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This blog is the work of an educated civilian, not of an expert in the fields discussed.

Friday, December 29, 2006

Ghost Plane



[I wrote a brief version of this first on the Slate fray. A book entitled Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights will be discussed on C-SPAN in a few days.]
A Mexican citizen was kidnapped in Mexico and charged with a crime committed in Mexico; his offense allegedly violated both Mexican and American law. [He was found not guilty.] Mexico has formally demanded on at least two separate occasions that he be returned to Mexico and has represented that he will be prosecuted and punished for his alleged offense. It is clear that Mexico's demand must be honored if this official abduction violated the 1978 Extradition Treaty between the United States and Mexico. ... It is shocking that a party to an extradition treaty might believe that it has secretly reserved the right to make seizures of citizens in the other party's territory

-- Justice Stevens (with Blackmun and O'Connor), U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain (dissenting opinion)

This was a type of "rendition," bringing back people into custody, traditionally to convict them of some crime. It was not always done following local laws, which made it (legally speaking) kidnapping. [Stevens noted that when governmental officials did this, even when objects were involved, it was traditionally deemed sort of like an exclusionary rule -- not to be used in court.] When the CIA got involved with rendering alleged Islamic terrorists in the 1990s, this general philosophy continued. The people were not usually brought back here, mind you, but they still were wanted in the country where they were "rendered."

A problem tended to be that said countries were likely to torture them, which by the late 1990s made it problematic under our domestic law to send people -- even convicted terrorists -- to such places. Our policy was basically to look the other way. After all, they promised us that they would not torture or mistreat them, right? It was deemed a sort of last resort, since there was no big push domestically to handle the problem in some other way, including use of force. The program was greatly expanded after 9/11, not just numerically, but in that now it was also used for interrogation. This greatly expanded the problem of error and controversy.
Stephen Grey's new book, Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program, is part expose, part analytic essay, and part detective story. By speaking to dozens of sources -- including former and current CIA operatives, prosecutors, pilots, diplomats, lawyers, journalists, plane-spotters and prisoners -- and by poring over countless flight records, Justice Department memos, and other documents, Grey has managed to piece together a vivid history of the CIA's secret program of interrogation, detention and torture.

-- beginning of Joanne Mariner's review

As Mariner notes: "Rather than follow the law, they rewrote it." We "rendered" prisons to places we knew would torture them. Broke local laws in various cases, even if certain authorities looked the other way. And, other than ignoring our own values (at least the ones warranting respect), it all quite likely often was counterproductive. The information was of questionable value, especially given that we did not directly control its collection, and overall, inhumanity promotes blowback.

As with all good books, there were various interesting tidbits. One respected the use of music as a torture device, something that some fraysters seemed to think was a trivial claim when we had our torture discussions. One victim notes:
The noises [at "Music Prison"] were so horrible and loud that I used to stick anything -- toilet paper if I had some, or parts of the one blanket I got -- in my ears just to minimize the sound. Others tried to do this, but I know at least one who got perforated eardrums from all the noise.

It served its purpose, if said purpose was for the inmate to agree to anything to stop being inflicted with such psychological torture. Yes, though there were physical effects (including to hearing, obviously), the core function here was psychological. Though the recent debate on transsexuals suggests a limited physical mind-set among some, humans are thinking creatures too. The way to break them often is through the mind.*

My one complaint was editorial -- it seemed a bit abruptly put together at some points, perhaps a result of a print reporter putting various stories together into book form. Still, I recommend the book ... it's in the library (my copy came from that lovely resource), so you don't have to buy it or anything

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* Not just for the immediate victims. Our own "disappeared" calls to mind those families who still wonder what happened to those lost in Vietnam. Those taken without notice in the "war on terror" also have families. In reply to someone who does not trust first person testimony of this sort, it is an interesting Catch22 -- take people outside the legal system for the purposes of deniability, yes, you might be able to deny reality. Those on the ground, including the CIA, know better though.