ICH: CIA renditions began under Clinton: agent

[rainy]

CIA renditions began under Clinton: agent

By AFP

The US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) controversial "rendition" program was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counter-terrorism agent has told a German newspaper.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11404.htm

[purduejake]

1. Somehow I knew Clinton would get blamed for this.

[tatertop]

2. I hope that's not true

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Authorizing the elimination of Al Qaeda members is a lot different....

...from authorizing the systematic detention and torturing of prisoners in foreign prisons and U. S.-controlled prisons in foreign countries, regardless of whether or not they were involved with Al Qaeda.

This is another "Clinton did it" smear job, pure and simple.

[powwowdancer]

17. Yep...

Clinton's the reason Bush f*cked up Katrina, he's the reason that the economy tanked after Bush squandered the surplus fixing the problems Clinton handed him, he's the reason Saddam attacked us <retch> on 9/11, he's the reason that we're getting the livin' hell kicked out of us in Iraq, he's the reason W can't speak english, cheney's heart is weak, Rummy's press conferences sound like acid flashback haiku and condo-loser has taken to wearing S/M leathers to visit foreign heads of state. Never underestimate a fascists ability to blame others for his own fuck ups.

:dem:
powwowdancer out

[journalist3072]

20. You hit the nail on the head there...

This story is simply more proof that President Clinton did go after Al Qaeda.

Remember he was being accused of wagging the dog and acting too agressively against Al Qaeda. Then after 9/11, the Rethugs accused him of not doing anything. They can't have it both ways.

[Rex]

3. Rice condons torture, if she didn't she would resign this very minute.

Her boss Cheney has a hardon for torture! So does the USAG and Rummy! I'm sure Boosh doesn't give a shit about what happens to 'detainees'. Clinton seemed focused on terrorist organizations and not on spying on American citizens. Another thing, Clinton got results unlike Der Booshmonkey.

[pocoloco]

4. No Problem

Lock 'em both up if it's true!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Yeah, right. How come we haven't heard this story earlier?

[Warren Stupidity]

6. True but...

under the Clinton administration rules the program was not the gateway to torture that it is under the Bush administration.

"Before Sept. 11, the C.I.A. had been authorized by presidential directives to carry out renditions, but under much more restrictive rules. In most instances in the past, the transfers of individual prisoners required review and approval by interagency groups led by the White House, and were usually authorized to bring prisoners to the United States or to other countries to face criminal charges.
As part of its broad new latitude, current and former government officials say, the C.I.A. has been authorized to transfer prisoners to other countries solely for the purpose of detention and interrogation.

The covert transfers by the C.I.A. have faced sharp criticism, in part because of the accounts provided by former prisoners who say they were beaten, shackled, humiliated, subjected to electric shocks, and otherwise mistreated during their long detention in foreign prisons before being released without being charged.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/politics/06intel.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5089&en=0072f743670ebf7e&ex=1267765200&partner=rssyahoo

That said, it is probably true that in its limited use under Clinton people were mistreated and tortured. The facts are that Bush basically gave a green light to widespread torture without any practicle oversight. Torture in any form is abhorent to a civilized society, there is no justification for what Clinton did, however there is an order of magnitude difference in the crimes of the Bush administration.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Why do you believe there was no justification for Clinton's actions?

[Warren Stupidity]

12. I think it was the phrase

'torture is abhorent in a civilized society' that sums up my belief in this matter. You perhaps think that torture is justified?

[rzemanfl]

8. Again this is fake, like the wiretaps story. Clinton agreed only to

let the CIA give information that resulted in the arrest of terrorism suspects to local authorities who might or might not have tortured people. These individuals never entered the U.S. nor did the U.S. involve itself in their arrest, capture or abduction. They were treated "according to local law." It was Bush who changed the rules. If one reads the whole story instead of just the headline, this becomes clear.

[superconnected]

10. I'm sure it's fake, but if any of it is true

Let's join together as democrats and tell the Republicans we're all for them impeaching Clinton along with Bush.

Anything to get bush out.

Besides I bet Clinton won't care if he gets another impeachment... if it takes bush out. :)

[rzemanfl]

13. See post below and read the link. This guy has so many

different stories he is simply not credible.

[treefrogjohn]

9. What he used to say vs. what he is saying now. Nutjob

Read http://www.livejournal.com/users/jmhm/1533057.html for an indepth look at the inconsistencies in this guy's story.

[rainy]

16. Thanks, I was sure there was more to this and the first

article I posted did explain that it was not the same as what Bush has authorizes.

[Solly Mack]

14. Began? No - Happened under Clinton? YES

Renditions were carried out under Reagan, with the establishment of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. Then VP GHW Bush sought ways - and put into policy - means to "extradite" (by whatever means necessary) "terrorists suspects"

Clinton did use it.

