Secret Prisons

[Neil D]

[:"blue"] Flight records and other evidence points to Poland and Romania as countries that allowed their territory to be used by the the United States' Central Intelligence Agency to hold top al Qaeda suspects captives, a Human Rights Watch director said.

Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of the human rights group, said the evidence, though circumstantial, strongly pointed to Poland and Romania as being among the unidentified eastern European countries referred to in a Washington Post report Wednesday on secret CIA-run prisons.

Malinowski said sources in Afghanistan told the human rights organization that top al Qaeda suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were moved out of Afghanistan in September 2003.

Poland's ties with the US are as strong as with the EUBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Poland's ties with the US are as strong as with the EU

The same month, a Boeing 737, leased by the CIA to transport prisoners, departed from Kabul and made stops at a remote rural airfield at Szynany, near a Polish intelligence facility at the town of Szczytno in northeastern Poland and later at a military airfield in Romania known as Mihail Kogalniceaneu before continuing on to Morocco and then to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he said.

"It's a large aircraft so one could imagine a large group of detainees flying on this plane, as against some other smaller executive jets that they used," he told AFP. "The fact that it stops in eastern Europe, then Morocco and then Guantanamo suggests different classes of prisoners being deposited in different places." [/]

just remember, you voted for him

and his prisons

[Dr. Shane]

secret prisons <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif" alt="" /> not secret torture, <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/AAdoh.gif" alt="" />

[Neil D]

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secret prisons not secret torture,

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Truth justice and the american way has a new meaning now, eh?

I am very distrustful of a goverment that denys basic civil rights to the people who are within our borders....and who deny due process of the law....

Even enemy combatants, who can be sent to prisons to be tortured in another country, outside of US jurisdiction...

[Dr. Shane]

Those that enter our borders illegally do not have a right to "due process". The same is true for Americans that enter other countries illegally. When anyone travels to another country they need to obey their laws if they expect to maintain their rights. In Mexico they can impound an American's car for speeding!

[Neil D]

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Those that enter our borders illegally do not have a right to "due process".

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If they don't have due process, even in thier illegality, then everything that we stand for as Americans, is absolutely worthless, and our hyprocacy is astounding.

[bevin]

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Those that enter our borders illegally do not have a right to "due process".

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"Due process" means that they are appropriately apprehended, held in custody, have their case examined, and are sent home. It doesn't mean that they must be accorded all the rights of an USA citizen.

They do have a right to "due process", as opposed to being held and tortured in secret camps for indefinite periods while nobody is told where they are.

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The same is true for Americans that enter other countries illegally. When anyone travels to another country they need to obey their laws if they expect to maintain their rights. In Mexico they can impound an American's car for speeding!

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Whether you enter legally or illegally, you still have to obey the law - and the due processes of the law will send you out of the country if you are not legally there...

Simple Question:

Which US president prior to George W Bush set up secret detention/torture centers and sent prisoners to foreign countries to be held/tortured, arguing that he had the right to do so, and that it was appropriate to do so?

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

That is an easy one. The answer is FDR.

[bevin]

FDR had SECRET camps?

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Worse than that, they used torture too.

[Dr. Shane]

How about this?

America's World War II Prison Camps

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Got that, folks? The U.S. government went to the trouble of identifying the kidnapped victims of Jewish German background, sent their names to Hitler's bureaucrats, knowing that these were "high priority items," and then shipped them off to Germany in exchange for Americans who had been inside the Third Reich when Hitler declared War on December 11.

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[bevin]

Interesting - very interesting.

The first two sets of camps - the POW and Japanese internment camps were public knowledge at the time - and the Red Cross knew about them. Nor, to my knowledge, was any torture practised at them.

They don't give the date of the exchanges with Germany. That would be interesting because it would impact what stage the Holicaust was at - early in the war it was not fully understood just how bad it was going to get - even after the war people took a while to accept the magnitude.

Your site does not document torture in any of these camps.

One reason why people did not believe was the lies told by the British and other governments during WWI about the Germans = people found out these were lies, and so believed their government's were telling them similar lies in WWII.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

To my knowledge, torture wasn't done in POW camps during WW2. Once the prisoners got to the camps they were pretty safe. The torture was done in the field, often times in front of jornalists. However it was never reported. All news stories had to be cleared by the War Department before they could be printed or broadcast so the jornalists knew better than to try and report that.

The camps where hispanics, taken from latin America, were kept were not widely known. In fact, many never found out about them. There have been many sad periods like this during American history. If we want to venture into the Indian wars we will find even more cruelty done by the American government with the President's approval.

