Intl court: El-Masri was tortured

It's about time this is on the record. The European Court for Human Rights has officially ruled that Khaled el-Masri was kidnapped by Macedonian police, apparently tortured by them, then "rendered" to the CIA and certainly tortured by it in some way, all a case of badly mistaken identity under the War on Terror.

It's nice his case has been legally recognized, and that he's getting a bit of compensation.

On the other hand, who cares, really, about the government of Macedonia having to pay 60K Euros? El-Masri needs to do intellectual judo on the War on Terror by taking a page out of the US War on Drugs, and start filing for asset seizure forfeitures of US property abroad.

Assange, rape, Duke lacrosse, Sweden, motives and WikiLeaks

First, I'll stipulate that the allegations against Julian Assange are about nonconsensual sex.

Contra Assange's London attorney, Mark Stephens, it's clear from here and here that no such offense exists, as Sweden's criminal code confirms and that Sweden is NOT wanting to talk to him about "Sex by surprise" but the charge is at least in any charges involving force, felonious nonconsensual sex.

Now that that's all stipulated, and we know to not believe Mark Stephens when he tells us it's daytime outside (while undercutting himself as a lawyer), let's proceed to the more serious issue at hand.

And, that is, does the background of primary accuser Anna Ardin leave the possibility, even the likelihood, that this is a false charge?

Update, Jan. 15, 2011 The Counterpunch article, referenced by FiredogLake in the link in the paragraph above, is ... problematic at least. That's because its co-author, Israel Shamir, is controversial at least. A (former) Jew who says he's a Christian and therefore not a Jew, apparently seeing that as only a religious identifier, he's at least a Holocaust minimizer if not a denier.

Here's more of a problem with the original charge, even, from a San Francisco Chronicle blog at the time Assange was originally charged:

(I)t was reported that the two women, who knew each other, came forward to Swedish Police. But the problem was they did not want to file an official report because of their so-called fears of his power.

What's fishy about that story is if the women actually knew who Julian was, thus "fearing his power," which is a joke of a claim, and knew what his controversial Wikileaks issue was about, why would they seek to file a false report of rape, especially since he up against the U.S Government?

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, not Sweden?

As for false accusations? They happen. I'm not saying they happen often, but they clearly happen. Per the headline, need I remind you of the Duke lacrosse team?

Or, maybe they DO happen kind of often.

And, as for allegations that may be made that false rape claims are inflated, that many such claims aren't false because women withdraw their charges under male pressure, etc., and that a "men's rights" movement is engaged in blowback? In the Duke lacrosse case, then-DA Mike Wilfong was generally, and apparently rightly, seen as using the case as a potential election springboard. In the link above, it seems clear, if you go to the blogger's "about" page, he has no such men's right movement connection. Wiikipedia also reminded me of Tawana Brawley, an excellent comparison here, since she was exploited by more powerful people like Revvvvvvv. Al Sharpton for their own socio-political ends.

And, per Peter Neufeld and Barry C. Scheck, prominent criminal attorneys and co-founders of the Innocence Project, about one in four rape claims referred to the FBI don't pan out. Now, does that mean all of them are deliberately false? No. Interestingly, the false allegations have a strong age bias, being most common among the young, namely 16-25.

I don't know how old Ardin is, but her photographer friend mentioned in some stories is 26.

Appearing to use "false" in the sense of willful claims, a British study puts false rape claims there at about 9 percent.

And, one more thought on this issue. In the U.S. military, about 75 percent of BOTH men and women think false rape accusations are a problem.

Finally, let's remember that no country, no matter how idealistic in general, is perfect. A list of countries that cooperated with the Bush Administration on extraordinary renditions shows that.

As this blog reminds us, Sweden was one of those countries. As well as reminding us that Sweden has motive to dislike Assange:

Ahmed Agiza was rendered from Sweden to Egypt by U.S. agents through Bromma airport. However the U.S. agents were assisted by the Swedish secret service. He was tortured in Egypt and sentenced to 25 years later reduced to 15. His lawyers sued in Sweden for damages and won. He was awarded 330,000 Euros--but is still in jail!

