{"id":204,"date":"2005-12-26T06:27:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-26T12:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=204"},"modified":"2005-12-24T15:29:43","modified_gmt":"2005-12-24T21:29:43","slug":"america-kidnapped-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/america-kidnapped-me\/","title":{"rendered":"America kidnapped me"},"content":{"rendered":"

I did not want to read this account <\/p>\n

by Khaled El-Masri, who was kidnapped by Americans in Europe. I would call what he endured prolonged torture. The way his was treated <\/p>\n

degrades us all. I refuse to endorse or tolerate a system that shrugs off this abuse. He was terrorized on our behalf. mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

America kidnapped me – Los Angeles Times<\/a> By Khaled El-Masri, KHALED EL-MASRI, a German citizen born in <\/p>\n

Lebanon, was a car salesman before he was detained in December 2003.<\/p>\n

THE U.S. POLICY of “extraordinary rendition” has a human <\/p>\n

face, and it is mine.<\/p>\n

I am still recovering from an experience that was completely beyond the pale, outside the bounds of any <\/p>\n

legal framework and unacceptable in any civilized society. Because I believe in the American system of justice, I sued George Tenet, the <\/p>\n

former CIA director, last week. What happened to me should never be allowed to happen again. … <\/p>\n

Eventually my blindfold was <\/p>\n

removed, and I saw men dressed in black, wearing black ski masks. I did not know their nationality. I was put in a diaper, a belt with <\/p>\n

chains to my wrists and ankles, earmuffs, eye pads, a blindfold and a hood. I was thrown into a plane, and my legs and arms were spread-<\/p>\n

eagled and secured to the floor. I felt two injections and became nearly unconscious. I felt the plane take off, land and take off. I <\/p>\n

learned later that I had been taken to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

There, I was beaten again and left in a small, dirty, cold concrete cell. I <\/p>\n

was extremely thirsty, but there was only a bottle of putrid water in the cell. I was refused fresh water. …<\/p>\n

[read it all – America kidnapped <\/p>\n

me<\/a> By Khaled El-Masri]<\/p>\n

America, United States, Times <\/p>\n

Online, The Times, Sunday Times<\/a><\/p>\n

In the end, the eagerness of a junior officer in the CIA’s Skopje office and a gut feeling on <\/p>\n

the part of the head of the CIA’s al-Qaeda unit contrived<\/em> to have Masri sent to a prison for terrorist suspects known as “The <\/p>\n

Salt Pit” in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

“Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center’s al <\/p>\n

Qaeda unit ‘believed he was someone else’, one former CIA official said. ‘She didn’t really know. She just had a hunch,'” The <\/p>\n

Washington Post reported.<\/p>\n

Wrongful <\/p>\n

Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake<\/a> By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer<\/p>\n

The Masri case, with new details gleaned <\/p>\n

from interviews with current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials, offers a rare study of how pressure on the CIA<\/em> to <\/p>\n

apprehend al Qaeda members after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has led in some instances to detention based on thin or speculative <\/p>\n

evidence<\/em>. The case also shows how complicated it can be to correct errors in a system built and operated in secret.<\/p>\n

The CIA, <\/p>\n

working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people<\/strong>, including several key leaders of al <\/p>\n

Qaeda, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its <\/p>\n

foreign partners have made.<\/strong> [mjh: Because just reading this is giving aid to the enemy. Or so BushCo <\/p>\n

claims.]<\/span> …<\/p>\n

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure<\/strong>: Dressed head to toe in <\/p>\n

black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They <\/p>\n

outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by <\/p>\n

cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA’s own covert prisons — referred to <\/p>\n

in classified documents as “black sites,” which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern <\/p>\n

Europe.<\/p>\n

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CTC was the place to be for CIA officers wanting in on the fight. The staff <\/p>\n

ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.<\/p>\n

“It was the Camelot of counterterrorism,” a former counterterrorism official said. <\/p>\n

“We didn’t have to mess with others — and it was fun.” [mjh: Join the CIA. See the World. Torture for fun.]<\/span> <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

The process of vetting and evaluating information suffered greatly, former and current intelligence officials said. <\/p>\n

“Whatever quality control mechanisms were in play on September 10th were eliminated on September 11th,”<\/strong> a former senior <\/p>\n

intelligence official said. …<\/p>\n

[I]n line with the responsibility Bush bestowed on the CIA when he signed a top secret <\/p>\n

presidential finding six days after the 9\/11 attacks. It authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures <\/p>\n

and renditions, disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks…. [It] played well at the White House, where the president was keeping a <\/p>\n

scorecard of captured or killed terrorists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did not want to read this account by Khaled El-Masri, who was kidnapped by Americans in Europe. I would call what he endured prolonged torture. The way his was treated degrades us all. I refuse to endorse or tolerate a system that shrugs off this abuse. He was terrorized on our behalf. mjh America … Continue reading America kidnapped me<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}