The only news is that this is news to the mainstream media.

International Committe of the Red Cross – “Black Letter Abuse: The US Legal Response to Torture Since 9/11” – 30 Sep 07:

The use of torture by the US armed forces and the CIA was not limited to ‘‘a few bad apples’’ at Abu Ghraib but encompassed a broader range of practices, including rendition to third countries and secret ‘‘black sites’’, that the US administration deemed permissible under US and international law. This article explores the various legal avenues pursued by the administration to justify and maintain its coercive interrogation programme, and the response by Congress and the courts. Much of the public debate concerned defining and redefining torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. While US laws defining torture have moved closer to international standards, they have also effectively shut out those seeking redress for mistreatment from bringing their cases before the courts and protect those responsible from prosecution.

The ICRC posted their full 30-page report at that same time [.pdf], so the only surprise should be that this comes as a surprise. Contrary to the Newspeak, The Washington Post did not “break” this story on a “long-concealed 2007 document” yesterday. I read the damn thing a year and a half ago. The only things ‘concealed’ from the general report were detailed interviews with detainees, but this isn’t the first time the ICRC has identified CIA treatment of detainees in “black sites” as “torture”.

I just re-read the full report. Part I is titled “Introduction: Revelations of Torture”. Part IV is titled, “Blocking Redress for Torture”, but this is news now?

Did everyone miss these excerpts in 2007?:

US military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel committed torture and other forms of coercive interrogation at the detention centres at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, various detention facilities and forward operating bases in Iraq,and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Prisoners were subjected to long-term sleep deprivation, extremes of heat and cold, painful stress positions, beatings, forced nakedness and other degrading treatment, indefinite solitary confinement, and other abusive interrogation methods….

And those were just the methods used at the known detention centres. Only the barest information has emerged about torture by the CIA in secret prisons – so-called ‘‘black sites’’ – outside the United States. (2)

This was the first public articulation of a policy in which those held by the United States in the ‘‘global war on terror’’ would not formally be entitled to legal protections – but only protected as a matter of policy. And the directive purposely excluded mention of the CIA. The administration was opening the door to redefining the reach of US and international law to permit abusive practices. (11)

The very nature of these US renditions is such that their number is not — and probably cannot be — known. Several cases of alleged rendition to torture have been widely reported, most notably those of Maher Arar, a Syrian-Canadian national who was picked up by US authorities while in transit in 2002 and sent to Syria, where he was brutally treated for nearly a year, and Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, who alleged being picked up in Macedonia in 2003 and sent to a CIA detention facility in Afghanistan, where he was mistreated. (15)

In an apparent refutation of the Bybee memo, the Justice Department in December 2004 declared torture to be ‘‘abhorrent’’. Yet, as the New York Times reported in October 2007, incoming Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in February 2005 approved a secret Justice Department legal opinion on ‘‘combined effects’’ providing the CIA with ‘‘explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including headslapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures’’. (17)

In a second highly publicized case, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, claimed that he was seized in Macedonia in December 2003 and eventually transferred to a CIA-run detention facility in Afghanistan where he was beaten and held incommunicado for several months. (23)

This latter definition of ‘‘cruel and inhuman treatment’’ effectively accepts the administration’s contention that ‘‘enhanced interrogation techniques’’ used by the CIA against suspected Al Qaeda members, such as exposure to heat and cold, stress positions, and even waterboarding, were never prohibited. That is, they were not cruel and inhuman because they did not cause ‘‘prolonged suffering’’….

It was not until 20 July 2007 that President Bush issued an executive order construing the meaning of Common Article 3 with respect to the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme. While reiterating the ban on torture and cruel and inhuman treatment as provided under US law, the executive order essentially permits the CIA to restart its interrogation of persons held in secret, incommunicado detention. Specific directives on permissible interrogation methods remain classified. Thus the determination of whether certain techniques such as waterboarding are allowed cannot be determined from the executive order, and so long as there is no independent oversight of persons held at so-called ‘‘black sites’’, there can be no real way to judge how the CIA is defining torture and mistreatment. (27)

Since 9/11, the use of torture and other coercive interrogation methods by the US government has played out at two levels. The first is the actual terrible practice — the stress positions, the exposure to freezing temperatures, the sleep deprivation, the mock drowning.…

