They'll NEVER be able to travel to, or invest in, Europe again.  -- A quote...."An Italian court on Wednesday upped the sentences for 23 CIA agents convicted in absentia of abducting an Egyptian imam in one of the biggest cases against the US “extraordinary rendition” program. -- The 23 CIA agents, originally sentenced in November 2009 to five to eight years in prison, had their sentences increased to seven to nine years on appeal in what one of the defense lawyers described as a “shocking blow” for the US." - posted 11-16-10

A quote...."ROME—An Italian prosecutor has asked for a stiffer sentence for a CIA station chief convicted in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan. - Twenty-three Americans, including Robert Seldon Lady, then a CIA station chief in Milan, and two Italians were convicted in November for the kidnapping. It was the first conviction anywhere in the world involving the CIA's extraordinary renditions program. All Americans were tried in absentia." - also posted at SFGate & YahooNews - posted 10-28-10

A quote...."Spanish prosecutors are asking a judge to issue arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents who they believe were involved in the spy agency’s 2004 “extraordinary rendition” of a German citizen, according to Spain's El Pais newspaper." - posted 05-13-10

A quote...."Lithuanian prosecutors should launch an investigation into secret CIA prisons on the country's territory without the parliamentary approval, the country's president has said. -- "They [prosecutors] were recommended to investigate possible abuse of office," Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite told the country's parliament on Wednesday." -- also posted at InfoWarsIreland -- posted 01-14-09

A quote...."The parliamentary enquiry into the CIA’s activities in Lithuania commenced its investigations following a US media report in August revealing that the agency had organised a secret facility near the capital of Vilnius. It now emerges that at least two sites were established on Lithuania soil—the first of which was already operational in 2002. This admission by Lithuania parliamentarians is the first official confirmation by a European country that it housed such CIA detention centres." -- posted 12-30-09

A quote...."....the facts unearthed by the Lithuanian media prior to the parliamentary inquiry were quite serious. It appears that at least two secret jails concealed from the public and the human rights watchers were illegally operated in Lithuania in 2002-2005 by the CIA. -- One of the jails was sited in Rudnikai and disguised as a part of a special training center of the Public Security Service of the Ministry of Interior, the other - in Antaviliai, a village where residences are owned by influential politicians and businessmen. The distances between Vilnius and the jails were 40 and 20 km respectively, and the CIA operatives together with their Lithuanian partners mainly used the Antaviliai center, evidently to save time on commuting. The site used to be a riding complex which its former owners were - under pressure from the authorities - forced to sell to ELITE-LLC, a company created by the CIA with the help of its residents in Panama (Start Finance Group and INK Holding)." -- posted 12-30-09

A quote...."The Lithuanian Parliament released its findings into a probe of CIA activities in the nation today, confirming that the American spy agency in fact operated two “black sites” inside the Lithuanian capital city of Vilnius." -- posted 12-22-09

A quote...."The CIA used at least two secret detention centres in Lithuania after the 11 September 2001 terror attacks on the US, a Lithuanian inquiry has found." -- posted 12-22-09

A quote...."Lithuania's intelligence chief has resigned after news leaked out that the CIA operated a secret prison in the country between 2004 and 2005." -- posted 12-16-09

A quote...."A Lithuanian government investigation has confirmed an exclusive ABC News report that the CIA operated a secret black site prison in the country, according to a report on Lithuanian television. CIA Lithuania Prison -- According to Lithuania's LNK TV, sources have told investigators that state security was involved in coordinating the construction of the prison, and have also provided the code name of the operation to transport terror detainees to the prison. Arydas Anusauskas, head of the parliamentary committee investigating the prison, did not respond to an ABC News request for comment, but has previously said the results of the probe will be made public Dec. 22." -- also posted at AftrDwngSt -- posted 11-30-09

Contains Video - A quote...."Nov. 18, 2009 "ABC News" -- The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week." - also posted at AlethoNews -- Sometimes you gotta wonder about Brian Ross. - posted 11-19-09

A quote...."PHILADELPHIA, Pa -- Thank you, Italia, for your conviction of 23 CIA agents exposing Perpetrators as Perpetrators. -- Once again, Italia demonstrates that the rule of law still exists in the world. The very same laws that are the legacy of all Western culture and society handed down from c.149BC Roman Empire SPQR “The Senate and the People of Rome.” -- Though the CIA agents convicted in absentia may not have to serve any prison time, the ruling could set a precedent that no government is above basic human rights and laws. -- The American government up to this conviction demonstrated that no law in existence applies to America’s imperial arrogant leadership." -- posted 11-11-09

