Here are a couple of brief updates on the CIA's "extraordinary renditions" that have kind of flew under the radar due to the hurricane aftermath and all the Bush scandal news he's been hemorrhaging lately.
The first update is from a Sept. 24th AP story and it details
new information about the flight logistics part of the renditions. We now know that a secret Navy office was actually procuring at least some of the planes that the CIA was using for their rendition flights. I had suspected the military must be involved to a greater extent than was being reported, and now we have additional evidence of what seems to be a pretty close association between the DOD and the rendition flights. Coincidentally(?), in January of this year, Senators were surprised to hear that in 2002 Rumsfeld had created a
previously unknown clandestine unit authorized to run operations anywhere in the world. My guess would be that this unit is now in the mix somehow. We also learned in the same AP story that the number of planes being used isn't just two or three as had been previously reported, but rather we now find out that at least 31 planes may in use for renditions. That's no small-scale operation.
Another story was out two weeks ago about the specific case in Italy where Muslim imam Abu Omar was snatched off the streets of Milan by several CIA or US paramilitary types in 2003. Last week the Italian prosecutor in the case issued an additional three warrants for arrest, bringing it to a total of 22 CIA agents now wanted in Italy in connection with this kidnapping. In the newest three warrants, one of the warrants is for a female "diplomatic official". Apparently however, she was tipped off somehow and was spirited out of the country right before she could be arrested. She is reported to now be at the US embassy in Mexico City. The man who led the kidnapping of the imam was former CIA Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady. Bob Lady, whose life reads like a damn James Bond novel, was also able to evade Italian police right before his capture, and is now thought to be in Honduras. And the imam? No one has heard from him in quite some time. It is assumed he is still in an Egyptian prison, but it is unclear whether he is still alive or not.
The European media seems to be following this story a lot closer than our own media. I think that their citizens are demanding that their leaders take seriously the fact that their citizens are being kidnapped off their own streets, and taken to be tortured. The British parliament is gearing up to hold an investigation to determine the level of involvement of the UK Foreign Office. If it's discovered that European governments themselves are authorizing these CIA snatches to take place inside their own countries, I think all hell could break loose politically for whatever European leader gets caught lying about it. Of course in our country, our own mainstream media will most likely ignore it.
It is thought that over 150 people (but who the hell really knows?) have been abducted and flown out to be tortured in the last four years. Of those 150, we know of only a few who lived to tell about it. Thus far, every story told by a survivor after being kidnapped and tortured has turned out to be a bungled case of mistaken identity.
We need a full accounting from our government on exactly how many people have been snatched, their names, their whereabouts, and information on their deaths. If they are still alive, we need to go get them back and either prosecute them, or let them go. This is bullshit. This is America, damnit. Doesn't that mean anything to these people?
(Crossposted at The Beleaguered Chimp.)