not articulating it very well, but the point is, the administration's view of the constitution is that of the executive's - it's a useless scrap of paper it won't pay any attention to.)If the administration should win Hamdan, it will have freed itself from any need to give attention to the Constitution or law. And this will be precedent, forever. Frankenstein slips his fetters.

    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon May 08, 2006 at 01:18:28 PM EST
    Why isn't Congress demanding an explanation from the President? In a conversation yesterday on BookTV, Joe Klein mentioned that not once during the 2004 campaign did John Kerry mention Abu Gharib in any of his debates or stump speeches. Klein said they'd done focus groups and found that the vast majority of Americans either didn't want to hear about it, or thought that it was okay to treat prisoners in the GWOT in whatever way we like. Kerry's marketing geniuses told him that if he condemned the outrages of Abu Gharib, he'd be showing himself as soft on terror. Sounds like the same influence is likely at work in the case of rendition and secret prisons. So much for leadership from the Congress. . . . jim strain in san diego.

    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#6)
    by Jlvngstn on Mon May 08, 2006 at 02:39:59 PM EST
    I know this is off topic but I cannot resist: WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Disapproval of the war in Iraq appears to be driving the public's low opinion of President Bush's job performance, according to a CNN poll by Opinion Research released Monday. I made this argument more than a week ago when Jim aka PPJ made the argument that it was "immigrants and fuel". I also made the argument that Russia and China would abstain or reject sanctions against Iran 3 weeks ago and they of course did so. I think there should be some sort of obligation on the part of the regulars here to predict outcomes for the things that are posted here. I also posted 3 years ago that a war in Iraq would make us less safe as it would unite the fringe of religious zealots far better than Osama. I like sparring about the issues, but I would love to see a spot for predictions so we can see how things play out and who was right so to speak. Lots of wasted rhetoric and what better way to prove your opinion means something?????

    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#7)
    by Dadler on Mon May 08, 2006 at 02:42:49 PM EST
    Off-topic, but related to another person about to de-facto vanish, Zacarias Moussaoui today asked to have his guilty plea vacated. I'd say his chances are less than non-existent.

    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon May 08, 2006 at 05:57:27 PM EST
    To make predictions is full of pitfalls, Will it be sunny or will it be squalls. Hard to predict, A simple verdict. That's why gypsies have glass balls.

    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#9)
    by Jlvngstn on Tue May 09, 2006 at 11:27:09 AM EST
    thanks oscar....

    Re: Vanished From the Face of the Earth (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue May 09, 2006 at 02:10:56 PM EST
    Is that, Thanks Oscar? Or is it, Thanks Oscar you smartassed sob?

    Vanished From the Face of the Earth | 10 comments (10 topical)