A quote...."The United States of America owes much of the hope it has right now of remaining what John Adams called "a nation of laws, not men" to Italian law enforcement. Were it not for the fact that Italian prosecutors, unlike their American counterparts, answer to the law rather than a president, the enforcement of laws against a massive crime spree by U.S. officials (and their Italian accomplices) would not have begun." -- posted 11-10-09

A quote...."New York - The label "War on Terror" may be out of style as a description of American counterterrorism strategy, but Wednesday in Rome an Italian court served notice that some of its more controversial practices - including the abduction of alleged terrorists known as "extraordinary rendition" - would not be forgotten as quickly as some Americans might prefer." -- posted 11-06-09

Special Note - A quote...."The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own." -- also posted at Uruknet  -- posted 11-05-09

A quote...."Parliamentarians in Lithuania have voted to launch an investigation into allegations that the CIA operated a clandestine prison in the Baltic state to hold 'suspected al-Qaeda terrorists.' " -- posted 11-05-09

A quote...."November 04, 2009 "The Times" -- An Italian court sentenced 23 former CIA agents to up to eight years in prison today for their role in the abduction of an Egyptian terrorist suspect in the first trial over “extraordinary renditions”. -- The Americans were all tried in absentia, but the verdicts were nevertheless hailed by human rights campaigners as an important victory that could open the way to further prosecutions. Two lower-ranking agents of the Italian military agency SISMI were sentenced to three years each." -- also posted at ICH -- posted 11-04-09

That's really nice, but folks, in law ENFORCEMENT, it really isn't the thought that counts! - mpg --A quote.... "Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents witnessed the torture of inmates at secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) overseas prisons in 2002, according to documents partially declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the advocacy group Judicial Watch." -- posted 11-04-09

A quote...."The president of Lithuania called for an official investigation Tuesday into an ABC News.com exclusive report in August that the CIA housed a secret prison for al Qaeda suspects in Lithuania for more than a year beginning in 2004." -- posted 10-21-09

A quote...."No one could seriously argue that they were in Italy for other reasons" than to abduct Milan imam Abu Omar and transfer him to Cairo via two US military bases, said Amando Spataro, citing detailed aviation, cell phone, rental car and hotel records. -- "The data of all the flights ... indisputably show one sole possibility," Spataro said as he began closing arguments in the case." - also posted at InfoWars -- posted 09-24-09

A quote...."MILAN — Prosecutors began closing arguments Wednesday in the trial of 26 Americans and seven Italians accused of orchestrating a CIA-led kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect. -- The arguments by Prosecutor Armando Spataro signaled the final phase of the first trial in any country involving the CIA's extraordinary renditions program. Spataro's arguments, including his specific demands for each defendant, are expected to continue into next week." -- posted 09-23-09

A quote...."September 20, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -For the CIA supervisors and operatives responsible for torture, the chickens are coming home to roost; that is, if President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder mean it when they say no one is above the law – and if they don’t fall victim to brazen intimidation. -- Unable to prevent Holder from starting an investigation of torture and other war crimes that implicate CIA officials past and present, those same CIA officials, together with what those in the intelligence trade call “agents of influence” in the media, are pulling out all the stops to quash the Justice Department’s preliminary investigation."
 
On the other hand it looks like no sooner than the article shown above had been written , Obama appeared to cave,  (no surprise there) which of course would imply that he supported the investigation in the first place, which most assuredly is not true.  But this website editor was getting tired of calling Obama that “craven boot-licking butt-kissing lackey of this nation's twisted elites”, although it’s a spot on description of his behavior, or even using that tried and true....and always accurate phrase ...."when are you ObamaTrolls ever going to learn", so for one brief shining moment of sheer lunacy this website editor entertained the notion that maybe, just possibly, deep down inside that seething mass of rotted obsequiousness that is Obama, the thing that looks like a man but acts like a toad, there might have been one teeny, tiny, itsy, bitsy, spark of human morality....that finally got snuffed out. - mpg -- See article shown below.... -- posted 09-21-09