The Swedish government was also directly involved. The rendition was approved by Anna Lindh, who was at the time the Minister of Foreign affairs but also the Minister of Justice.

(T)hese events show that the Swedish government can give in to pressure by the U.S. first by allowing transiting flights and then by allowing and cooperating with the USA in rendering Agiza. As mentioned there is no sign that Sweden has the stomach to actually charge CIA operatives. They did not want us to know either that they had stopped the flights because of disagreement with the U.S. Only Assange revealed that.

"Goes to motive," as a prosecutor would say.

Human Rights Watch has more, including on how Sweden's government engaged in foot-dragging on making amends for this illegal rendition and taking steps to prevent it in the future.

Speaking of extraordinary rendition and the CIA's relationship with Sweden, Counterpunch's original story on Ardin's political background goes straight to Swedish motive on wanting to run Assange to ground:

The WikiLeaks founder, pursued by malevolent forces around the world, sought momentary relief beneath Sweden’s reputation as a bastion of free speech. But the moment Julian sought the protection of Swedish media law, the CIA immediately threatened to discontinue intelligence sharing with SEPO, the Swedish Secret Service. That got the present right-wing government out of its chair, as it does everything it can to bury the Prime Minister Olof Palme’s legacy of careful neutrality. The suspicion of whether the rape farce is an orchestrated campaign, might be illuminated by these facts: (1) Sweden sent troops to Afghanistan, (2) Assange’s WikiLeaks published the Afghan War Diary which exposed this cruel and needless neo-colonial campaign

So, Sweden has plenty of motive for a second prosecutor to refile charges, with pressure from the central government, after the original prosecutor dropped charges.

With all this in mind, for some feminists challenging perceived callousness of some men about whether what Assange allegedly did is rape or not, because of everything involved, this is a slender reed on which to hitch this issue. After all, Assange hasn't been formally charged of anything by Swedish authorities.

Finally, all of this is a reminder that, given previous British governments caving to both Obama and Bush pressure on various War on Terror related secrecy issues, Assange arguably has little chance at a fair extradition hearing.

Of course, as long as he stays in jail while being denied bail, that actually suits American interests just fine.

That said, despite the motives of both the Swedish government and Ms. Ardin, it's possibly Assange is guilty of some sort of sexual assault.

That then said, it's arguable he stands little chance of a fair trial in Sweden, should he be extradited there without a U.S. claim on his corpus.

UPDATE, Sept. 14, 2011: Here's another false rape claim, admitted to by the false claimant, a former New York City TV weatherwoman. Sad. And a reminder that while rape is a serious crime ... for that very reason, so is a false rape claim. Especially when driven by possible attempts to reclaim fame (this case?) for money (possibly in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case?) or for political or other motives (just barely possible in the Assange case?).


In any case, gender feminists like Stephanie Zvan need to get more honest about this.

CIA: Guilty in Italy

An Italian court has convicted 23 CIA agents and others over an illegal rendition kidnapping. The CIA response? Straight from the pages of Uncle Fester, Dick Cheney. From one of those convicted:

(Former Milan CIA station chief Robert) Lady has since retired and whose whereabouts are unknown. In the interview, he said of Abu Omar’s abduction, “Of course it was an illegal operation. But that’s our job. We’re at war against terrorism.”

I repeat, to people who make this facile claim, read, “A Man for All Seasons.” When you eliminate the rule of law for others, what protects you?

While you’re not prosecuting the CIA, Pres. Obama ...

How about telling the Spook Shack to cough up some of the three dozen people it has black-holed?

Obama fails civil liberties test No. 67

Lemme see.

FISA immunity for telcos last summer? Check.

Loopholes in his executive orders on renditions, extraordinary or “ordinary,” last month? Check.