This three-way ping-pong match between the branches of the US government shows no signs of ending. Remedies for those abused in Guantanamo or Afghanistan or rendered to torture abroad seem no closer. As long as the debate about torture continues in the federal courtrooms and halls of Congress and from the president’s desk, one cannot be confident that the practice of torture by the US government does not continue as well. Torture should not be debated. (30)

From the ICRC’s report just a couple of weeks ago – 24 Feb 09:

Persons detained on suspicion of having committed a crime, within or outside the context of an armed conflict, can be prosecuted. In particular, those suspected of having committed war crimes or other serious violations of international humanitarian law should be held accountable for their actions. All persons put on trial must be afforded essential judicial guarantees necessary to a fair trial, including the presumption of innocence, the right to be tried by an impartial and independent tribunal, the right to qualified legal counsel and the exclusion of any evidence obtained through torture or any other form of ill-treatment….

The ICRC has repeatedly expressed its concern about persons secretly detained and has requested access to them. It welcomes the decision by the US government to notify it of all detainees held by the United States in any armed conflict and to provide it with timely access to them. The ICRC firmly believes that no matter how legitimate the grounds for detaining someone, there exists no right to conceal the person’s whereabouts. The ICRC believes that any type of secret detention is contrary to a range of different international law provisions.

The only news is that Mark Danner is writing about it in the 9 Apr edition of the New York Review of Books.

Aviones de la fuerza aérea israelí bombardearon túneles usados por Hamas para el contrabando de armas bajo la frontera con Egipto, y una base de entrenamiento de Hamas, en represalia por el disparo ésta mañana de un cohete Grad contra el centro de la ciudad de Ashkelon.
El Ministro de Defensa israelí Ehud Barak dijo que Hamas estaba interesado en el retorno de la calma, pero el disparo de éste Martes era un hecho que no podrá ser ignorado. Poco tiempo después, llegaron los ataques aéreos.
Habitantes de la ciudad de Rafah dijeron haber recibido llamadas de advertencia de la fuerza aérea israelí, aprontándolos a abandonar sus hogares antes del nuevo ataque.
Mientras continúan en El Cairo los esfuerzos por lograr un acuerdo para un cese de fuego prolongado entre israel y Hamas, un portavoz de Hamas, Mushir el Masri, dice que si Israel se compromete a la tranquilidad y reabre los cruces fronterizos, los palestinos se comprometerán a un cese de fuego total.
Por su parte, el jefe de la oposición y candidato preferencial al cargo de Primer Ministro –según todos los estudios de opinión pública- Benyamin Netanyahu dice que el gobierno que él forme aplastará a Hamas. Netanyahu habló en Ashkelon, ciudad que visitó pocas horas después del impacto del misil palestino ésta mañana.
Los censos de opinión otorgan también alrededor de un 14 por ciento de la intensión de voto para el líder del partido de extrema derecha Israel Beiteinu, Avigdor Liberman, tildado por muchos de sus opositores de racista.
A una semana de las elecciones el bloque de centro y derecha pareciera superar al bloque de centro izquierda, pero Netanyahu dice que tratará de formar un gobierno de unidad nacional.

Es geht um „extraordinary rendition“ – um Verschleppungen von angeblichen Terroristen, veranlasst durch die USA. Auch, wenn der Film hier eher schlecht abschneidet, so trifft das Thema doch einen Nerv. Die U.S.-amerikanische Regierung hat Tendenzen, sich als globaler Diktator aufzuspielen.
Die Betroffenen, wie z.B. Khaled El Masri, bleiben letztlich machtlos. Amerikanische Gerichte verweigern ein ordnungsgemäßes Verfahren, weil ansonsten die Sicherheit der USA bedroht sein könnte.

Es muss einfach der Eindruck entstehen, dass uns die Regierung der USA einige Lügen verkaufen will:

Bezeichnend dazu das Thema “waterboarding“.
Im Juni 2003 soll Bush noch gesagt haben (amnesty.ch):
«Die Vereinigten Staaten sind der weltweiten Abschaffung der Folter verpflichtet, und wir gehen in diesem Kampf mit gutem Beispiel voran.»

Doch spätestens seit März diesen Jahres ist es deutlich:
Bush will weiterhin foltern lassen (netzeitung.de).