Special Note - Obama™ Update -- A quote...."In response to a public campaign by the CIA, the Obama administration has decided to further scale back an already narrow investigation of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture during the Bush years that was announced last month by Attorney General Eric Holder." -- For more on this issue see....9/11 - Iraq - Torture Fables --  posted 09-21-09

A quote...."ROME (Reuters) - A former U.S. spy at the center of a kidnapping trial in Italy appeared to acknowledge a role in the abduction of a Muslim cleric but said he was only following orders, according to a rare interview published on Tuesday." -- posted 07-01-09

A quote...."A grassroots coalition will file complaints today with the Washington, D.C. bar against two Central Intelligence Agency lawyers for their involvement in authorizing the use of controversial interrogation techniques against detainees in US custody. -- Velvet Revolution, a coalition of over 150 grassroots groups, will register complaints against CIA lawyers Jonathan M. Fredman and John A. Rizzo." -- posted 06-29-09

A quote...."The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine. -- “A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given." - bold by website editor -- also posted at AftrDwngSt & ICH & GlobRsrch -- posted 06-28-09

One down, dozens, if not hundreds more to impeach, prosecute and imprison. - mpg -- A quote...."FBI counterterrorism head Philip Mudd today withdrew his name from consideration as the Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis, saying he believed his confirmation hearings would be a “distraction.” -- Mudd was reportedly linked to the CIA’s torture program under former President Bush (when he served as deputy director of the Office of Terrorism Analysis) and reportedly had “direct knowledge of the agency’s harsh interrogation program.” -- posted 06-09-09

A quote...."Milton Bearden, a former Central Intelligence Agency Pakistan station chief who served at the agency for three decades, says claims that the Bush administration’s so-called enhanced interrogation techniques saved American lives are likely false." -- posted 06-02-09

A quote...."MILAN - Italian secret service officials were Wednesday to begin answering charges of colluding with their US counterparts in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian imam from a Milan street. - The abduction was part of the CIA’s covert ‘secret rendition’ programme under which terror suspects were transferred outside the judicial process to third countries known to practise torture. - The former head of Italian military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, who was forced to quit over the affair, is among the seven Italian defendants in the trial, two of whom are accused only of aiding and abetting the abduction. - Successive Italian governments have declined to seek the extradition of the 26 US defendants in the case, 25 CIA agents and a US air force colonel, who are being tried in absentia." -- posted 05-26-09

Special Note - A quote...."The source says nearly every day, Mitchell would sit at his computer and write a top secret cable to the CIA's counterterrorism center. Each day, Mitchell would request permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah. The source says the CIA would then forward the request to the White House, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales would sign off on the technique. That would provide the Administration's legal blessing for Mitchell to increase the pressure on Zubaydah in the next interrogation." --  posted 05-22-09

Special Note - A quote...."FLORENCE, Italy -- The chief prosecutor in a trial related to the U.S. "rendition" of a suspected terrorist believes there is more than enough evidence to secure a conviction of over two dozen Americans charged in the case despite a ruling that excludes key Italian documents and testimony under  "state secrecy" laws." -- posted 05-21-09

Must Read/View - A quote...."We get reaction to the Senate hearing on torture from private investigator and attorney John Sifton, executive director of One World Research, which carries out research for law firms and human rights groups. Sifton has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program. He says any investigation of Bush administration torture and rendition should include an estimated 100 homicides of prisoners in US custody. [includes rush transcript]" -- ||  Real Video Stream  ||  Real Audio Stream  ||  MP3 Download  ||  More…  ||  -- posted 05-15-09

He Was NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO READ -- Special Note -- A quote...."A special report from NBC news states:  The NBC News analysis shows that more than one quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Report refer to CIA interrogations of al-Qaida operatives who were subjected to the now-controversial interrogation techniques. In fact, information derived from the interrogations is central to the Report’s most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks. The analysis also shows - and agency and commission staffers concur - there was a separate, second round of interrogations in early 2004, done specifically to answer new questions from the Commission." -- posted 05-15-09

Must Read - A quote...."News of the death, in a Libyan jail, of Ibn al-Shaikh al-Libi, a US terror suspect who was the subject of an extraordinary rendition, then tortured in Egypt and Jordan as well as CIA prisons in Afghanistan and Poland has, understandably, raised questions about whether he committed suicide – as the Libyan authorities claimed – or whether he was murdered. Just two weeks ago, representatives of Human Rights Watch saw him in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison, and although he refused to speak to them, they reported that he "looked well." -- also posted at CommonDreams -- posted 05-15-09

