Exclusive: I Was Kidnapped by the CIA
Inside the CIA's extraordinary rendition program and the bungled abduction of would-be terrorists
For hours, the words come pouring out of Abu Omar as he describes his years of torture at the hands of Egypt's security services. Spreading his arms in a crucifixion position, he demonstrates how he was tied to a metal door as shocks were administered to his nipples and genitals. His legs tremble as he describes how he was twice raped. He mentions, almost casually, the hearing loss in his left ear from the beatings, and how he still wakes up at night screaming, takes tranquilizers, finds it hard to concentrate, and has unspecified "problems with my wife at home." He is, in short, a broken man.
There is nothing particularly unusual about Abu Omar's story. Torture is a standard investigative technique of Egypt's intelligence services and police, as the State Department and human rights organizations have documented myriad times over the years. What is somewhat unusual is that Abu Omar ended up inside Egypt's torture chambers courtesy of the United States, via an "extraordinary rendition"—in this case, a spectacular daylight kidnapping by the Central Intelligence Agency on the streets of Milan, Italy.
First introduced during the Clinton administration, extraordinary renditions—in which suspected terrorists are turned over to countries known to use torture, usually for the purpose of extracting information from them—have been one of the cia's most controversial tools in the war on terror. According to legal experts, the practice has no justification in United States law and flagrantly violates the Convention Against Torture, an international treaty that Congress ratified in 1994. Nonetheless, Congress and the American courts have essentially ignored the practice, and the Bush administration has insisted that it has never knowingly sent anyone to a place where he will be tortured.
But Abu Omar's case is unique: Unlike any other rendition case, it has prompted a massive criminal investigation—though not in the United States. An Italian prosecutor has launched a probe of the kidnapping, resulting in the indictment of 26 American officials, almost all of them suspected cia agents. It has also generated a treasure trove of documents on the secretive rendition program, including thousands of pages of court filings that detail how it actually works. Late last year, I traveled to Milan to review those documents and to Egypt, where Abu Omar now lives. What I found was a remarkable tale of cia overreach and its consequences—a tale that could represent the beginning of a global legal backlash against the war on terror.
An avuncular, portly man in his mid-40s clad in a turban and a floor-length blue robe, Abu Omar met me at a corner store near his home, the first time he had agreed to talk to an American magazine reporter. He took me to his tidy, cramped apartment near Alexandria's run-down Victorian rail station. The walls were bare other than some religious calligraphy. The screen saver on his computer was a picture of Mecca.
Abu Omar, whose full name is Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, served me pungent coffee and sugary biscuits prepared by his unseen wife. Then, leaning forward in a massive gilded chair, he told me how in the weeks before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, he'd felt he was being watched and followed as he walked the streets of Milan, where he'd been granted political asylum in 2001 following an earlier spell of imprisonment and torture in Egypt. A member of Egypt's militant Islamic Group and a part-time cleric, he had been waging a public campaign against the impending war; Italian authorities had been investigating his circle of acquaintances since mid-2002 and believed he might have been recruiting fighters to go to Iraq, a charge he denies.
A little before noon on February 17, 2003, Abu Omar was headed to his mosque, incongruously located inside a garage. He strolled down Via Guerzoni, a quiet street mostly empty of businesses and lined with high, view-blocking walls. A red Fiat pulled up beside him and a man jumped out, shouting "Polizia! Polizia!" Abu Omar produced his ID. "Suddenly I was lifted in the air," he recalled. He was dragged into a white van and beaten, he said, by wordless men wearing balaclavas. After trussing him with restraints and blindfolding him, they sped away.
Hours later, when the van stopped, Abu Omar heard airplane noise. His clothes were cut off and something was stuffed in his anus, likely a tranquilizing suppository. His head was entirely covered in tape with only small holes for his mouth and nose, and he was placed on a plane. Hours later he was hustled off the jet. He heard someone speaking Arabic in a familiar cadence; in the distance, a muezzin was calling the dawn prayer. After more than a decade in exile, he was back in Egypt.
Abu Omar was taken into a building, put in a blue prison suit, freshly blindfolded, and presented to someone described as an important pasha, or government official. The pasha said he'd be released if he'd go back to Italy to spy on the militants at his mosque. He said no.
And so began Abu Omar's descent into one of the 21st century's nastier circles of hell. His cell had no lights or windows, and the temperature alternated between freezing and baking. He was kept blindfolded and handcuffed for seven months. Interrogations could come at any time of the day or night. He was beaten with fists, electric cables, and chairs, stripped naked, and given electric shocks.