Too often we have a tendency to look at current events and say, "The sky is falling". However in context of history, current events are not alarming and in some ways quite compassionate. For example, never before in world history has an invading army spent so much money to minimize civilian causualties. I am not aware of previous wars where an invading army was followed by convoys carrying food and water for the civilian population or dropping food from the air. After the Afghanistan invation, President Bush asked each American child to send one dollar to the White House for the children of Afghanistan. I think that was unprecidented. There is a lot of good stories that highlight American compassion that the anti-war crowd ignores.

While this war has not went as planned (I don't know of any that ever has) it was and is a noble effort. People have died, as they do in all wars and as they were in Saddam's torture chambers.

I listened to a letter written by a Marine that was killed in action. He wrote it to be read upon his death. He died during his third tour of duty in Iraq. He said he knew he was pushing his luck with a third tour of duty. But he wrote, that as others had died for his freedom, he willingly died for the freedom of others and was glad that he too could leave his mark. How could the US pull out now, and let the terrorists take over, after more than 2,000 sacrifices from soldiers like him? It would make their deaths meaningless. Only be completeing the mission will their deaths not be in vain.

[Neil D]

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How could the US pull out now, and let the terrorists take over, after more than 2,000 sacrifices from soldiers like him? It would make their deaths meaningless. Only be completeing the mission will their deaths not be in vain.

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With the selling of Saddam's WMD to the American public shown to be baseless, I hate to be the one to inform you of this, but thier lives were wasted. We had no business breaking the country. But as some once told me, it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

Frankly, I tend to think that this adminsitration needs to stand trial for crimes against humanity. But, that is my opinion...

So,

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Which US president prior to George W Bush set up secret detention/torture centers and sent prisoners to foreign countries to be held/tortured, arguing that he had the right to do so, and that it was appropriate to do so?

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[Dr. Shane]

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I hate to be the one to inform you of this, but thier lives were wasted.

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If the US had not invaded Iraq,

• Saddam would have gotten UN sanctions lifted by bribing members of the Securiety council.
• He would have continued his WMD programs (which were still in place)
• He would have continued supporting terrorists

Each soldier that loses his or her life should steel our resolve to achieve victory - which is a self-governing Iraq. We should not become discouraged by the willing sacrifices of our brave troops. These deaths should inspire us and stregthen our resolve.

[bevin]

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Saddam would have gotten UN sanctions lifted by bribing members of the Securiety council.

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The USA bribed countries to join the coalition of the bribed/willing. Turkey turned down the bribe. The sanctions had already gone on far too long, and were clearly unproductive...

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He would have continued his WMD programs (which were still in place)

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Neither the UN Weapons Inspectors, nor the post-war US investigations, turned up any active WMD programs nor any evidence of carefully mothballed ones.

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He would have continued supporting terrorists

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There is no evidence he had anything to do with 9/11. That association is another Bush lie.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

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The USA bribed countries to join the coalition of the bribed/willing.

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This is spin. The US offered to compensate countries for the use of their resources. Counties that did not join the US were not punished in any way. Examples are Mexico, France, Germany and China. The US could have punished these but choose not to.

Saddam, on the other hand, was illegally bribing UN Security Council members and had we not invaded, the world would have never known. The Iraqis that were participating in this are now standing trial for their part of the scandel.

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Neither the UN Weapons Inspectors, nor the post-war US investigations, turned up any active WMD programs nor any evidence of carefully mothballed ones.

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This statement is misleading. What was discovered were plans to restart WMD programs once the sanctions were lifted and it was discovered that Iraq had the capability of producing WMDs.

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There is no evidence he had anything to do with 9/11.

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There is direct evidence that Saddam was supporting Hamas. While there is no evidence Saddam was linked to 9/11, there is indirect evidence that Saddam had met with al Quieda on various occations and offered Ossama an Iraqi passport. Bottom line, Saddam supported terrorism in Isreal and was a friend to other terroritsts. On top of that, Russian intelligence believed he was going to attack the US with WMDs using terrorists.

[bevin]

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it was discovered that Iraq had the capability of producing WMDs.

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This statement is ultimate spin, to the point of being another instance of type of Bush Lie. By current USA definition of WMD, every country in the world has "the capability of producing" them.

We have ruled that a box of matches on an airplane is a WMD!

Furthermore even some bad ones are easy to produce today - nerve gases, anthrax, cyanide gas, ...

There was no evidence that Iraq would be able to quick-start either biological or nuclear research, nor mass produce the other weapons.

Even if they could, that does not justify attacking them. We are already mass-producing WMD. Many other countries are also mass-producing them. In as much as any country has rights, it is a right of countries to produce weapons.

But perhaps you believe that only your country has the right to defend itself...

/Bevin

[bevin]

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The US offered to compensate countries for the use of their resources

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Yes, bribe is an irregular verb

I compensate

You reward

He bribes

Bush tried to bribe Turkey - failed only because the populace, not the government, rejected it. Bush did bribe Australia and a variety of ex-Soviet Bloc countries.

Bottom line... Bush lied to the USA public about the Iraq 9/11 ties, he lied to the USA public about the Iraq WMD evidence and situation, he lied to the USA public about the likely outcome of an invasion of Iraq,...

/Bevin

[Bravus]

bevin - I think we on the left need to realise that these guys on the right (or in Shane's case in the middle) will continue to support and defend the Bush Administration no matter *what* it does. Torture? OK! Secret prisons? No worries! Detention without trial or access to counsel? Sure! I'm hard put to think of anything that could be done that they wouldn't defend: so I've just given up on trying to have a conversation. Their minds are not going to be changed about this administration - but it's the minds of the 'swing voters', not the True Believers, that need to be changed, and the polls show that that's clearly happening. We have to put up with Bush (and those of us in other countries are still effected) for just over 3 more years... and I just don't have the energy any more to discuss his ethical shortcomings and dangerous policies.

[lazarus]

Bravus said:

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I think we on the left need to realise that these guys on the right (or in Shane's case in the middle) will continue to support and defend the Bush Administration no matter *what* it does. Torture? OK! Secret prisons? No worries! Detention without trial or access to counsel? Sure! I'm hard put to think of anything that could be done that they wouldn't defend:

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Don't we see apostate protestantism laying the ground work for the persecution of anyone who does not adhere to their twisted ideaology.

I'm stunned that there are Americans being held in the US without trial or charges in 2005. That means that anyone of us could be plucked off the street and detained INDEFINATELY and not be changed. They gov could whisk us off to one of these secret prisons and nobody would be any the wiser.

Even more scary. There are those who are willing to defend it in the name of what......libery, justice, democracy hmmmm

[Dr. Shane]

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these guys on the right (or in Shane's case in the middle)

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I will admit to being slightly to the right <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I just think I am closer to the middle than the right as many political placement tests have shown me. I also don't fit well with the Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hanity crowd, although I listen to them for a few minutes a few times a week.

I think I have shown many areas where I disagree with President Bush. I have great respect for him as an individual and a Bible-believing Christian, but that doesn't mean I agree with him on all things. We disagree on the some environmental issues, expansion of government, spending and putting preasure on big oil to name a few.

Do secret prisons disturb me? I have to admit that I don't like the idea of secret prisons where the Red Cross isn't even being allowed in. But are any of us actually naive enough to think this is the first administration that has had them? I mean if they are secret... that means only a small group knows. At least on the positive side, there has been no torture taking place at these secret prisons.

[Dr. Shane]

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But perhaps you believe that only your country has the right to defend itself...

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Every nation has a right and duty to defend itself. However, they do not have the right to support terrorism. If Iran (for example) wants to attack us let them fly their planes over us and drop their paratroopers. Let their battleships come up to our shores and fire away. If they feel they need to go to war with another nation, they ought not cowardly misuse religion and hide behind brainwashed terrorists. It is when a nation supports terrorism that they lose their right in the international community to have WMDs.

Iraq had the capability to make WMDs and the plans to do so once they successfully got sanctions lifted. Iraq also supported terrorists. It doesn't matter if it was involved with 9/11. It was a threat to the US and the countries in its region. Removing Saddam Hussien was the right thing to do.

[Dr. Shane]

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Don't we see apostate protestantism laying the ground work for the persecution of anyone who does not adhere to their twisted ideaology.

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I see it happening in both political extreames. While some religious right-wingers are a bit goofy, like Pat Robertson, we are in error to only focus on them as a danger to our religious liberty. Radical secularists are just as militant about wanting to force their worldview on others. In seeing the danger in one extreame, we ought not seek refuge in the other extreame.

[bevin]

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At least on the positive side, there has been no torture taking place at these secret prisons

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ROFLOL

How do you know? When we KNOW that torture has been practised at the non-secret ones, why on earth should we think the secret ones are exempt? Why else keep them secret???

/Bevin

[bevin]

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However, they do not have the right to support terrorism.

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Then why does the USA support terrorism?

The IRA was funded out of the USA.

The Iran-Contra affair.

The Bay of Pigs.

...

/Bevin