A quote...."WASHINGTON: In a new revelation, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the CIA of the United States and his country's ISI together created the Taliban. "I think it was part of your past and our past, and the ISI and CIA created them together," Zardari told the NBC news channel in an interview." - also posted at WarInIraqFor more on this issue see....US Support of Terror -- posted 05-11-09

Special Note - A quote...."The CIA claims the integrity of a special prosecutor’s criminal investigation into the destruction of 92 interrogation videotapes will be compromised if the agency if forced to turn over to the American Civil Liberties Union detailed documents related to the purge, according to newly released court documents. -- In a May 5 letter to U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein, Lev Dassin, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the Justice Department recently had discussions with prosecutors working on the criminal investigation into the destruction of the interrogation tapes and was informed that “the production of documents...would conflict and substantially interfere with the [criminal] investigation” into the destruction of the interrogation tapes." -- posted 05-11-09

Special Note - Related Article - A quote...."The best refutation of Dick Cheney's insistence that torture was necessary and useful in dealing with threats from al-Qaeda just died in a Libyan prison. See also Andy Worthington. -- Al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was captured trying to escape from Afghanistan in late 2001. He was sent to Egypt to be tortured, and under duress alleged that Saddam Hussein was training al-Qaeda agents in chemical weapons techniques. It was a total crock, and alleged solely to escape further pain. Al-Libi disavowed the allegation when he was returned to CIA custody. But Cheney and Condi Rice ran with the single-source, torture-induced assertion and it was inserted by Scooter Libby in Colin Powell's infamous speech to the United Nations." -- posted 05-11-09

A quote....""When any modern state tortures even a few victims, the stigma compromises its majesty and corrupts its integrity. Its officials must spin an ever more complex web of lies that, in the end, weakens the bonds of trust and the rule of law that are the sine qua non of a democracy. And, beyond its borders, allies and enemies turn away in collective revulsion." -- *Prof. Alfred W. McCoy*, A Question of Torture (2006). -- posted 05-08-09

A quote...."As the secrets about the CIA's interrogation techniques continue to come out, there's new information about the frequency and severity of their use, contradicting an 2007 ABC News report, and a new focus on two private contractors who were apparently directing the brutal sessions that President Obama calls torture." -- also posted atWarInIraq -- posted 04-30-09

A quote...."BUDAPEST, Apr 29 (IPS) - An official investigation shows that it is more and more likely that a CIA prison existed in Poland at the height of the "war on terror" -- The Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the European Commission all produced reports between 2006 and 2007 in which the existence of CIA (the U.S.'s Central Intelligence Agency) prisons in Poland and Romania is mentioned as highly probable." -- posted 04-29-09

A quote...."When I testified last year before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties about Bush interrogation policies, Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz) stated that former CIA Director Michael Hayden had confirmed that the Bush administration only waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zabaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashirit for one minute each.  I told Franks that I didn’t believe that. Sure enough, one of the newly released torture memos reveals that Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times." -- posted 04-23-09

A quote...."The government led by former Prime Minister Göran Persson knew that Sweden was used as a transit destination for clandestine CIA flights transporting suspected terrorists, according to a report in the Expressen newspaper on Friday." -- posted 04-26-09

A quote...."LONDON — The chief justice of the British High Court on Wednesday gave the British government one week to obtain the U.S. release of classified information about the alleged torture of a British resident who'd been detained at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba ." -- posted 04-24-09

Must Read - (Exceptional Analysis) A quote...."5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam". - He also said "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not." -- And at 2:40 p.m. on September 11th, in a memorandum of discussions between top administration officials, several lines below the statement "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [that is, Saddam Hussein] at same time", is the statement "Hard to get a good case." In other words, top officials knew that there wasn't a good case that Hussein was behind 9/11, but they wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to justify war with Iraq anyway."-- also posted at GlobRsrch &OpEdNews -- For more on this issue see....The Convenient Silence of Guantanamo Bay - 05-31-08 - mpg -- posted 04-22-09

monitored terror suspects during waterboarding, recommended continuation of torture 07 Apr 2009 Medical personnel committed a "gross breach of medical ethics" by taking part in torture in Guantánamo, a leaked International Committee of the Red Cross document has revealed. The 40-page confidential report, written in 2007, describes how medical staff working for the CIA monitored prisoners' vital signs to make sure they did not drown while being subjected to waterboarding. Medical personnel were also said to be present when prisoners were shackled in a "stress standing position". The detainees were "monitored by health personnel who in some instances recommended stopping the method of ill-treatment, or recommended its continuation, but with adjustments", according to the report. The Red Cross concluded: "The alleged participation of health personnel in the interrogation process and, either directly or indirectly, in the infliction of ill-treatment constituted a gross breach of medical ethics and, in some cases, amounted to participation in torture and/or cruel inhuman or degrading treatment." -- Paragraph posted at CLG -- posted 04-07-09