Bush expanded on it.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200503090003
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32890.pdf
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/extraordinaryrendition/22203res20051206.html
http://www.sfbg.com/40/11/cover_plane.html
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/facttell/key_events.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301476_pf.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/18/60minutes/main1134821.shtml
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6
http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/terr_essay.htm

[Warren Stupidity]

15. You can dismiss this report but...

You will have to deal with articles in the NYT and the New Yorker that cover the same ground. Extraordinary (or Extreme) Rendition started in 1995 under clinton.

Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/politics/06intel.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5089&en=0072f743670ebf7e&ex=1267765200&partner=rssyahoo

And: http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?050214on_onlineonly01

The differences are three:
1) renditions had to be individually authorized under Clinton, under Bush no such oversight.

2) under Clinton the person was handed over to legal authorities for prosecution either abroad or here in the US, generally when handed over to e.g. Egypt it was understood that the person was going to be severely abused while awaiting trial, that the trial would be a joke, and that execution would likely follow. Under Bush people are disappeared into a network of secret detention facilities run by either our security agencies (civilian or military) or by friendly foreign security agencies - nobody goes to trial, even a joke trial.

3) volume - under Clinton the numbers are on the order of 70 or so cases, under Bush we are talking about possible thousands of people.

[Solly Mack]

19. Reagan used rendition as well

It just came out recently...

Speaking for myself, I would be hard pressed to believe Egypt and other points of rendition didn't torture and or abuse those "extradited" by the US under any President. It's not like those countries woke up one morning and said "Bush is office, so let's adopt a torture policy" - Those countries always used torture. The ugly reality is, if you "render" a person, that person will most likely be tortured.

[0007]

21. No doubt that lanky link used rendition.

[Solly Mack]

22. I'm still researching it but it's true from everything I've read

it was GHW Bush's idea more or less. Surprise. Surprise.

[0007]

25. The way I see it, the folks in this country would be willing to

accept the fact, only if junior would wrestle a few bears publicly.

Kinda like the way Lanky Link did it, you know what I mean?

[Solly Mack]

26. The level of willful denial in America is staggering

"NANANANANANANANA I can't hear you!"

[Flabbergasted]

18. He's right but the story is misleading I'm guessing....

I read a little about Michael Scheuer:

What is new for Scheuer - who resigned from the intelligence agency on Friday after 22 years - is commenting by name. This summer, he authored a book, "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror," under the pen name Anonymous.

The book, written with the CIA's blessing, is critical of the Bush administration's counterterrorism policy, and was viewed by some at the White House as a thinly veiled attempt by the CIA to undermine the president's reelection.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/12/60minutes/main655407.shtml

and

Deliberately Destroying America's Soul

by Michael Scheuer

......Exporting freedom and democracy is not a Grand Strategy. It may be an ambition, an obsession, or – most likely – a hallucination. The idea that such exports are a "Grand Strategy" spotlights the ignorance about America of the men and women who today lead the country. Ditto for many of the 535 individuals in the Senate and House. America is not a nation meant to order others how to live and then push them at bayonet point into that lifestyle. The cost of such a policy, John Quincy Adams wrote, would be the loss of America's soul.

The force behind this Grand Strategy is President Bush's inane, ahistorical claim that "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." This is pure Wilsonian claptrap with the lethality-multiplying extra of being hands-on, rather than rhetorical Wilsonianism – the difference being that foreigners died from the latter, while Americans will die from the former. Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld, Ms. Rice, Mr. Cambone, Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Bolton, and their acolyte front organizations at the Weekly Standard, American Enterprise Institute, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, etc., are not bad or evil people. They're just confused and ignorant about the meaning of America.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/scheuer.php?articleid=5690


He's obviously not a Bushy. Rendition and such gets into a very grey legal situation. Do you really want to Kidnap some guy from Yemen and put in the local penitentary and give him a lawyer. Domestic lawyers are not trained in international law for the most part. Multiply this by 1000's and we get a legal catastrophe.

If it were necessary to kidnap people from foreign countries in the first place they would need to be tried and held under the jurisdiction of the world court which is not set up to handle this either.

[DS1]

23. So Clinton was tough on terror

:shrug:

/obvious :sarcasm:

[peacetalksforall]

24. Let's see what Berger and Clark have to sayMight they lie like Rice

and say something like - we didn't know the CIA would condone torture - we didn't know the CIA would stay in Egypt and supervise and condone the torture? I doubt it.

There are gaps in this guy's story,

What is interesting is that this CIA veteran is saying that the NSA authorized the CIA. Didn't know it worked that way.

I'm ashamed of the U.S. now. I don't know how much I should be ashamed about the 90's. I'll wait and see.

This is definitely something that has to have a follow-up - because the Pat's, Jerry's, Sean's, Rush's, Oliver's, O'Reilly's, Andrea's, Nora's, and Candy-Wolf's will have a lie to preach for a long time.

[stepnw1f]

27. So What? How Pathetic....

Two wrongs don't make this right. Is this all they have? Fucking hold these freaks accountable!