So we used
some airstrips in BritishLand (Diego Fucking Nowhere or some shit...) to transport prisoners singled out for torture even though they didn't want us to do that, but it's cool because it was just an administrative error, like, you know, New Orleans or something like that. As well, London's cool with it because we used "good faith" in handling our soon to be tortured prisoners. As far as they know, the blindfolded and shackled prisoners (who could possibly be innocent and turned in by Afghani or Iraqi soldiers working with militants - as is often the case - see
Taxi to the Dark Side ) did not have cattle prods waved near their genitals or water shoved down their throat during the refueling, which is important for English sensibilities. So it's just America being America and that's cool. I mean, it was better that America do all the torture-shit without any British involvement, but you know, protocol in the end has been reestablished, and that's what counts.
Charles Krauthammer meanwhile
is on the crack with his idea that the Iraq progress (less suicide bombings - more meetings between rich sheiks and vigilante forces that don't appear to be actively ethnically cleansing anymore now that the neighborhoods have been vetted in Baghdad) could transform the entire Mideast. Because you know, they totally trust us now looking at what's going on there. They trust us in Africa too! So much that the Chinese are going around and
cleaning up on the economic future basically by claiming "hey! We're not American."
It used to be the freako-conservatives who haven't been prescient since they didn't like Stalin and even then they were totally cool with staying out of Hitler's way - used to plead with the American public that the economy was good and their homes were worth a lot of money (!!!$$$!!!) but now with the economy drenched in the urine of excess, we are told, hey, at least we're winning the war in Iraq. I mean, in the sense that they are not killing each other or us so much anymore. Though asking them or us what it all means is kind of like asking Bill Clinton to define "is".
Anyway, what follows is the very funny and depressing article from CNN - I read this at a breakfast counter and clapped once (the "administrative error" part) - it's small and means nothing, except that in its bureaucratic ass-headedness in talking about the mechanics of American methods of interrogation and torture it reveals the absolute bungle of American policy during the last seven plus years now. :
LONDON, England (CNN) -- British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday that British territory was used to transport two suspects in the CIA's rendition program.
David Miliband said two suspects in the CIA rendition program were transported via British soil.
The British government previously had said it played no part in the program. The foreign secretary said Thursday's revelations were the result of "new information" the United States gave to Britain last Friday.
The U.S. State Department said it regretted Britain was given wrong information and called it "an administrative error."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "We express regret that we initially provided inaccurate information to a good friend and ally."
Miliband told the House of Commons that two flights, each carrying a U.S. detainee, refueled in 2002 in Diego Garcia, a British territory in the Indian Ocean.
Miliband said the U.S. government had assured Britain that no U.S. detainees were ever held on Diego Garcia.
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He said the planes only refueled at the U.S. facility on the island, and the detainees never left the plane.
He said a U.S. investigation showed no record of any other rendition through Diego Garcia or any other UK territory since then.
Then-Prime Minister Tony Blair assured the government's Intelligence and Security Committee last March that the United States had never rendered any detainees through the UK or its overseas territories since Sept. 11, 2001. The committee released a report last June saying it was satisfied with the findings.
Miliband said the government had a "deep disappointment" about the late news of the rendition flights, but he said Britain believed the United States acted "in good faith" when it made the initial assurances that no flights had taken place.
"Secretary Rice has underlined to me the firm U.S. understanding that there will be no rendition through the UK, UK airspace or overseas territories without express British government permission," he said.
Mike Gapes, chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, was less forgiving about the late information. His committee published its annual report on human rights last April in which it already expressed concerns about rendition.
"The fact that the United States Bush Administration has clearly misled or lied to our government has resulted in our government inadvertently misleading a select committee of this house and members of this house," Gapes said. "The United States administration has to bear in mind that this is a most serious matter and we do not wish to see it repeated."
CNN obtained a copy of a message CIA Director Mike Hayden sent to CIA employees in which he said the information surfaced late last year when the agency "took a fresh look" at records of rendition flights. He said it was important to take responsibility for the error.
"Given our mission, CIA could have no interest in a process destined to produce bad intelligence," he wrote.
In his message, Hayden says speculation about a CIA holding facility on Diego Garcia -- and allegations that the detainees are transported for the purpose of torture -- are "false."
"Torture is against our laws and our values," Hayden wrote.
The European Parliament and human rights groups have condemned the CIA's practice of rendition, in which the United States moved a suspected terrorist in CIA custody from one country to another.
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Critics claim the suspects are turned over to foreign intelligence services who use harsher interrogation methods, including torture.
As for the two detainees transported through Diego Garcia, Miliband said neither was a British national or resident. One is currently being held at Guantanamo Bay and the other has been released, he said.
Though a tip o' the cap to da Huskies...