Ratnatunga 07 Apr 2009 "Inhuman" is how the International Committee for the Red Cross described a CIA prison program that made medical officers party to torture. A Red Cross report leaked online reveals more lurid details the disgraceful treatment of detainees during sessions of interrogation. The contents page alone is grim reading. Bulleted under the heading of "Other Methods of Ill Treatment" is a 12-point list that includes "suffocation by water," "beating and kicking," "confinement in a box," "prolonged nudity," and "deprivation/restricted provision of solid food." -- Paragraph posted at CLG -- posted 04-07-09

A quote...."NEW YORK (AP) — A judge has given the CIA a month to begin releasing documents related to the destruction of videotapes of detainee interrogations. -- Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan federal court says the CIA should start turning over the information and a list of witnesses to the American Civil Liberties Union within 30 days or explain why the agency should be exempt." -- posted 03-29-09

A quote...."The first of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogations,” that of Abu Zubaida,  described as “torture” in recently leaked portions of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s report on CIA interrogation tactics, led to nothing other than tens of thousands of investigatory hours wasted chasing fairy stories he told to get the pain to stop, the Washington Post reports today.  All reliable information obtained from him was obtained prior to the torture." -- For more on this issue see....False Leads -- posted 03-29-09

Must Read - (For the futility of it all) -- A quote...."Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say"

Let's see, thousands of experts and hundreds of thousands of bloggers repeatedly stated for years that torture doesn't work, it's ineffective, it violates numerous treaties this nation has signed, it's illegal, it's immoral, it simply creates more resentment throughout the Middle East, it allows more "terrorists" to be recruited worldwide and many other counter productive effects. -- What many of them didn't say but which this website author is perfectly willing to say is the following....

A word to the wise for all those in the US military participating in these "interrogations" and "trials", if ANY of the evidence being withheld or altered indicates US government complicity with 9/11, or would support or imply in any way such a suspicion....all personnel who have cooperated in withholding or altering such evidence would automatically become an accessory after the fact in the murder of three thousand Americans.

More importantly, tainting such evidence, creating any evidence, suborning perjury or extracting false confessions from prisoners even if it DOES NOT DIRECTLY INVOLVE U.S. government or administration official’s complicity regarding 9/11...IN AND OF ITSELF could be legally construed as obstruction of justice and possibly make someone an accessory after the fact regarding 9/11 if it prevents the identification of the true perpetrators or the facts involved. -- Quoted from - The Convenient Silence of Guantanamo Bay - 05-31-08 - mpg -- posted 03-29-09

A quote...."An Italian judge says the trial of 26 U.S. agents and seven Italians accused of kidnapping a terrorism suspect will resume next month, after the Constitutional Court clarifies key rulings in the case." - posted 03-19-09

A quote...."Two UN special rapporteurs say that they plan to investigate secret detention centers used by the CIA in its counter-terrorism campaign." - posted 03-10-09

A quote...."ROME – Italy's highest court sided with the government Wednesday and threw out key evidence in an alleged CIA kidnapping of an Eygptian terrorism suspect in Italy, dealing a blow to the trial of 26 Americans charged in the case. The Constitutional Court ruled that prosecutors impermissibly used classified information to build the case that led to indictments in the 2003 abduction. Though the judges did not formally throw out the indictments, lawyers said the ruling would at least set the case back." - bold by website editor -- It ain't over yet! - mpg - posted 03-11-09

A quote...."Senior CIA officers could be put on trial in Britain after it emerged last night that the Attorney General is to investigate allegations that a British resident held in Guantanamo Bay was brutally tortured, after being arrested and questioned by American forces following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in 2001." - posted 10-30-08

A quote...."BERLIN (AP) — A group of German and American civil rights attorneys on Monday sued the German government to demand that it pursue the extradition of 13 CIA agents sought in the alleged kidnapping of a German citizen." - posted 06-09-08