His tormentors' questions largely revolved around his circle of Islamists in Italy, though every now and again they'd indicate that they knew he wasn't a big-time terrorist. They were detaining him only because "the Americans imposed you on us." When he asked, "Why, then, do you abuse me so much?" they replied, "This is our family tradition."
In the fall of 2003, Abu Omar was taken to another prison; it was here that he was crucified and raped by the guards. After seven more months of torture, a Cairo court found there was no evidence that Abu Omar was involved in terrorism and ordered him freed. He was told not to contact anyone in Italy—including his wife—and not to speak to the press or human rights groups. Above all, he was not to tell anyone what had happened.
After agreeing to the conditions, he was deposited at his mother's home in Alexandria. He promptly called his wife in Italy. It was the first time she'd heard from him in 14 months. Italian investigators, who'd been monitoring Abu Omar's phone in Milan for years, recorded the call. His wife asked him how he had been treated. He told her sarcastically, "They brought me food from the fanciest restaurant," though nearly three weeks later, he admitted to her, "I was very close to dying." He also spoke with a friend in Milan, Mohamed Reda El Badry, whose phone was also being tapped by Italian investigators. "I was freed on health grounds," he told El Badry in one of the recorded calls. "I was almost paralyzed; still today I cannot walk more than 200 yards.... I was incontinent, suffered from kidney trouble."
And then, just as suddenly as Abu Omar had reappeared, he vanished again. Egyptian authorities had gotten wind of his calls to Italy. This time he was imprisoned for three years. He smuggled out a letter describing his ordeal, which found its way to the Arab and Italian press and international human rights organizations. Inevitably, that led to more torture.
Was it illegal for American officials to send Abu Omar to Egypt? Yes, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which prohibits delivering someone to a country where there are "substantial grounds" to assume that he might be tortured. Were there substantial grounds to believe that transferring Abu Omar to Egypt would result in his being tortured? Plenty, according to a State Department report that detailed the methods used by Egypt's security services during the year that Abu Omar was abducted and confined, including stripping and blindfolding prisoners; dousing them with cold water; beatings with fists, whips, metal rods, and other objects; administering electric shocks; suspending prisoners by their arms; and sexual assault and threats of rape.
The White House has routinely claimed that when the United States renders individuals to other countries it receives assurances that, as President Bush stated at a press conference in March 2005, "they won't be tortured...This country does not believe in torture." Several months later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated, "The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured."
But in the case of Abu Omar, Rice's assertions are demonstrably false. According to a previously unpublished study conducted by Katherine Tiedemann of The New America Foundation and myself, the same is true of many of the extraordinary renditions going back to the program's beginnings in 1995. (See "Rendition by the Numbers," above.) Fourteen documented extraordinary renditions took place under the Clinton administration. Almost all of those prisoners were rendered to Egypt, where at least three were executed. After 9/11 the pace of renditions sped up and the program expanded dramatically. Prisoners were now also transferred to Jordan, Yemen, Morocco, Algeria, and even Libya, Sudan, and Syria. In all, we found 53 documented cases of extraordinary rendition since September 2001; only one prisoner specifically said he had not been tortured. Of the sixteen men who have been released, eight claimed they were tortured and/or mistreated while in foreign custody; one died within weeks of being released. Nineteen of the rendered men have not been heard from since they disappeared.
Brad Garrett is a former fbi special agent who obtained uncoerced confessions from two of the most high-profile terrorists in recent American history: Ramzi Yousef, who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, and Mir Aimal Kasi, who shot and killed two cia employees outside the Agency's headquarters the same year. "The whole idea that you would send anyone to some other country to obtain the intel you want is ludicrous," he told me in an email. "If we want the intel, there are approaches that will render the information without torture. The problem is that someone in the U.S. government is convinced that torture is the way to go, and so if we are not allowed to do it, then send them to someplace where torture is sanctioned."
The extraordinary rendition program was not primarily intended to yield information, according to Michael Scheuer, the cia official whom the Clinton White House tasked with implementing it. "It came from an improvisation to dismantle these terrorist cells overseas. We wanted to get suspects off the streets and grab their papers," Scheuer explains. "The interrogation part wasn't important." He also claims that the program was overseen by congressional committees and "was lawyered to death." After 9/11, "The White House was desperate," Scheuer says. The rendition program quickly expanded because holding any but the most important Al Qaeda prisoners was a "burdensome proposition" for the Agency.
