Champagne. Caviar. Frequent Flyer Miles. Waterboarding one minute, Macanudo Grand Reserves the next. This is the penultimate metaphor for the depth of corruption of the Bush Administration. And who pays for the perks of CIA's rendition men? You do my friends. You do.
Another example of the indiscretions and contradictions in the US administration's rendition programme emerges in its willingness to lavish money on entertaining the Syrians.
In December 2002, Syrian president Bashar Assad and his wife paid an official visit to London. They were guests of honour at the City of London.
But back in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on that same day in December 2002, seven prisoners were languishing in jail, sent there by the US despite President George Bush's view that Syria was part of an "axis of evil" with a legacy of "torture, oppression, misery, and ruin". There is clear evidence the seven rendered there by the US were brutally tortured.
So, light up a cigar. Pour a fine glass of wine.Put your feet up. And see what the Boy Wonder hath wrought upon this country. Special edition one year anniversary of a Federal court ruling that the Bush Administration has decided not to comply with and your media has decided not to cover. That's after this.
In January 2004 a crew of CIA agents checked into the five-star Marriott Son Antem golfing resort in Palma for a well-deserved rest. The agents had just flown from Rabat in Morocco to Afghanistan and back to Algeria - a gruelling 8,000-mile journey - and were looking forward to luxuriating in the hotel's spa where, as the brochure put it, they could "journey to deep inner peace".
But as the crew were basking in comfort at US taxpayers' expense there was little peace for their cargo. In the hold on that day was Benyam Mohammed, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee alleged to be one of the world's most dedicated jihadists. In Morocco, Mohammed would later allege, he had been doused in hot liquids, subjected to incessant loud noise and had his penis slashed with a scalpel.
The details of Mohammed's treatment emerges in Ghost Plane, a new book by investigative journalist Stephen Grey describing the CIA's clandestine system of international terrorist transfers known as extraordinary rendition.
The Marriott Son Antem was not the only luxury hotel in Palma frequented by CIA agents. The rendition crews also liked to stop off at the Gran Melia Victoria, a five-star hotel in the centre of the Majorcan capital. On one occasion, they ordered three bottles of fine Spanish wine, and five crystal glasses from Mallorcair, one of the plane's ground handling agents - refreshments for the flight home, all charged to the CIA's bill.
Agents displayed a similar taste for luxury in Milan where Italian prosecutors accuse the CIA of involvement in the seizure and rendering of Abu Omar, a radical Egyptian cleric, to Cairo in 2003. Italian investigators found the CIA agents spent nearly $150,000 (£80,000) on accommodation. Two spent nearly $18,000 during a three-week stay at Milan's Savoy hotel.
Link here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
It was a year ago when a Federal judge ordered the US to release the videos and photos of children being rape in US custody.
Bush has not obeyed.
I have posited again and again that one day we will see this and we will all be ashamed.
A federal judge ruled today that graphic pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America's image. Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of "rape and murder" and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were "blatantly sadistic."
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they "do not need pretexts for their barbarism."
The ACLU has sought the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture.
What is shown on the photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon has blocked from release? One clue: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images, "I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe." They show acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he added.
A Republican Senator suggested the same day they contained scenes of "rape and murder." Rumsfeld then commented, "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse."...
...To get a sense of what may be shown in these images, one has to go back to press reports from when the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal was still front page news.
This is how CNN reported it on May 8, 2004, in a typical account that day:
"U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealed Friday that videos and 'a lot more pictures' exist of the abuse of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison.
"'If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse,' Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe.'...
..."'The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience,' Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.'...
...."Rumsfeld told Congress the unrevealed photos and videos contain acts 'that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.'"....In the same period, reporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: "Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men ... . The women were passing messages saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.'
"Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out."
Link either here:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/...
or here:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/...
Angry? print this out, show it to your friends before they vote.