Paranoid Fantasy Made Real : Secret CIA Prison Network

[Triskadecamus]

I guess good and evil have become just teams. Ethics don’t even exist.

I was once proud to be an American, but if you don’t think we are in this war because a lot of people want to kick some towelhead ass, you are living in a dream world.

The attack on 9/11 worked perfectly. We took over, and are engaged in a religious war, without all those troubling restrictions of a religion. There are no friendlies, kill 'em all.

No one kills more children than we do.

No one imprisons more people than we do.

No one bombs other countries more than we do.

We’re number one!

Tris

[elucidator]

@Triskadecamus

…, and are engaged in a religious war…

Therein the problem: we aren’t, but every dumb move we make gives our enemies talking points. Like that idiot general who gave an anti-Islam speech at a church in full uniform! Can’t believe that moron worked in intelligence!

Our enemies sincerely believe that we are at war with Allah! And even if they are only cynicly exploiting that belief, the morons they are recruiting believe it! And every ham fisted move we make just fuels the fire.

Damn, but we’re dumb!

[Excalibre]

@elucidator

And every ham fisted move we make just fuels the fire.

Damn, but we’re dumb!

It’s something I don’t understand at all. Even from a strictly pragmatic viewpoint, it makes no sense to do these things that inflame the hatred of the Middle East. There aren’t enough prisons in the world to hold every Muslim out there and it does not behoove us to do our best to make sure every one of them becomes a terrorist. But folks like Larry Borgia seem to resent even the notion of pragmatically fighting our actual enemies in a rational way - the gist of his argument has been that, since our enemy is out to get us, we are obligated to act in a morally bankrupt manner. I guess acting morally - even though it’s in our interests to do so - would make us pussies or something.

[Sevastopol]

Secret prisons, rendition and torture don’t have a stragetic purpose. It’s a folly to measure them to that standard. Instead they are ends in themselves.

While we are all high-minded and principled in discussion here, in the world of making things happen the politician who projects the national psyche is a sucessful politician.

The author of these things has read the US mood and from airy nothingness has given it a local habitation and a name.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

Sevastopol, that is the most depressing thing I’ve read today. Not least because you’re spot on.

[Der_Trihs]

UPDATE :

GOP demands probe in secret prisons leak

Congress’s top Republican leaders yesterday demanded an immediate joint House and Senate investigation into the disclosure of classified information to The Washington Post that detailed a web of secret prisons being used to house and interrogate terrorism suspects.

The Post’s article, published on Nov. 2, has led to new questions about the treatment of detainees and the CIA’s use of “black sites” in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. The issue dogged President Bush in his recent trip to Latin America and has created consternation in Eastern Europe.

“If accurate, such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks,” Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) wrote in a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Notice they have no problem with “disappearing” people and holding them in secret, just in letting anyone know.

Lawmakers from both parties immediately expressed misgivings about the request. Democrats pounced on it, suggesting that if the GOP leaders believe the disclosure of information on secret prisons deserves to be investigated, so does the leak of inaccurate intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and White House officials identifying Plame as a covert CIA operative.

Smell the hypocrisy. Endangering our agents/operatives is no big deal, but revealing wrongdoing - that’s not allowed.

[SteveG1]

@Der Trihs

UPDATE :
Smell the hypocrisy. Endangering our agents/operatives is no big deal, but revealing wrongdoing - that’s not allowed.

Calling it hypocrisy, is a serious understatement.

[tagos]

If we can’t deny people their rights and torture them in a network of secret prisons the terrorists have already won. No wait, I mean, ‘if we CAN’. :smack: