Global Ghosts : The Disappeared and The Tortured

Newsweek has obtained previously unpublished flight plans indicating the CIA has been operating a Boeing 737 as part of a top-secret global charter servicing clandestine interrogation facilities used in the war on terror. And the Boeing’s flight information, detailed to the day, seems to confirm at least one detainee’s tale of abduction.

Together with previously disclosed flight plans of a smaller Gulfstream V jet, the Boeing 737’s travels are further evidence that a global “ghost” prison system, where terror suspects are secretly interrogated, is being operated by the CIA. Several of the Gulfstream flights allegedly correlate with other “renditions,” the controversial practice of secretly spiriting suspects to other countries without due process. Federal Aviation Administration records showed the 737 was owned by Premier Executive Transport Services, a now-defunct company based in Massachusetts. The plane’s records date to December 2002 and show flights up until February 7, the magazine [Newsweek] said.

“The ghost prison network stretches around the globe. The biggest American-run facilities are at the Bagram airbase, north of Kabul in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, […] and in Iraq, where tens of thousands of detainees are held. Saddam Hussein and dozens of top Baath party officials are held in a prison at Baghdad airport. […] In Morocco, scores of detainees once held by the Americans are believed to be held at the al-Tamara interrogation center sited in a forest five miles outside the capital, Rabat. […] In Syria, detainees sent by Washington are held at ‘the Palestine wing’ of the main intelligence headquarters and a series of jails in Damascus and other cities. Egypt has also received a steady flow of militants from American installations. Many other militants have been sent to Egypt by other countries through transfers assisted by the Americans, often using planes run by the CIA. [Detainees] have also been sent to facilities in Baku, Azerbaijan, and to unidentified locations in Thailand. Scores more are thought to be at a US airbase in the Gulf state of Qatar, and a large number are believed to have been sent to Saudi Arabia, where CIA agents are allowed to sit in on some of the interrogations.”

“Federal prosecutors unveiled broad terrorism charges yesterday against a Northern Virginia man who had been detained in Saudi Arabia for nearly two years, accusing him of plotting to assassinate President Bush and trying to establish an al Qaeda cell in the United States.” Keep in mind that this is a U.S. citizen whose parents are suing the U.S. government, charging it had condoned the torture of their son. The allegations of torture promise to play a role as the case progresses.

The most senior Muslim detainees alleged to be connected to al Qaeda so far captured by the U.S. were [as of October 2004] being held in an ultra-secret “ghost” prison in Jordan run by the CIA. The base is beyond the reach of the American courts, which is likely to be one of its principal attractions. Since the invasion of Afghanistan, the location of America’s most prized prisoners has been the subject of endless speculation but little hard information, except that which has been obtained through FOIA requests, testimony before various Congressional committees, and leaked documents. It has been suspected that some of the world’s most dangerous detainees were kept on US territories in the Pacific, or aboard naval vessels. Additional information on the Disappeared is available in the Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper: The United States’ “Disappeared” - The CIA’s Long-Term “Ghost Detainees” as prepared in October, 2004.

The issue is not just disappearances, but also the treatment of those who are currently being detained, regardless of the allegations being made against them (and let us remember that until there is a trial, in the legal world, these are just allegations, not proof). For many months now, anyone who cared enough to connect the dots would see abusive practices and yes, torture, used in geographically disparate places: Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib (central Iraq), Mosul (extreme northern Iraq) and Basra (southeastern Iraq), and even Afghanistan. I understand the count of personnel under investigation or courts martial is currently up to 131. A hundred and thirty one “bad apples”, all “roguing” at the same time in different places, and none of them are senior officials in the CIA or Defense Department? I find that a little hard to believe, and so should you.

Apparently, the Corporate Media Cartel finds it utterly believable. Or, and I prefer this explanation even though it is just as despicable, they are too gutless to question the public relations sound bites from this Administration, or even the policies that have led to widespread torture and rendition. (Some might also wonder if are they all just paid shills for the GOP, the Administration, and/or the CIA?)

It is reasonable to conclude that those who commit torture are acting outside authority if the Administration’s policy and U.S. and International law clearly prohibits it. But when, as in this context, there is a policy developed at the highest level of our government, and that policy is manifested at the “field” level, it is extraordinarily hypocritical for only those in the field to be prosecuted and punished, and for them to be treated as if there is no connection between the designers of the policy and its implementation in the field. Meanwhile, the actual policy makers have not been charged with any wrongdoing, in fact, rather than being punished, several of them have been promoted within the Administration (Bybee to the 9th Circuit, Gonzales to Attorney General, and now Haynes has been nominated again for the U.S. court of appeals, fourth circuit).

Why, some have argued, should we even care about what happens to them if they are, indeed, foreign terrorists as the U.S. government alleges (although with the release of some of these detainees, the question also begs to be asked if there was any justification in their detention at all)? Because, as the 9/11 Commission recognized, “Allegations that the United States abused prisoners in its custody make it harder to build the diplomatic, political, and military alliances the government will need.” In short, our allies will not continue to support us in this or future military actions.

Second, because the U.S.’s torture and “disappearance” of its adversaries invites all the unsavory governments and the dictators in the world to do the same – indeed countries from Sudan to Zimbabwe have already cited Abu Ghraib and other U.S. actions to justify their own practices or to blunt criticism.

But the primary concern must stem, first and foremost, from the acceptance of methods which are antithetical to a democracy and which betray the U.S.’s identity as a nation of law, and thus we are forced to abandon the “moral high ground” of any argument we may make either now or in the future. The use of forced disappearances and secret incommunicado detention violates the most basic principles of a free and democratic society. The current policy has also, unfortunately, upset the whole concept of reciprocity of humane treatment of prisoners of war (and let’s not confuse the issue semantically by calling them “enemy combatants” or whatever label the Administration will change it to next week, they are what they are), and the loss of reciprocity puts our soldiers and even civilian contractors at a much higher risk and in greater danger than they might have otherwise been. One might also consider that it puts this country at a higher risk as well, so that rather than being made “safer” we are actually being put at risk of being an even bigger target than we were before.

But, WTF do I know, right?

Meh.

[Image: BBC]