A quote...."MILAN: Clutching her Italian identity card in a gloved hand, the cloaked wife of a fiery Muslim cleric Wednesday tearfully recounted publicly for the first time how her husband was kidnapped on a Milan street in 2003 and sent to Egypt to endure torture and repeated imprisonment." -- More Neo-Roman play time, provided courtesey of Egyptians.  Guess it was just vicarious thrills this time for our elites. - posted 05-19-08

A quote...."MILAN — A long-delayed trial of C.I.A. operatives and former top Italian intelligence officials moved forward here on Wednesday, as a judge ruled that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi could be called to testify about the abduction of a radical Muslim cleric here in 2003." - posted 05-14-08

A quote...."MILAN (Reuters) - An Italian judge could decide on Wednesday to make Silvio Berlusconi the first head of a government to testify in criminal proceedings over secret CIA transfers of terrorism suspects. Judge Oscar Magi is expected to announce his decision on whether to call Berlusconi and other politicians when he resumes a trial at 0800 GMT against 26 Americans and seven Italians accused of carrying out a transfer or "rendition" in 2003." - posted 05-14-08

A quote...."Twenty-six CIA agents are scheduled to go on trial today for kidnapping. Unfortunately, all of them will be tried in absentia because the Bush administration, which has long claimed to be against torture, refuses to send the accused kidnappers to Italy, where the prosecution is taking place." - posted 04-17-08

A quote...."WASHINGTON (AP) — A German citizen thwarted in the U.S. courts is taking his allegations of abduction and torture at the hands of the CIA to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. -- On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the commission on behalf of Khaled el-Masri, saying the U.S. government should be called on to apologize for its treatment of el-Masri and that the CIA's anti-terrorism rendition program should be found unlawful." - posted 04-10-08

A quote...."Wed 19 Mar 2008, 11:44 GMT -- MILAN, March 19 (Reuters) - An Italian judge on Wednesday ordered the resumption of a trial against U.S. and Italian spies accused of abducting a terrorism suspect, in a blow to efforts to halt a case that Rome says violates state secrecy rules." - posted 04-10-08

A quote...."The CIA announced Monday that it will now pay the full cost of legal liability insurance for about two-thirds of the agency workforce.... One shift is already looming: A change in administrations could make it more likely lawsuits will be filed against CIA interrogators for a controversial program approved by the Bush White House — the use of harsh interrogation techniques and the secret movement of prisoners, known as extraordinary rendition." - posted 03-17-08

A quote...."Allegations that the CIA held al-Qaida suspects for interrogation at a secret prison on sovereign British territory are to be investigated by MPs, the Guardian has learned. The all-party foreign affairs committee is to examine long-standing suspicions that the agency has operated one of its so-called "black site" prisons on Diego Garcia, the British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean that is home to a large US military base." - posted 10-18-07

PG's Post - A quote....WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 — The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee joined Democrats on Friday in expressing strong concern about an unusual inquiry into the work of the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general, John L. Helgerson, saying the review could undermine Mr. Helgerson’s role as independent watchdog." - posted 10-13-07 - this article is related to the one shown below

A quote...."WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 — The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, has ordered an unusual internal inquiry into the work of the agency’s inspector general, whose aggressive investigations of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation programs and other matters have created resentment among agency operatives."

So nobody's supposed to watch the watchers heh?  Typical Bush crony mentality, "what we do is legal" they say, but try to find out if that's true, and it all becomes hush-hush, super top secret, covered by the US's new "states secret act" or Bush's infamous claim - used on almost everything so far - of "executive privilege."

You can always spot a cheap hoodlum in the federal bureaucracy by his thuggish and juvenile attempts at intimidation. - mpg - posted 10-11-07

A quote...."ROME (AFP) - Prosecutors in the trial of a US soldier for the shooting death of a top Italian military intelligence agent in Iraq rejected Thursday defence arguments that Rome lacks jurisdiction in the case." - posted  09-27-07

A quote...."WESTMINSTER should give the Scottish Parliament a say over rendition flights into Scottish airports carrying prisoners and interrogators, a leading human rights lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, said yesterday. - Speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival before giving evidence to Kenny McAskill, the justice secretary, Mr Stafford-Smith said rendition was merely a euphemism for kidnapping." - mpg - posted 08-26-08

