Comments on: UN Secret Detention Report Asks, “Where Are The CIA Ghost Prisoners?”

By: What is Obama Doing at Bagram? (Part One): Torture and the “Black Prison” « Dandelion Salad

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:35:20 +0000

[...] prisoners regarded as more significant than the general population, who had mostly passed through a number of other secret prisons run by the CIA, were also held, and for the last six and a half years Bagram has, in addition, been the US [...]

By: Fahad Hashmi And Terrorist Hysteria In US Courts | FlipTrends-Following the Hottest Google Trends

Wed, 19 May 2010 16:02:07 +0000

[...] agencies’ inability to communicate with one another), Guantánamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and the CIA’s torture dungeons are not the only places where the rule of law was [...]

By: Guantanamo and Habeas Corpus: Judge Rules Yemeni’s Detention Based Solely on Torture – Dark Politricks

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:30:21 +0000

[...] was seized in a house raid in Pakistan in February 2002 and was then rendered to Jordan, one of at least 15 prisoners whose torture was outsourced to the Jordanian authorities between 2001 and 2004, where he was held [...]

By: The People’s Campaign for the Constitution Blog » War on Torture?

The People’s Campaign for the Constitution Blog » War on Torture? — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:47:55 +0000

[...] due process and withstood a multitude of torture techniques, as reported by the UN and detailed by Andy Worthington, On a global scale, secret detention in connection with counter-terrorist policies remains a serious [...]

By: Bagram: Graveyard of the Geneva Conventions « Dandelion Salad

Bagram: Graveyard of the Geneva Conventions « Dandelion Salad — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:10:30 +0000

[...] I also explained the use of a secret facility within Bagram as part of a network of secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan, and asked pointed questions about the whereabouts of a number of men, known to have been held in secret prisons in Afghanistan, who are not on the list and whose apparent disappearance has never been explained — and also covered this topic in another recent article, “UN Secret Detention Report Asks, ‘Where Are The CIA Ghost Prisoners?’” [...]

By: Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:08:37 +0000

This was my reply:

Maybe one day, Linda. At present I’m just trying to establish who’s there, and anyone with any information is invited to help me compile a collaborative annotated list:
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/01/26/bagram-the-annotated-prisoner-list-a-cooperative-project/

By: Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:08:02 +0000

On Facebook, Linda Ghaliyya Richard wrote:

The Obama administration is even more evil than the Bush one was, Andy. Perhaps not more evil, but at least as evil as its predecessor. Now they just lie better — but we see the results anyway, like Yemen, and here in the US 2009 — more Muslims were arrested than any other year since 2001. A year ago, he tried to tell everyone that the nation was not at war with Islam — but how is anyone supposed to believe that when actions speak so much louder than words?

Anyway I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your work, Andy. Are you going to do a book on the Bagram detainees?

By: Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:05:29 +0000

Over on Truthout, an anonymous reader wrote:

Check out the list of the countries in this report. This is the company the US keeps. At least these horrible events expose the US govt. as a putrid monster. So much for its “superior” civilization.

By: Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:04:24 +0000

Thanks, TD. Our “deranged need to overstate the super-powers of our new enemies” spreads into every aspect of our lives, doesn’t it? On today’s morning news, we had a presenter justifying full body scans for children — they might be “mules” — even though the scans, alrwady installed, don’t detect anything they need to detect. As one guest on the show pointed out, Britain’s success against IRA terrorism in the ’70s and ’80s was because we didn’t let them alter our way of life. Now we get some dimwit “journalist” explaining why my son will be scanned at an airport …

By: the talking dog

the talking dog — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:13:28 +0000

Well, the intrinsic paradox of “secret detention” is that we want it known (1) to “the bad guys” to show that we are the kind of psychopathic maniacs who would run such facilities, in order to get them to behave more pliably, and MORE IMPORTANTLY– FAR MORE IMPORTANTLY– (2) to our own citizenry to show that we are the kind of TOUGH psychopathic maniacs (WHO THEY WILL THEREFORE VOTE FOR) who would run such facilities, in order to get them to behave more pliably. Hence, the “secret” part begins to break down after a while, through a combination of both intentionality and negligence.

Those of us who have been following these things for years were reasonably certain of the broad outlines of these shadowy goings-on; kudos to the UN for starting to fill in some of the fuzzier details for us.

Americans, in particular those who would either insist that these sorts of things are “necessary for national security” or otherwise avert their eyes entirely from unpleasantness need to ask themselves about the kind of national character it takes to devote roughly a trillion dollars a year to the task of torturing and murdering foreign peoples in a world where any actual enemies of substance that require actual military might have been vanquished or out of business for decades.

It would seem that in our very deranged need to overstate the super-powers of our new enemies, we have made “deranged” the essence of our response. I suppose acknowledging this is a necessary first step; figuring out how to stop it and behave like morally responsible people– there’s the rub.