Die Lügen der U.S.-Regierung sind zahlreich.
Ein kostenlos anzuschauender Film im Internet (Leading To War) stellt uns die Entwicklung zum Irak-Krieg dar.

Wir sehen es. Mancher hat schon auf der Straße demonstriert.
Und doch bleibt das Empfinden von “Machtlos”.

Wenn meine Hoffnung nicht auf Jesus Christus gerichtet wäre, müsste man verzweifeln.

Khalid El-Masri mistaken for a terrorism suspect with ties to the Hamburg Germany Al-Quaeda cell with the last name of Al-Masri; was supposedly abducted, extradited and tortured with the hopes of a confession coming forth. El-Masri was traveling to Macedonia from Germany when he was allegedly abducted against his will by CIA operatives.

The Lebanese born man became a German citizen in 1992 (around the same time Bill Clinton was enacting the “extraordinary rendition” clause giving the CIA authority in this manner) With the events of 9/11, the rendition clause was expanded by the current administration and has allegedly been used to detain 150 terror suspects in various locations across the world. The Bush administration has vehemently denied “extraordinary rendition” is currently being used. Condoleeza Rice has insisted that the US does not transfer people to places where they know they will be tortured and points out that this is in direct conflict with international law.

What international Law says about the rendition policy:

It is clearly prohibited by the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States in 1992, and by congressionally enacted policy giving effect to CAT. As Congress made clear, it is the policy of the United States not to: expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether the person is physically present in the United States.

Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998,
(“FARRA”), Pub. L. No. 105-277, § 2242, 112 Stat. 2681 (Oct. 21, 1998),
reprinted in 8 U.S.C. § 1231, Historical and Statutory Notes (1999) (emphasis added).

Congress has recently reaffirmed this policy, providing in an amendment to the
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for the Iraq War and Tsunami Relief, 2005 (P.L. 109-13) that it will not authorize the funding of any program that “subject[s]
any person in the custody or under the physical control of the United States to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment that is prohibited by the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” P.L. 109-13, § 1031 (2005). The President, too, has confirmed that it is the policy and practice of the United States neither to use torture nor to hand over detainees to countries that use torture.

Although the administration has denied these claims, Khalid El-Masri is sticking to his story. He alleges he was detained and taken (against his will according to his testimony) first to a hotel and then to a remote location in Afghanistan where he says he was beaten, tortured, kept in deplorable conditions, drugged, and raped while CIA coverts tried to force a confession from him. The confession constituted involvement with Al-Queada and the Hamburg cell of the terror entity. He claims he was held for 3 months until the CIA realized it’s mistake.

After realizing the case of mistaken identity, El Masri was allegedly held for an additional two months during which time he participated in a hunger strike with other detainees to protest their alleged false imprisonment. After coming close to death twice from lack of nourishment, El-Masri was allegedly taken by a CIA black team, dropped in the woods of neighboring Albania and left there. Albanian guards found him and suspected him of being a terrorist because of his unkempt appearance. Eventually El-Masri was re-united with his wife and family in Lebanon who believed him to be dead.

The ACLU brought El-Masri back to the United States to prosecute former CIA Tenet for overseeing this and several other cases of false imprisonment and extradition to foreign locations where supposedly they were the victims of torture in which no laws protected them.

This video clip shows the ACLU counsel introducing El-Masri and outlining their case.

http://stream.luxmedia501.com/?file=/clients/aclu/rendition/Masri_112806.wmv&type=wmv

Since bringing the case the ACLU has lost several rounds in the courts and this month (Oct. 2007) has been denied a hearing by the supreme court as well.

In addition to this, since returning to Germany El-Masri has been in trouble TWICE with the law. He was charged with Arson as well as disorderly conduct charges by the German polizei.

Is this a man that was wronged? Has he suffered great mental anguish after supposedly being tortured and imprisoned abroad and is now finding it difficult to re-integrate into the society he was once a part of?

or is this further evidence that El-Masri is not the savory family man the ACLU wishes you to believe he is?

If this is such a water-tight case, why is it not being heard?

Why has nearly every court dismissed, disallowed and the defense disproved the allegations?

Time will tell but until then it is a case to be allowed much thought, probing and delicate pandering among German and American nationals.

-GRM