NYT: U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally to Be a Jailer

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/international/01renditions.html?ei=5094&en=c27c4d556b30a6ba&hp=&ex=1114920000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=

Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.

The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."

Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner in fighting global terrorism. The nation, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, granted the United States the use of a military base for fighting the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House, and the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures.

Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.

[0007]

1. This will come back to haunt junior and his crime cabal.

[suziedemocrat]

9. When - I've been waiting 4 years for things to catch up to him!

Nothing ever happens. He gets away with (mass) murder!!!

[derby378]

2. Bush caught in yet another press conference lie

When asked Thursday about "extraordinary rendition," he said they'd investigate if any nation contracted to interrogate terrorism suspects used torture. The government still hasn't.

[Options Remain]

3. one has to wonder

if there is only one side fighting the war on terror.

TearForger

[Briar]

4. I believe you have hit the nail on the head

TearForger

[Rose Siding]

5. Bush danced around a question about this on Thurs

First he justified it, then said no one was tortured.

snip>
Q: Mr. President, can you explain why you approved of and expanded the practice-- what's called rendition-- of transferring individuals out of U.S. custody to countries where human rights groups and your own State Department say torture is common for people in custody?

BUSH: In the post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack. That was the charge we have been given.

And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured.

That's the promise we receive.

This country does not believe in torture. We do believe in protecting ourselves; we don't believe in torture. ...

BUSH: Elizabeth?

Q: As commander in chief, what is it that Uzbekistan can do in interrogating an individual that the United States can't?

BUSH: No. We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home country.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/bushtext16.html

The NYT story is sourced by half a dozen current or former intel officials, the x-detainees and flight records but Bush won't give a straight answer.


*not sure this transcript is complete- I remember a part of the question was about how this treatment might relate to Americans taken prisoner. -can't find that part here

[Zhade]

6. "No. We seek assurances..." ANSWER THE QUESTION, ASSHOLE!

"No." She didn't ask a yes/no question, you complete fucking idiot.

But I doubt it's his idocy this time. His "No" sounds more like "Don't ask me that". Arrogant sonofabitch.

I hope these guys (and gals) are held accountable one day, I really do.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. Democracy Now! ran that clip this morning...

but the website still shows Sat. broadcast.

it was something like...
"if those people are against us they need to be protected, and we do"

Okay, the wording isn't right, but that's what he meant. There was a thread here that listed all the *ushisms... hang on...

[Viva_La_Revolution]

15. Got it...

BUSH: It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way.

Thanks to the top 10 idiots list

:-)

[daleo]

7. Conservative moral relativism at work again. n/t

[salin]

8. argggggghhhhhh

another story that makes me want to pull my hair out!

I was just stating this same thing two nights ago. Moral relativism reigns supreme in the GOP.

[Cocoa]

11. Sudan too

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=775

Genocide ‘Director’ Joins CIA Jet-Set

When CIA Airlines isn’t busy ferrying U.S. detainees to torture-friendly foreign countries, it’s apparently bringing men like Sudanese Maj. Gen. Salah Abdallah Gosh – who played a “key role” in actually directing the massacres in Darfur, according to U.S. officials – to America.

Mass killings? Coordinated rape campaigns? That hasn’t stopped the Bush administration from buddying up to Gosh, the top intelligence chief in Sudan, according to the Los Angeles Times. Just last week, the CIA brought him to Washington “for secret meetings sealing Khartoum’s sensitive and previously veiled partnership with the administration.” It’s all part of a White House plan to “forge a close intelligence partnership with the Islamic regime that once welcomed Osama bin Laden,” offering Sudan increased ties and “normalized” intelligence relations in return for coordination in crackdowns on al-Qaeda militants and other suspected terrorists.

White House officials insist the new ties won’t lead to a softening of its already-weak policy toward Sudan, but an October report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service suggested just the opposite, stating the administration was “concerned that going after these individuals could disrupt cooperation on counter-terrorism.” Just this month, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick “backed away from the Bush administration’s assertions that the mass killings and village burning amounted to genocide,” despite the fact that “Darfur’s death toll is likely to be even more appalling this year than last,” according to the Washington Post.

[femme.democratique]

12. I think once Herr Bu$hitler is impeached and convicted, Uzbek Airlines...

...should come on over here, pluck his ass up and move him to an Uzbek jail. He is one of the few "humans" (cough, cough) in the world that deserves to have his fingernails plucked out and body parts boiled while fully cognizant. After all, he thinks that kind of treatment is appropriate for criminals, right?

[leftchick]

13. This guy is WORSE than saddam ever hoped to be

and bush welcomes him into the WH and asks him to torture our detainees. Talk about 'evil dictators'! Why wasn't he on the regime change list idiot freepers?

[struggle4progress]

14. kick