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It began with the Cinton Administration?
How can America continue to legitimize these fools? Witness. Gerald Ford, who pardoned the physcopath Nixon, is now seen as something completely different than a patsy. Ronald Reagan was some sort of economic genius. GWB SR., a travelling diplomat. And the pervert Clinton is now put forth as a "statesman". It's like Disneyland!! But then...a country in denial gets the leaders it deserves.
We suck. No wonder everyone wants to kill us.
So is "Lady's" real name Rumsfeld? We all KNOW that HE fled Italy just in the nick of time because HE was about to be arrested for war crimes. But I would NEVER characterize HIM as "somewhat of a tragic figure".
Bless you for talking. So much of this is never spoken of, and most Americans have no idea that their precious Bush and Co. or Reagan or the other marionette-cronies really hurt people, and are delighted when they can manoeuvre it The stoires of te CIA were coming out in the 70's, but in the 80's 5Reagan-puppet times) suddenly alot of that info disappeared, as MJ knows of course, trying to reverse that trend. What is terrifying now is that with the (planned, I believe) slashed education of these past thirty years, less and less Americans can even read you, much less demand more information. I would like to see the USA a place to be proud of again one day, soon. And wonder, writing you in honour of your own truthfulness, if I will one day be taken and tortured because I care about my world, refuse violence as a solution to anything and was taught to tell the truth.
Torture of Person:
Execution of Wall Street Journalist David Pearl. He was kidnapped and taken into custody at a hidden location by terrorists. The video of the execution opens showing Pearl, unshaven and haggard, identifying himself as an American Jew. Pearl goes on talking and interspersed throughout his monologue are fleeting images of dead and woulded Muslims. The video then shows a hooded figure Pearl's throat and decapitating his corpse. Now Pearl's face is clean shaven, he was meticulously prepared for slaughter. Then Pearl's head is held high. When looking at Pearl's head being held high, just remember the hooded figure holding Pearl's head is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was one of the three victims of waterboarding by American Interrogators.
I am shocked that Mother Jones has even considered printing a two page unsubstantiated article complaining about how the poor suspected terrorist could have, might have, may have, been kidnapped and tortured.
David Pearl was a victim of terrorists. Terrorists do not have prisons, they TORTURE and KILL ALL.
Mother Jones defendending terrorists, unbelievable.
CIA torture / David Pearl
Hey miopic denial of THE FACTS does not change THE FACTS. You obviously never heard TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT. We all detest, protest and resist the violence that was directed at David Pearl, and it is for the very same reasons that YOU SHOULD ALSO RESIST THE VIOLENCE OF U.S. FASCIST POLICIES!!!! Oh you support Israel, the MOST fascist, ethinic-cleansing "civilized" country on the planet, justifing all your violence with & by paranoia, so it's Okay, RIGHT? Yeeesch GROW A BRAIN!(or get a transplant!). Actually he got off relatively easy, the CIA has BOILED PEOPLE ALIVE, more correctly BOILED PEOPLE TO DEATH, (forget that 'water boarding' smoke screen fed to the general public.-see Raymond McGovern on Youtube or anywhere else you can), so anything the terrorists do is tit for tat and can't be a surprise to us. That DOES NOT MEAN we support, simply we shouldn't be surprised. We should CONTINUE to be protesters, civil disobedience participants, petition gatherers & signers, letter writers, political activists and VOCAL VISIBLE COMMUNITY MOUTHPIECES. That is our duty as true christians and REAL JEWS. That is assuming you have the COURAGE to truly enact your faith, which, from your comments, I extremely doubt! Google Occupation 101 then click on multimedia & then start watching, learning, and PLANNING & PARTICIPATING in reconciling Palestinian rights & Israeli needs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is how we end this, nothing else will work, short or long term.
To "robert okane" above: Your trolling is a bit too obvious, you need to tone it down a bit for any of your marks to take you seriously...
our taxes dollars are being used for death and destruction of innocent people so our officials can get their "rocks" off and at the same time to live in 5 star hotels courtesy of the taxpayer. They are nothing but disgusting criminals.
