screams, "Rookie!"
Globalizing Torture: Ahead of Brennan Hearing, International Complicity in CIA Rendition Exposed
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/7/globalizing_torture_ahead_of_brennan_hearing#transcript
MARGARET WARNER: So, was Secretary Rice correct today when she called it a vital tool in combating terrorism?
JOHN BRENNAN: I think it’s an absolutely vital tool. I have been intimately familiar now over the past decade with the cases of rendition that the U.S. government has been involved in, and I can say without a doubt that it has been very successful as far as producing intelligence that has saved lives.
MARGARET WARNER: So is it—are you saying, both—in two ways, both in getting terrorists off the streets and also in the interrogation?
JOHN BRENNAN: Yes. The rendition is the practice or the process of rendering somebody from one place to another place. It is moving them. And U.S. government will frequently facilitate that movement from a country to another.
MARGARET WARNER: Why would you not, if this—if you have a suspect who’s a danger to the United States, keep it—keep him in the United States’ custody? Is it because we want another country to do the dirty work?
JOHN BRENNAN: No, I don’t think that’s it at all. Also, I think it’s rather arrogant to think that we’re the only country that respects human rights. I think that we have a lot of assurances from these countries that we hand over terrorists to that they will in fact respect human rights. And there are different ways to gain those assurances. But also, let’s say an individual goes to Egypt, because they’re an Egyptian citizen. And Egyptians then have a longer history in terms of dealing with them, and they have family members and others that they can bring in, in fact, to be part of the whole interrogation process.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was John Brennan speaking to PBS’s Margaret Warner in 2005.
AMY GOODMAN: The report is called "Globalizing Torture." It also identifies 54 foreign governments that aided the United States in these operations. The countries include Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen and Zimbabwe.
One country that’s not listed is India, but the report is making headlines there, too, because, for more, we’re joined now by the report’s author, Amrit Singh. She’s senior legal officer at the National Security and Counterterrorism program at the Open Society Justice Initiative. The full name of her new report is "Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition." She’s co-author with Jameel Jaffer of the book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond_. And interestingly, the new torture report has become news in India. The human-rights-secret-detention-amrit-singh">headline in The Times of India reads, quote: "Prime Minister’s Daughter Blows Whistle on 54 Nations that Helped U.S. Detention Programme." Another website headline, their story: "PM’s Daughter Takes on CIA over Torture." That’s right, our guest, Amrit Singh, is the daughter of India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh.
Amrit Singh, welcome to Democracy Now!
AMRIT SINGH: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about John Brennan first. He goes to Capitol Hill today for his confirmation hearing. You wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times. What do you think he should be asked? What do you think of the nomination of John Brennan to be head of the CIA?
AMRIT SINGH: Well, I think John Brennan should be asked what he meant when he said that he was intimately familiar with cases of rendition and that rendition is an absolutely vital tool in combating terrorism, because by the time Brennan made that statement in December of 2005, a number of people had been rendered to foreign governments where they were tortured. By December of 2005, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery had been rendered to Egypt and subjected to electric shock. By December of 2005, Maher Arar, a Canadian national, had been rendered to Syria and subjected to being locked up in a tiny grave-like cell and beaten with cables. By December 2005, a number of other individuals, including Khalid El-Masri, had been rendered. Khalid El-Masri was captured and kidnapped in Macedonia and transferred to Afghanistan and abused. A recent court decision by the European Court of Human Rights found that Khalid El-Masri’s treatment by the CIA amounted to torture. So I think that John Brennan has a lot of explaining to do as to what exactly he meant.
Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/globalizing-torture-cia-secret-detention-and-extraordinary-rendition
Nice guy you're pimpin' there. Fully-capable of putting aside his personal convictions to get down to the business of torture and assassination.
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or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
Seems to go over well with the Fox crowd ...
