Ex-CIA chief condemns terror flights

[DoYouEverWonder]

Feb 27, 2005

A FORMER senior CIA officer has condemned the practice of shuttling detainees from the war on terror to interrogation and torture facilities in the Middle East on flights, some of which pass through Scottish airports.

Robert Baer, one of the CIA’s top operatives in the Middle East over the past 25 years, says that if the flights, known as the Guantanamo Express, prove to be carrying detainees, “Britain has the right to intervene … and refuse those flights”.

The Gulfstream V and Boeing 737, owned by a CIA front company, have landed at both Prestwick and Glasgow airports on several occasions shuttling to Dulles airport, Washington. The Gulfstream V, former registration N379P later changing to N8068V, has landed on at least 20 occasions since early 2002.

Both aircraft are understood to have been carrying out what the US intelligence service calls “rendition flights.”

This is a controversial practice condemned by human rights activists, where prisoners are often snatched in one country and transported to another where they may be tortured contrary to international law, in an attempt to gain information useful in the war against terrorism.

http://www.sundayherald.com/48053

[slaveplanet]

1. But, but........

WE LIKE TORTURE!

James Spader says so, and he won the case on Boston legal....

Alan Shore: The truth is as Americans we love torture. We keep it to ourselves of course. But come on, when it comes to evildoers, torture's okay. Hollywood certainly knows that. Dirty Harry. Boom. Charles Bronson in Death Wish. Denzel Washington in "Man on Fire." Heroes torturing the bad guys. In theaters all across the country. We cheered. We like torture. Is there potential for abuse? Of course. the events at Abu Ghraib prison were deplorable. But do we really think they happened in a vacuum. Alberto Gonzalez, our Atty General, wrote a memo to the administration saying torture's okay. Our Supreme Court just recently held that evidence gained by torture can be used in trials. Alan Dershowitz, one of the leading civil rights activists in our country, raised the issue of using torture warrants so as to at least to be more open about it. Torture warrants. Love that torture. Shhhh.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Humans can be

a very sick and sadistic species. Add that to the fact that we are living in irrational times and you end up with a very dangerous combination.

If you look at the programming on TV and in movies most of it is geared toward desensitizing people to death and destruction. The good guys always win and recover from whatever injuries they've suffered by the end of the film.

I'd much rather my kid watch a show with lesbian parents, than half the other crap that is shown every day.

[Briar]

3. “Britain has the right to intervene … and refuse those flights”

Oh please, as if Bliar (currently planning to add house detention to his government's list of shameful acts: soon we'll be just like Burma) would do anything of the kind.

[Moderator]

4. kick to combine threads

[struggle4progress]

9. kick

[kris10ep]

5. Top former CIA agent condemns new terror war

Robert Baer explains to Foreign Editor David Pratt why the ‘clumsy, knee-jerk approach’ to al-Qaeda is counter-productive


A running joke in Washington late last year held that Langley, the CIA’s home in Virginia, was changing its name to Fallujah after the restive Iraqi town then held by insurgents. Like Fallujah, Langley – according to some White House wags – was full of rebels that needed to be cleared out. This would inevitably lead to lots of casualties along the way.

But putting the jokes and bravado aside, many at the CIA’s longtime base already knew that the winds of change were blowing their way, and were well aware of the reason why. George W Bush, his eyes by then firmly fixed on a second term, was consolidating his position. It was time to rein in those agencies and their operatives that were not always singing from the same political hymn sheet as the President and those closest to him.

In the months that followed, a new CIA chief, Porter Goss, would be appointed – as would a new director of national intelligence: John Negroponte. And there would be other changes too, in tactics and operations.

All of this has since set alarm bells ringing among human rights activists and security analysts who claim “hardmen” are back at the CIA helm with a whole suitcase full of revamped dirty tricks ranging from political assassinations and death squads to the shuttling of detainees to interrogation and torture facilities worldwide. Few people know more about how the CIA operates on the ground than former agent Robert Baer, one of the agency’s top field operatives of the past quarter-century.

http://www.sundayherald.com/48036

[rodeodance]

6. Top Former CIA Agent Condemns New Terror War

I did hear of this on any news today at all.



http://www.sundayherald.com/48036

> Published on Sunday, February 27, 2005 by The Sunday Herald (Scotland)

> Top Former CIA Agent Condemns New Terror War

> Robert Baer explains to Foreign Editor David Pratt why the ‘clumsy, knee-jerk approach’ to al-Qaeda is counter-productive
> by David Pratt
>
>
> A running joke in Washington late last year held that Langley, the CIA's home in Virginia, was changing its name to Fallujah after the restive Iraqi town then held by insurgents. Like Fallujah, Langley - according to some White House wags - was full of rebels that needed to be cleared out. This would inevitably lead to lots of casualties along the way.
>
> But putting the jokes and bravado aside, many at the CIA's longtime base already knew that the winds of change were blowing their way, and were well aware of the reason why. George W Bush, his eyes by then firmly fixed on a second term, was consolidating his position. It was time to rein in those agencies and their operatives that were not always singing from the same political hymn sheet as the President and those closest to him.
>
> In the months that followed, a new CIA chief, Porter Goss, would be appointed - as would a new director of national intelligence: John Negroponte. And there would be other changes too, in tactics and operations.
>
> All of this has since set alarm bells ringing among human rights activists and security analysts who claim "hardmen" are back at the CIA helm with a whole suitcase full of revamped dirty tricks ranging from political assassinations and death squads to the shuttling of detainees to interrogation and torture facilities worldwide. Few people know more about how the CIA operates on the ground than former agent Robert Baer, one of the agency's top field operatives of the past quarter-century.......

[Rex]

7. So we are back to the CIA of the 60s?

I take it "hardmen" is code for people with no moral compass?

[paineinthearse]

8. Related NYT thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1268404&mesg_id=1269125