As for daniel Perle .. he was actully killed by our frinds in the Pakistani secret service the ISI which is funded by the CIA which again is funded by our taxes. Egyptians had nothing.. NOTHING to do with his death you are a racisct pig that cannot diffrentiate between the different types of people in the world. Go pick up a book on history and geography and educate yourself. But you probably won't cause you can't HANDLE THE TRUTH
Sadly, I'm not in the least surprised by this. A government of secrecy promotes the compartmentalization and mental pigeon-holing that lets otherwise moral and humane human beings rationalize this sort of action. (I'm not referring to torture here, but to the CIA's wink-and-nod hand-washing about it.)
People need to remember that even the unforeseen consequences of their actions are their responsibility, for having taken the actions that led to them.
There's too much willingness to wear moral blinders, to say "who could know?" -- when with a little thought, the answers are obvious.
The world was heaven, until humans made it hell.
how long is the international community going to allow bush,his cronies,&the zionist israelis to terrorize the world with their arrogance & insanity?
Yes, these are deplorable practices and yes they NEED to be exposed............ They are symptoms of the affliction of mans inhumanity toward his fellow man.. Sad to hear that "affable Bill" allowed such on his watch..but the U.S. election system has been up for sale to the high bidder & these are WHO they are, thieves and murderers...........they steal whole countries and murder anyone that resists all illegally and they are not charged, with crimes but instead they are given medals of military honor and the nations highest civilian merit, medal of freedom The well scripted smiling faces of the front-men & women obscure the ugly face of naked greed and economic aggression......The U.S KILLS A MILLION children women & men to enrich a few oil companies that PAID for the ELECTION of their OILMAN FRONT-MAN.....To accomplish their schemes, they perpetrate mass terror on the American land, anthrax & planes into buildings killing thousands. To cover their crimes, they revoke the constitution of their land to install a policy of retroactive immunity to the perpeTRATORS....
What a bunch of lying sacks!
If this Egyptian is innocent I am sympathetic; however the CIA has a duty to our nation in time of war and it was
his own country that abused him.
it is a shame that a great nation like the USA can promote and allow such illegal acts to happen in the knowledge of the CIA, why would countries such as italy allow for such acts to be carried in their land yet they have thier courts and intelegence services to carry out this in the most lawfull way. its a shame. shame on the Italian, Egyptian and the US governments. i hope the next adminstartion brings in with them a new american foreign policy so the world can live in peace with no threats of terrorism. actually this is the best way in abettingg terrorism.
the jews have destroyed america
Good old Bill Clinton....The best undemocratic democratic president the republicans ever had.....
to robert okane....
Out of curiosity,,,how old r u?Your mind works like that of a child....If one Muslim is alleged to have tortured and killed a jew,all Muslims are guilty of the crime.You are a racist at best and an ignoramus at worst....
The jews have not only destroyed America.....They hate America for having betrayed them during the dark days of Hitler.This love hate /relationship which exists between the two governments is very deadly and detrimental to the survival of America/
I suggest that the Italians publish the names of the 17 suspected CIA operatives.
Well put Joe........We are living in a state of denial...There are Americans who refuse to read a book or watch a documentary which they feel is going to contradict their already held beliefs...They rather stay ignorant of the facts out of fear of the truth,,,,
fred switzman i guess you misread Omar's testimonies. actually to put it right for you he said he was kidnaped by the CIA operatives in Italy but not in Egypt so to say it was from hes country, you misunderstood. i due agree with you when you say the CIA as the obligation to avert terrorism but averting terrorism through the use of toture is the most inhumane way their are better ways to get people to talk apart from toturing them and besides the CIA if they thought he was a threat should have taken him to the USA with clearance from the Italian government.
Thank you Sam for posting the truth concerning the death of Mr Pearle.Mr Pearle was getting close to discovering certain things about the pakistani secret service when he got killed...How can Okane be so sure whose face was under that hood?he must be superman or super idiot..
Good for the Italians. Hopefully, it will be the beginning of backbone emerging in other Western countries to enforce the rule of law that my country has so shamefully and blatantly disregarded. As mentioned already, masses of Americans are functionally illiterate. They either cannot or will not read. We have also become incredibly arrogant, and like puppets, wave our flag of patriotism while swallowing the Kool Aid propaganda and lies fed by our leaders through the corporate-owned media. There is an abundance of information out there. A really great book that reveals our shocking use of torture while giving an in-depth of our own terrorist tactics to achieve our Imperialist aims over the past 4 decades is Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." It is very credibly annotated and researched. So do yourself a favor and head to your nearest bookstore.