A quote...."This camouflaging of an illegal kidnapping as a rescue flight was no isolated incident. SPIEGEL has obtained complete lists of the flight plans of secret CIA flights in German airspace, which reveal 390 takeoffs and landings of CIA aircraft at airports in Germany between 2002 and 2006. The documents also show that mis-identifying the flights was part of a system designed to dodge compliance with complicated approval regulations." - bold/italics by website author

You see, we had it all wrong.  The US's thugs and gofers for this nation's elites are actually "rescuing" people when they snatch them off the streets, torture and kill them. Just as they’re actually bringing "freedom and democracy" to countries throughout the world (or at least the ones endowed with lots of oil) when they bomb them to smithereens.

How could we have been so mistaken....they’re actually kind and caring people after all.

Anybody else out there want to be "rescued", anybody else out there want some "freedom and democracy" anybody else out there want the US's "protection" or "help"  No?  Well if you don't avail yourselves of our elite’s gracious offer something really awful might happen to your country….our elites won't be able to "help" you.

Now wouldn't that be a terrible shame? -  mpg - posted July 11, 2007

A quote...." Berlin - A German prosecutor's request for the arrest of 10 US men suspected of forming a CIA rendition team has split the German government, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday. A parliamentary inquiry in Berlin has heard Lebanese-born German national, Khaled el-Masri, testify that he was detained in Macedonia and held in a jail in Afghanistan for several months in 2004 on suspicion of terrorism."....posted 07-07-07

A quote...."  Milan - Hours before President George W. Bush visits Italy, 26 U.S. citizens go on trial in absentia in Milan on Friday accused of carrying out one of Washington's most controversial policies in its war on terrorism.  -  The U.S. citizens, almost all believed to be CIA agents, have been charged with kidnapping a Muslim in Milan in 2003 who was on Washington's list of terrorist suspects and flying him to Egypt where he says he was tortured under interrogation."....posted 06-08-07

A quote...."Europe wants to prosecute CIA operatives who abducted terror suspects overseas. The U.S. says no way.  -   Inside an international showdown."....posted 03-03-07

A quote...."An Italian judge has ordered 26 US citizens - most of them CIA agents - to stand trial over the kidnap of an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003." ....posted 02-16-07

A quote...."GENEVA (AP) - Switzerland on Wednesday followed Italy and Germany in raising the threat of criminal prosecution of CIA operatives involved in anti-terrorism operations in Europe."  -  Oh, oh. There go all those secret bank accounts you guys were using to stash your retirement funds, oh well  - mpg....posted 02-15-07

A quote...."The European parliament has approved a damning report on secret CIA flights, condemning member states which colluded in the operations."....posted 02-14-07

Title says it all......posted 02-05-07

A quote...."BERLIN — If not for the pit stops on a Mediterranean resort island, where they relaxed in four-star hotels and went to the spa for a massage, the CIA operatives who now face arrest on kidnapping charges in Germany would have remained safely in the shadows, according to German prosecutors."......posted 02-03-07

A quote...."BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for 13 suspected CIA agents over their alleged kidnapping three years ago of a German citizen, authorities said Wednesday.  -  The unidentified agents are being sought on suspicion of the wrongful imprisonment of Khaled al-Masri and causing him serious bodily harm, Munich prosecutor Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld told The Associated Press. He said the warrants were issued in the last few days."  -  My goodness, people in Europe are actually enforcing THE LAW ! - mpg......posted 01-31-07

To all you CIA guys who rounded up innocent victims and rendered them for torture while living the high life in five star hotels....your ass-sets can be seized throughout the entire world under international law, you won't be able to set foot in Europe or have any investments there, every victim you abused is going to hire lawyers and sue you for every penny you own.  Have a nice life guys - mpg......posted 01-29-07

To all the members of the CIA's renditions program, you might want to consider retaining some legal counsel; it's quite possible you're going to need it.......posted 01-20-07

A quote...."A Milan prosecutor is making the CIA nervous. Despite the opposition of his own government he wants to indict 26 US agents and five Italian secret agents for the kidnapping of a terror suspect. Rome and Washington would prefer that the embarrassing trial would just go away."......posted 01-12-07

A quote...."Italian prosecutors have asked a judge to order CIA agents and Italian spies to stand trial on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured."......posted 12-06-06

Good for the Irish.......posted 12-01-06