Actively supporting past uses of extraordinary rendition AND Bush’s “aggressive” idea of state secrets, ultimately hatched in the Bizarro-world mind of Uncle Fester Cheney? Check, as of yesterday afternoon

And, this isn't just a question of Obama's Justice Department not being “up to speed” yet.

In fact, DOJ lawyer Doug Letter said BushCo positions on the state secrets claim had been, actively reviewed and vetted.

Just to make sure she understood correctly, Circuit Judge Mary M. Schroeder, a Carter appointee, asked:

“The change in administration has no bearing?”

And, Letter repeated a No response.

Read Greenwald for MUCH more on this issue.

And, waiting for all the Obamiacs to speak about how “the good is NOT the enemy of the better," etc., all I hear right now is... crickets.

Let me quote you all just one sentence from Greenwald:

It will be extremely difficult for even the most loyal Obama followers to deny that this was an active and conscious decision on the part of the Obama DOJ to embrace one of the most extreme abuses of the Bush presidency.

And, that's why I’m hearing crickets right now. Once again, it’s Change He’s Trying to Force Us to Believe In.

But, that’s not all. Let me continue the Greenwald quote:

It isn’t merely that the Obama DOJ is invoking the privilege for this particular case, which contains allegations of torture that are as brutal and severe as any. That’s bad enough. But worse is that they’re invoking the most abusive parts of the Bush theory: namely, that the privilege can be used to block the adjudication of entire cases (rather than, say, justify the concealment of specific classified documents or other pieces of evidence), and, worse still, can be used to prevent judicial scrutiny even when the alleged government conduct is blatantly illegal and, as here, a war crime of the greatest seriousness.

They’re embracing a theory that literally places government officials beyond the rule of law. No minimally honest person who criticized the Bush administration for relying on this instrument can defend the Obama administration for doing so here.

Yep, that’s Change He’s Trying to Force Us to Believe In.

Will Obama Admin defend BushCo renditions?

Given that President Barack Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, has so far not withdrawn a BushCo request that an appeals court dismiss a lawsuit against CIA air flight itinerary coordinator Jeppesen Dataplan, so far, it looks like the answer to the headline is, sadly, yes.

Both the New York Times and LA Times editorial boards have asked the new administration to change position, but to no avail.

That surely relates to the coolness of Obama to prosecuting BushCo members, or even investigating them.

UPDATE: The answer to the rhetorical question is No; Obama supports rendition AND supports Bush’s “aggressive” idea of state secrets.

And, this isn't just a question of Obama's Justice Department not being "up to speed" yet.

In fact, DOJ lawyer, Doug Letter said BushCo positions on the state secrets claim had been, actively reviewed and vetted.

Just to make sure she understood correctly, Circuit Judge Mary M. Schroeder asked:

“The change in administration has no bearing?”

And, Letter repeated a No response.

Read Greenwald for much more on this issue.

Once again, it’s Change He’s Trying to Force Us to Believe In.

And, waiting for all the Obamiacs to speak about how "the good is NOT the enemy of the better," etc., all I hear right now is... crickets.

Let me quote you all just one sentence from Greenwald:

It will be extremely difficult for even the most loyal Obama followers to deny that this was an active and conscious decision on the part of the Obama DOJ to embrace one of the most extreme abuses of the Bush presidency.

And, that's why I'm hearing crickets right now.

Renditions to continue under Obama

I already blogged about this several days ago, when Obama’s first flurry of executive orders were released, but it’s worth noting again, as the L.A. Times has
And, as the Washington Post devoted a full story to just this issue.

“Renditions” to third-party, torturing countries such as Egypt or Jordan, will continue. And, let’s remind ourselves again that the practice started with Clinton, not Shrub Bush.

That said, the Obama orders say that the CIA is supposed to not render suspects to countries that torture, but there’s probably a loophole inside that somewhere, too.