Then, if you discover you can read, proceed onward.
"The Exception to the Rulers," Amy Goodman and David Goodman
"Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons," Adrien Levy & Catherine Scott Clark
"Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," Jeremy Scahill
"Drugs, Oil, and War," Peter Dale Scott
(Anything by Noam Chomsky) but for easy reading try
"Imperial Ambitions" and "Understanding Power"
Then use your on-line finger clicking and monitor English newspapers from Britain, France, Italy, etc. They tend to follow our antics but in a less censored manner.
And since all this blood-letting flag-waving mess was sold to us through fear after 9/11, go back and research it. There are a lot of well-researched manuscripts that provide ample evidence that this was 'done to us' for a Pearl Harbor to go after control of Middle East oil and their markets (just like we did over Central and South America, Indonesia, etc. Knock your socks off with "Crossing the Rubicon".
A new one out is "The Three Trillion Dollar War" Joseph Stiglitz ande Linda Bilmes.
This is all about money folks. The elite 4% (some say 1%) want us ignorant and cowering in fear while they rape the resources of not only American wealth, but that of the world. And it's not being done for the good of any of us or our children or grandchildren, but for that 1%.
To Eric
I am a little surprised at your very immature reaction to my posting. When a person has to resort to name calling;racist, ignoramus and superidiot, it is also a sign of a lack of intelligence. You say "if one muslim is alledged to have tortured and killed a jew" and so on, so I guess this is where you consider me a racist. If you go back to what I wrote I never used the word "muslim", not even once, in connection with identity of the person(s) who butchered Pearl. I did say that on the video of the Pearl killing, images of dead and wounded muslims were seen. Hardly a reason to consider someone a racist. Your reading skills are very poor, I guess somewhere around HS level. If you are interested in learning some history, which you seem so also be lacking some basic knowledge, go to Wikipedia under Daniel Pearl.
A suggestion, before you start calling another names, look in a mirror first to make sure you are not talking about yourself.SFB
During the American Revolutionary War, some of Washington's troops had reports that the British were torturing American captives by water torture, emasculation, burning over a pit, etc. In response, they vowed to do the same things to any British soldiers that they captured.
When General Washington learned of this, he announced that any American soldier convicted of doing such a thing would be shot the same day.
This is not the American way, said Washington.
"The government that tortures others will not hesitate in torturing its own." -- George Washington
robokop216@aol.com -
You're using wikipedia as your reference? Damn our country is in trouble. Just in case you didn't know, any dolt can add to wikipedia. It's not something I would use to back my argument.
To Robert Okane: I guess you never heard the one about two wrongs don't make a right, huh? And I'm sure you think some Wall Street white boy whose had a silver spoon in his mouth all his life is somehow a better human than an Arab. A human is a human, and torturing people is wrong, period--it's also unlawful, and Bush, Cheney, his whole administration, Clinton, and anyone else involved with it should go to prison. The Rule Of Law should apply to all; Justice is supposed to be blind. That's the very foundation of our legal system. As we become terrorists ourselves, by using white phosphorus (a chemical weapon that sticks to anything, no way to get it off, burns one alive right to the bone)just poured over all the residents (mainly women and children)of Faluja,as we torture people, many of them completely innocent, as we use Depleted Uranium in our munitions, causing unspeakable birth defects in Iraqi children (and will also in American soldiers' children, too, since radiation is an indiscriminate killer; it may give you cancer as a bonus as well. But you're probably one of those people who believe that you're either blessed to be white and male and American, and believe you nor anyone like you can do any wrong, and as far as the rest of humanity goes, well, they just didn't get lucky, so screw'em, right? And on top of all that you probably consider yourself a Christian, despite the fact that the character assessment I have given is about the most un-Christian person I can think of...do you like to shoot little furry animals too?
The whole thing is a subtractive distractors set, from the real perps of 911: ISI, CIA & the Saudi - bin Laden - Bush oil-economic-terrorist clan(s)...some good source material is in TranceFormation of America by O'Brien and Phillips...you may not have noticed but oil's gone from about $25/bbl to $100 in the meantime -- oh, yeah and Osama's still at large
Jeff-No I was not using Wikipedia as a source, that is somewhat clear since I did not mention it in my first posting. I was directing Eric to read about Pearl in Wikipedia because it is sort of easy to read, not blurred with peoples distorted opinions. Eric has this comprehension problem when reading and also exhibits a degree of intelligence with his name calling. Eric does not give any indication of having ever even heard about Pearl.
