The Washington Post has some alarming revelations about the U.S. torture network:
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
They hate us for our…um…freedoms.
Why is there no outrage that the Washington Post has “outed” secret CIA facilities, thereby endangering the lives of the undercover CIA employees working there?
Because the CIA authorized the release of the information, asking only that the Post withhold the names of the countries in which these facilities are located. You’d learn that if you read the article.
Are you alarmed that we have these facilities or that someone didn’t keep the secret?
Thanks — I did see that when I brought my copy in off the driveway this morning. What was also evident is that officials in the CIA and other agencies took the concessions they could get.
Do you seiously think the Post would have printed nothing about this if the CIA didn’t give them so-called authorization?
I have no idea. On the one hand, the Pentagon Papers. On the other hand, everything that they don’t print.
I Publius,
Even if the CIA hadn’t authorized this, how does revealing the fact that we are running secret torture facilities jeapordize national security? Giving names of clandestine agents involved or the identities of specific people being held there certainly could. But revealing the fact of their existence is only a political threat to the President who authorized them and the criminals who helped him to implement it. The mere fact that you are attempting to pursue an argument stating that the problem with running secret torture camps outside of the rule of law is talking about them and not running them suggests that you are a sick, un-America individual who has a good bit in common with Stalinists at the moment. Certainly I hope that this is not the case and I have somehow misunderstood you.
Everyone involved in this belongs in prison. Including the President. There is absolutely no excuse for any government running torture camps. Republicans tell me that this kind of behavior justified overthrowing Saddam. Fair enough. I think it’s time to put Bush in his own spider hole, using the impeachment process. Exactly how many sick, un-American criminal acts are we supposed to believe happened without the knowledge or consent of the President? If George W. Bush is not capable of managing and overseeing his own administration, then how can he be considered competant for office?