Once again when the US Govt Does something wrong...

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.

Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?' "

It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.

Kidnapping, isolation, and torture = freedom

I'm just gonna be over here reading my Orwell....

An incendiary device, white phosphorus is also used to light up combat areas. The use of incendiary weapons against civilians has been banned by the Geneva Convention since 1980.

The United States did not sign the relevant protocol to the convention, a U.N. official in New York said.

B-but didn't we take out Saddam cause he had torture and rape rooms and used chemical weapons? Me is so confused.

GOD bless America.

I am sorry, God never blasted civilians with white phosphorus

wtf are you smoking to read that and come up with that comment?

I think "may God have mercy on our souls for allowing this cruelty" would be far more appropriate

I'm not going to stop loving this country because a couple of SL subversives

So again, I say, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

For all of the United States' mistakes, its still the best country in the world. I'm not going to stop loving this country because a couple of SL subversives post articles about things they know nothing about that happened in a place they've never visited.

So again, I say, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

The paper did not name the countries involved, but Human Rights Watch said Thursday it had evidence indicating the CIA had transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania.

The conclusion was based on an analysis of flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004 obtained by the group, said Mark Garlasco, a senior military analyst with the organization

...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sidestepped questions on the issue Tuesday, saying the United States was in a "different kind of war" and had an obligation to defend itself.

Don't make me increase the font size in my sig.

The spokesman referred reporters to an article in the March-April 2005 edition of the Army's Field Artillery magazine, an official publication, in which veterans of the Fallujah fight spelled out their use of white phosphorous and other weapons. The authors used the shorthand "WP" in referring to white phosphorous.

"WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition," the authors wrote. "We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE (high explosive)" munitions.

"We fired `shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."

The State Department, in response, initially denied that U.S. troops had used white phosphorous against enemy forces. "They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters."

The department later said its statement had been incorrect.

"There is a great deal of misinformation feeding on itself about U.S. forces allegedly using `outlawed' weapons in Fallujah," the department said. "The facts are that U.S. forces are not using any illegal weapons in Fallujah or anywhere else in Iraq."

Venable said white phosphorous shells are a standard weapon used by field artillery units and are not banned by any international weapons convention to which the U.S. is a signatory.

An incendiary device, white phosphorus is also used to light up combat areas. The use of incendiary weapons against civilians has been banned by the Geneva Convention since 1980.

The United States did not sign the relevant protocol to the convention, a U.N. official in New York said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501210_pf.html

but didn't they deny using "WP?"

which brings us full circle to my last post on "WP"

For all of the United States' mistakes, its still the best country in the world. I'm not going to stop loving this country because a couple of SL subversives post articles about things they know nothing about that happened in a place they've never visited.

So again, I say, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

You should never stop loving your country.

But loving your country isn't the same as blindly accepting what our gov't tells us.

And you really need to open your eyes. There are far, far more people that a "couple" of SL forumites beating the Bush is incompetent drum.

Neocons try to paint people who don't agree with their world view as being unpatriotic. That's a tried and true tactic. But we aren't biting.

As citizens it is our right and our duty to to be critical of our gov't.

It doesn't mean we don't love our country.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

I LOVE this country. I DESPISE this present administration. See how that works?

Samuel Johnson Quote

For all of the United States' mistakes, its still the best country in the world. I'm not going to stop loving this country because a couple of SL subversives post articles about things they know nothing about that happened in a place they've never visited.

So again, I say, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

Every day, before I go to sleep, I count my lucky stars that I do not live in the US of A.

It's horrible having a jackass in the whitehouse. It's even worse when the jackass has evil minions by his side.

Every day, before I go to sleep, I count my lucky stars that I do not live in the US of A.