Kidnappers, Torturers and their Political Bosses need a taste of their own medicine
So is "Lady's" real name Rumsfeld? We all KNOW that HE fled Italy just in the nick of time because HE was about to be arrested for war crimes. But I would NEVER characterize HIM as "somewhat of a tragic figure".
Posted by:LauraMarch 3, 2008 3:42:39 PMRespond ^
Mr. Rumsfeld, is it true that you are Lady?
Hrrr! just call me Daisy.
The fact that the extrordinary rendition program began under the Clinton administration is one more reason to be concerned about the possible election of Hillary Clinton to the presidency. Bill Clinton was "Bush lite" and hillary will be more of the same
Cast your minds back to the reason for our current war.
To stop a dictator who kills and tortures his people. Which will de-stabilise the region, and maybe attack and kill other countries people.
The exact thing that is happening around the world.
And just so you know, the CIA most likely wasnt spending tax payer dollars, do some reasearch into how CIA makes its 'other' money. People should not fear their government, the government should fear its people.
The first crime in Italy was the act of kidnapping and torture. This article maintains Bush regime mendacity by referring to US Gov Kidnapping as rendition.
If say Iran invaded a country and kidnapped people of the street for torture I can guarantee that there will be no mention of rendition. The US chosen media would be braying up and down about such a brazen act of kidnapping.
Kidnapping is by itself a major crime in every country of the world. The question is if the Italians have the guts to charge these US gov officials for kidnapping along with aiding and abetting of Kidnapping.
The article goes through some length in de-associating rendition with kidnapping.
The article is yet another embedded press gate keepers busy in trying to maintain the spectra of a free press.
the more evil kidnapping is done in Iraq by US special forces who when they can't find the Iraqi resistor they will take his wife, mother or daughter as hostages (for investigation).
Rah
"how long is the international community going to allow bush,his cronies,&the zionist israelis to terrorize the world with their arrogance & insanity?"
You Arabic/Muslims are such stupid unread maroons. The "international community" /UN are part of the same criminals. The UN/international community are the same people who created Israel and are engaged in occuping Iraq and Afghanistan along with various hidden proxy wars in Afric and asia.
When will you people learn to stop begging the UN for help. Remove your criminal kings and dictators rather than beg the swine who placed theKings and dictators on the artificially divided Muslim lands.
The only help you can request is from Allah. And Allah has forbidden muslims to beg for help from anyone else.
RAH
This article is not telling you the whole story.
1) The CIA agents are going on trial in absentia, something that European courts don't even do to their own;
2) The torture was carried out by EGYPT. So shouldn't we see much more worldwide condemnation going toward Egypt instead of the US? Just have to ask...
3) Worldwide, it goes back farther than Clinton. "Extraordinary rendition" has also been used to bring Adolf Eichmann and Carlos the Jackal to trial. Where was the condemnaton over those "kidnappings"?
4) Many Italian authorities knew about this operation and consented to it;
5) The victim here is a member of "Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya" a terrorist group that was responsible for killing 58 tourists in the 1997 Luxor massacre;
6) If Abu Omar does return to Italy, he still faces other terrorism related charges there;
7) Abu Omar's lawyer in Italy filed a lawsuit against the Italian state over his client's treatment. No such lawsuit was filed against Egypt.
You might want to read this article from last June, if for nothing else, a counter balance to the one above:
http://shieldofachilles.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-media-is-not-telling-y...
Another factor should be brought out too, there are some unseemly disappearances from the U.S. and environs that smack of some version of rendition: Jennifer Kesse and Natalie Holloway, as well as Trenton Duckett come to mind -- any of you missing a sister, brother or child? I guess if the government did it, it won't do much good to write your Congressperson...
fred switzman: In A Time Of War??? Bull! It's a 'war' in propaganda only. It's really all about world domination where the USA is the aggressive nation. THE CIA is a criminal organization. Get your facts straight dude.
I agree with the top earners wanting to keep the lower educated people in their bracket. They like to keep you under their thumb and working for peanuts. Our kids have not figured this out. As for the torture, they are trying to convince us that it is needed to get what they want. Someone enjoys sadism. Raping? Only a sadist could perform that one. I fear that when we all accept this behavior, it will work it's way down to control our thinking. Not just our behavior. We can only hope for better from this next president.
we can all sit back & watch till it hits home. Things like this don't "just Stop" they esclate as the ones in charge get braver..I believe one day soon people will just start missing..It will be our neighbor & families & friends.....or us...
Sorry, who is international community????
CIA are a bunch of idiots. I have met several of them in my career, and was constantly amazed at how little they know of history, geopolitics, the local language, etc...
I once applied to CIA, right after
9-11, they asked me why I would take a $25,000 paycut from my current top-secret job to work for them. That sort of sums it up - they're low paid, and you get what you pay for.....
that "someone," could well be our current president whose track is rather peculiar: he may have murdered/killed his infant sister when a boy; he certainly acted sicko as an "executingest" Governor of Texas -- so having a serial killer, a Ted Bundy, as commander-in-chief? well look at a result; CIA = cruelty in action
Horrors beget horrors.
what we do or drive our membership to experience... amplifies into a degraded social 'normalcy'...
"Dehumanized Cruelty: New Abu Ghraib Pictures Released" & Debbie Nathan's "A Nightmare World of Torture & Prison Guard Suicides"
http://thiscanadian.typepad.com/this_canadian/2008/03/dehumanized-cru.ht...
"A psychiatrist who has treated former military personnel at Guantánamo prison camp is telling a story of prisoner torture & guard suicide there, recounted to him by a National Guardsman who worked at Guantánamo just after it opened. ..."
The fact is: the observer & the abuser emerge as scarred & deranged as the victimized...
Remember: Saddam Hussein was an horrifically abused child in a violent environment of human & animal abuse...
"Child Abuse Yields Thousands of Deaths - Obituary: Saddam Hussein"
http://thiscanadian.typepad.com/this_canadian/2006/12/child_abuse_yie.ht...
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Yes, the rectification of horrors does comprise a kind of pathology: years ago when Richard Ramirez, the Freeway Strangler, was arrested and confined in L.A., he was observed to be quite crazed and have a pentagram carved in his hand -- yet some young women used to fight at the prison waiting room for the opportunity to be near him -- this reminds me of Ann Coulter, not to overly politicize the pathological -- I guess it's just a sign of the times and my own burn out at being, or trying to be, "nice." "Hypnoknodelon," is my attempt at a Greek term, used by an old poet friend of mine, to signify a dream within a trance -- something not much seen in literature since Sordello, by Robt. Browning, but apparently used quite often in this administration as a tool of choice -- besides having a Pentagon carved in their collective psyche
I don't get how the term "extraordinary rendition" came into being. It seems like two words that have nothing to do with what the context and content are were strung together to divert attention, and yet -- no one asks the historical setting that brought about the distortions of their meanings.
"Rendition" refers to a version -- like a singer's version of a song, or a declaration of meaning. "Render" can be reduction of fat-content, or to make into something else (as in "render meaningless." As the two words together do to their original meanings.). So how did they come to mean fearsome political kidnappings?
And what would "ordinary rendition"
be?
This post is in response to Eric's concerning his statement, "We are living in a state of denial...There are Americans who refuse to read a book or watch a documentary which they feel is going to contradict their already held beliefs...They rather stay ignorant of the facts out of fear of the truth"
Well, I don't completely disagree with you, because I think that many people adopt the views and beliefs of either their families or the general consensus. This could be credited to the fact they do not have enough knowledge about a topic to make a rational statement and simply "Go along with the crowd." As for your statement regarding reading books and watching documentaries, I do believe that it is important for every American to be informed about what goes on in government and our country, but I must advise people to be cautious about taking everything they see or hear as the truth. My opinion on this article is that while the author spoke with Abu Omar, the only credibility given to this article is the statement that Omar heard from his torturers in Egypt. Yes the author stated that he went to Italy and reviewed their findings, but put nothing in the article concerning that. I know that some might say that it can't be publicized due to an ongoing investigation, but my argument would be, how did a journalist obtain access to information that was not released for public dissemination.
Regardless of my personal feelings of Abu Omar and the events that he endured, I did not see enough factual information contained in this article, more so a lack of information to support what was presented as facts, to give much credence to this article.
"Extraordinary rendition," is an euphemism for kidnapping, plain and simple, like, "termination," is latinate for murder -- the imagery associated with, "extraordinary," is miraculous, prodigious, almost supernatural -- where "rendition," conjures up a song and dance team from the 1930's, say, Prescott Bush and Adolph Hitler
