This is the awesomeness of Amy Goodman. (Somalia)

[EFerrari]

So, this morning Jeremy Scahill is on reporting on the CIA black site he found in Mogadishu. CIA says it's not theirs but they line up the staff and pay them every month. They also conduct joint interrogations with the staff there with prisoners who might as well all be in a well somewhere.

In any case, Amy asks Scahill, does the Red Cross visit these prisoners? Scahill laughs and says, there IS no Red Cross in Mogadishu.

So her people get the Red Cross spokesman for Somalia on the phone and Scahill reports directly to him on the air.

Okay, ICRC, you've got the ball now.

Jeremy Scahill Reveals CIA Facility, Prison in Somalia as U.S. Expands Covert Ops in Stricken Nation

In a new investigative report published by The Nation magazine, independent journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill reveals the CIA is using a secret facility in Somalia for counterterrorism as well as an underground prison in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Scahill says the CIA is training a new Somali force to conduct operations in the areas controlled by the militant group, Al Shabab, and in Mogadishu. While a U.S. official told The Nation that the CIA does not run the prison, he acknowledged the CIA pays the salaries of Somali agents.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/13/jeremy_scahill_reveals_cia_facility_prison

[RainDog]

1. k&r n/t

[Shagbark Hickory]

2. Democracy now is a great show.

[EFerrari]

3. That report was like the Marshall Mcluhan scene in "Annie Hall"

when they're arguing about his book at the theater and Woody Allen says, I've Marshall Mcluhan right here!

lol

[gratuitous]

4. My experience with ICRC

The Red Cross does not go into areas that don't have some kind of recognized government. We visited a displaced persons community in Chiapas and when some folks in our delegation got sick, we had to specially call in the Red Cross to evacuate them. The Red Cross didn't have a presence in the community because it was subject to attacks from paramilitary groups and the Mexican government did not recognize the community as an entity to be governed. Because the government didn't, couldn't or wouldn't govern the area, the Red Cross would not go in.

Somalia is probably about a zillion times worse than Nuevo Yibeljoj was. Unless there's some regular governmental presence in the area, the Red Cross won't be there.

[Shagbark Hickory]

6. Good to know. I didn not know this.

[EFerrari]

7. Scahill says it's the most horrendous thing he's ever seen.

Rotting corpses, etc. He said there's nothing there, no one. Not food distribution, nothing. Frankly, I don't want to see footage of Jeremy Scahill running around Mogadishu. It makes me really uncomfortable. If he were my kid, I'd have to kill him. lol

And the UN said yesterday that Somalia is the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

But now that the official contact has been made, at least the ICRC can take up the fact of the underground prison with our government.

[tekisui]

5. KNR! Thank you Amy!

[EFerrari]

8. CCR confirms that CIA never notified ICRC of Mogadishu black site.

@VinceWarren Vince Warren
by emptywheel
@bmaz @emptywheel, just heard that ICRC Somalia rep confirmed that they were never notified of the CIA's black site in Mogadishu @TheCCR
1 hour ago

http://twitter.com/#!/VinceWarren/status/91181963993554944

[JDPriestly]

9. We need more information about what is going on because

this appears to be all outside any sort of law. Upon first hearing and seeing, it appears possible that this sort of "taking the law into our own hands" is kind of similar to what some extremists who were very powerful in Europe some 70 years ago were doing. The names that shall not be named go unnamed. But where do you draw the line?

Legal procedure, careful compliance with international law are not to be disregarded in situations just because you are struggling against people who refuse to follow procedure or international law. It's a slippery slope.

The first real blunder -- the first time we kill the absolutely wrong person -- we will be in big trouble. And it will happen.

Even if 99.9% of these extralegal renditions, or killings are well-targeted and "justified" by some half-way satisfactory argument, sooner or later that .1% will happen.

Somalia needs to be dealt with by international agreements, not by unilateral efforts.