In the Obama orders, there’s another loophole, too. The CIA’s own “black sites” CAN stay open, as long as used for “short-term” detentions only. Of course, the executive order doesn’t define “short term.”

And, that might be the loophole, if it’s not closed. Bring some Jordanian “advisors” to a CIA black site rather than fly somebody to Jordan.

I’m still cautiously optimistic on Obama’s civil liberties focs on this issue, but won’t write him a blank check.

Don’t give Obama a gold star for human rights just yet

Why not? Because there’s a truck-sized loophole or two in his executive order shutting down Guantanamo and mandating the use of the Army Field Manual for interrogations, including CIA ones.

Here’s your loopholes:

Obama’s order closing Guantánamo assigns the attorney general to lead a review of what should happen to the remaining detainees and does not rule out the possibility of trying some of them using military commissions. …

One task force, with the attorney general and secretary of defense as co-chairmen, will study detainee policy and report to the president in six months. A second task force, led by the attorney general, and with the secretary of defense and director of national intelligence as vice co-chairs, will study whether the Army Field Manual should remain the only standard for interrogators and review the practice of extraordinary rendition.

In short, six months from now, Obama could:
• Let the CIA go back to “enhanced interrogation techniques”;
• Decide to continue rendering alleged terrorists to Jordan, Egypt, etc.;
• Establish a new set of military commissions, with either a lot, or a little, changed from the 2006 Military Commissions Act baseline, and therefore still not afford Geneva protections, or fully adversarial legal defense rights, to so-called Global War on Terror detainees.

It's no wonder that folks like Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, are worried.

And, a bonus question: Just what did Obama CIA nominee Leon Panetta know about extraordinary rendition (and is there such a thing as “ordinary” rendition?) from his days as Clinton chief of staff ?

Obama says he will ban waterboarding

An directive to that effect could also close CIA “black sites.” (The story doesn’t explicitly call it an “executive order,” but I assume that’s what it would be.)

Props where props are due. With the fringe benefit. Unclear if this would do anything to touch CIA renditions.

And, even if Obama naively, or for worse reasons, won’t “look backward” with a special prosecutor, this executive order could maybe be evidentiary in civil suits.

Court turns back on Maher Arar

A federal appeals court said the Canadian national was never in the U.S. when he was illegally abducted from JFK airport for illegal rendition.

Excuse me? Is JFK now the new Gitmo, magically not a U.S. possession?

Italian CIA rendition trial gets go-ahead

Rome, like BushCo, had claimed “state secrets” should prevent an Italian trial in absentia of 26 CIA agents. No dice, Italian Judge Oscar Magi has ruled.

Last June, Nagi suspended proceedings in what is the world’s first criminal case involving the U.S. “rendition” of alleged terrorists to countries, often Arab-world totalitarian ones, for torture. Nagi had said trial should wait until Italy’s highest court ruled whether prosecutors had broken state secrecy rules when building their case.

But, Nagi eventually got tired of waiting, and if nothing else than to light a fire under Italy’s top court, has waved the trial ahead. Given that Italy faces a national election April 13-14, this could be “interesting.”

‘State secrets’ kills lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary

Barring a successful appeal, we’re not going to get to hear more about extraordinary rendition or how the private sector abetted it.

Was waterboarding taping also outsourced?

With one new “war on terror” detainee claiming to have his torture videotaped, we have to wonder how many videos are out there.

And, just who all may have them.

First, the story:

The former prisoner who reported seeing cameras, Muhammad Bashmilah of Yemen, was seized by Jordanian intelligence agents in 2003 and turned over to the C.I.A., according to an investigation by Amnesty International, the human rights advocacy organization. He was flown from Jordan to Afghanistan in October 2003 and held there until April 2004, when he was flown by plane and helicopter to a C.I.A. jail in an unidentified country, Amnesty found. Mr. Bashmilah and two other Yemeni men held with him were flown to Yemen in May 2005 and later released.

