Letters to the Editor
sysprog
Published Letters: 1586 Editor's Choice: 2
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The "Meaning of American Justice"
[Read the article: New disappearance revelations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301476_pf.html
By Dana Priest
Sunday, December 4, 2005; A01
. . . It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made.
Unlike the military's prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- where 180 prisoners have been freed after a review of their cases -- there is no tribunal or judge to check the evidence against those picked up by the CIA. The same bureaucracy that decides to capture and transfer a suspect for interrogation-- a process called "rendition" -- is also responsible for policing itself for errors.
The CIA inspector general is investigating a growing number of what it calls "erroneous renditions," according to several former and current intelligence officials.
One official said about three dozen names fall in that category; others believe it is fewer. The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said.
"They picked up the wrong people, who had no information. In many, many cases there was only some vague association" with terrorism, one CIA officer said.
Here's President Bush talking to the Congress about suspected terrorists.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.htmlJanuary 28, 2003
President Delivers "State of the Union"
. . . All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries.
And many others have met a different fate.
[President Bush started grinning or grimacing at this point.]
Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies. (Applause.)
. . . One by one, the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice. (Applause.)According to the President, he's dealing with "suspected terrorists" by killing them without judicial review.
According to the applause from Congress, that's the "meaning of American justice."
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Dear Tiberius
[Read the article: New disappearance revelations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear Tiberius, if you've studied the rise and fall of empires, then you know that a sucessful empire, whether or not internally corrupt, requires the external appearance of legitimacy.
The American empire, though frequently ignoring or subverting its own trumpeted ideals, had legitimacy in the eyes of much of the world, until 2002.
Since 2002, the single thing that has weakened the American empire, more than all other things combined, has been the loss of perceived legitimacy.
Even your bloodthirsty namesake understood the rules of this game, but you seem unworthy of his bad name.
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The winking president, teasing those poor neocons.
[Read the article: New disappearance revelations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051206-1.html
December 6, 2005
PRESIDENT BUSH: Carl.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. Does your administration have any plans to change the policy of renditioning and/or the detention centers alleged to be taking place in Europe?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Carl, first of all, I don't talk about secret programs, covert programs, covert activities.
Part of a successful war on terror is . . . to protect the American people, covertly.
However, I can tell you two things: one, that we abide by the law of the United States; we do not torture.
And two, . . . We do not render to countries that torture.
Oh, such a tease he is!
Next thing you know, he'll be saying -- after he's already rented a motel room -- that he's just not the kind of boy that goes all the way on a first date.
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"Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem."
[Read the article: New disappearance revelations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem."
- - President Bush -
As reported in "The Washington Times" in March, 2003
[Read the article: New disappearance revelations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And now, via the "Wayback Machine", we travel to Washington, DC, in March 2003.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030315104847/http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030309-11894916.htm
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 9, 2003
CIA has 2 sons of the 9/11 architect
By Olga CraigLONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
KUWAIT CITY - Two young sons of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, are being held by the CIA to force their father to talk, interrogators said yesterday.
Yousef al-Khalid, 9, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, 7, were taken into custody in Pakistan in September when intelligence officers raided an apartment in Karachi where their father had been hiding.
He fled just hours before the raid, but his two young sons, along with another senior al Qaeda member, were found cowering behind a clothes closet in the apartment.
The boys have been held by the Pakistani authorities, but this weekend they were flown to America, where they will be questioned about their father.
CIA interrogators confirmed last night that the boys were staying at a secret address where they were being encouraged to talk about their father's activities.
"We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children," said one official, "but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times, and they are given the best of care."
Their father, Mohammed, 37, is being interrogated at the Bagram U.S. military base in Afghanistan. He is being held in solitary confinement and subjected to "stress and duress" interrogations.
He has been told that his sons are being held and is being encouraged to divulge future attacks against the West and talk about the location of Osama bin Laden, officials said.
"He has said very little so far," one CIA official said yesterday. "He sits in a trancelike state and recites verses from the Koran. But while he may claim to be a devout Muslim, we know he is fond of the Western-style fast life. His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him." . . .
- - Olga Craig
If the CIA had asked that this story not be printed, then neither the Telegraph nor the Washington Times would have printed it.
So somebody at the CIA wanted this story released, (or was simply indifferent as to whether it got released?), in March, 2003.
The Telegraph and the Washington Times briefly picked up the story.
Then the story was totally neglected.
Strange.