Note that he was held in an unidentified country. He may have been taken back to Jordan. Maybe Egypt. Maybe one of the Eastern Europe rendition sites.

Since we know about rendition itself, here’s a possibility:

Given that Bashmilah said he was taken to "an undisclosed country" during the time he said he was taped, maybe the CIA had intelligence officials of this country officially do the taping. That would be another way of trying to keep tapes hidden from U.S. oversight.

Maybe Jordanian or Pakistani intelligence, or Egypt's, has whole libraries of torture tapes. Although Bashmilah saw a full setup, maybe yet other detainees had interrogations, ones that included torture, taped on hidden cameras.

And, as TPM Muckraker notes, there may be more tapes that are still in CIA hands.

Euros obstruct CIA rendering probe; gee, wonder why?

The European Parliament reports member nations are obstructing a probe into their parts in the
CIA rendering of alleged terror suspects.

Here’s why:

The report said Nicolo Pollari, a former head of Italy's SISMI intelligence agency, “concealed the truth” when he told European Parliament lawmakers in March that Italian agents played no part in the CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric.

On the contrary, SISMI officials played an active role in the abduction of Abu Omar, and it was “very probable” that the Italian government knew of the operation, it said.

The government of Silvio Berlusconi, in power at the time, repeatedly denied any knowledge. His successor Romano Prodi last week replaced Pollari, who faces possible indictment over the Abu Omar affair but denies any wrongdoing.

Don’t expect most European countries, whether “old” or “new” Europe, to not suddenly get more cooperative.

CIA tries to silence EU governmental outcry on renditions

And it apparently worked

Once again, Germany and apparently other European Union nations stand accused in the docket of hypocrisy on human rights issues, and once again with good reason.

The Guardian is reporting the CIA offered to let Germany see a German national imprisoned in Morocco and suspected of al Qaeda links if it would then work to silence protests at home against CIA renditions of al Qaeda suspects to third countries for torture and “torture lite” interrogation.

And — it worked.

The nut grafs:

According to a secret intelligence report, the CIA offered to let Germany have access to one of its citizens, an al-Qaida suspect being held in a Moroccan cell. But the US secret agents demanded that in return, Berlin should cooperate and "avert pressure from EU" over human rights abuses in the north African country.

After the CIA offered a deal to Germany, EU countries adopted an almost universal policy of downplaying criticism of human rights records in countries where terrorist suspects have been held. They have also sidestepped questions about secret CIA flights partly because of growing evidence of their complicity.

This shouldn’t really surprise anybody who has followed the rendition issue closely. I blogged here early this spring that Schroeder’s German government had blood on its hands over the al Masri abduction.

I wonder how much more will have to come out before the left wing of the SPD — let alone the former Communist far left — erupts.

And, see a pattern here? Tony Blair’s Labor — New Left. U.S Democrats who supported the war (and are still less critical about it, or its means) — Democratic Leadership Council, the U.S. version of the New Left. Gerhard Schroeder’s revived Social Democratic Party? New Left.

What did European governments know about CIA renditions, when did they know it, and how much did they participate?

The question is raised in my mind by a story about the Khaled El-Masri rendition, reported in the Spring 2006 issue of Civil Liberties, the official magazine of the ACLU.

El-Masri claims that he is "90 percent" certain a man who interrogated him three times in Afghanistan was a German. That and other details of the story have me wondering whether some German intelligence agency was participating more in renditions than the government knew, or maybe even if Gerhard Schroeder DID know and Berlin's official hands are a lot dirtier than it wants to say.

Update: We may soon have the answer, as Germany’s three opposition parties have forced the opening of a Reichstag investigation. The leading party in the current ruling coalition, the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, not pushing for the investigation doesn’t surprise me. But, that the Social Democrats, the party of former Chancellor (during the time of el Masri and other renditions) Gerhard Schroeder also not pushing for the investigation is a silence that speaks loudly.