Underground Knowledge — A discussion group discussion

Excerpt from The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy:


Exactly how the game is played is open to conjecture as there is no single source of reliable information. Not outside of the CIA at least, and the agency ain’t talking – not to us anyway.

From all reports it appears there could be hundreds of detainees at any given time – the majority being ghost detainees apprehended in Europe and transported to other countries as part of an extraordinary rendition process.

Most interest, however, surrounds those classed as unlawful enemy combatants – the most important of whom are detained at sites that are totally off the grid. Those not so important have been transferred by the CIA to friendly agencies in other countries.

Commonly acknowledged estimates of numbers of detainees could be conservative in the extreme if unsubstantiated media reports are correct. For example, in The Observor, June 13, 2004, South East Asia correspondent Jason Burk reports: “The United States government, in conjunction with key allies, is running an ‘invisible’ network of prisons and detention centres into which thousands of suspects have disappeared without trace since the ‘war on terror’ began”.

The report goes on to mention “secret operations that by-pass extradition laws” and adds that the “astonishing traffic has seen many, including British citizens, sent from the West to countries where they can be tortured to extract information”.

In an item published on PBS.org, reporter Stephen Grey, author of Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Rendition and Torture Program, says the US Government needs to account for the fate of more than 500 prisoners handed over to the United States since 9/11 by Pakistan. “All were rendered into U.S. custody without any extradition procedures,” he says.

As an aside, in the same article Grey claims the CIA’s rendition program is nothing new and has been going on for decades.

“Rendition began in 1883 when Frederick Ker was kidnapped in Peru by the Pinkerton Detective Agency and rendered back to Chicago to face trial for grand larceny,” he says. “The tactic was endorsed by the Supreme Court… These renditions…were renditions to courts of law…very different from the CIA’s current covert program of extraordinary rendition, in which terror suspects are sent not to justice but into the hands of rough allies.”

After the negative press that has surrounded Guantanamo Bay, horror stories have emerged of prolonged and intentional use of torture and abuse of detainees. Released prisoners claim they were subjected to many forms of torture, ranging from beatings and sleep deprivation to sexual abuse and temperature extremes. Add to this suicides and attempted suicides by detainees, and you get the idea it’s a sorry state of affairs.

The allegations of torture and abuse at GuantanamoBay and other black sites have been given credence by official reports from respectable organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and Amnesty International. However, it’s clear much information is being withheld from the public.

Operation Soutenue Par La Central Intelligence Agency: Mort D'Oussama Ben Laden, Operation Condor, Stargate Project, Incident de L'U-2, Projet Mk-Ultra, Programme Afghan, Prisons Secretes de La CIA, Operation Northwoods, Operation Ajax



Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program



Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition

Seriously, I don't Americans give a damn about civil liberties anymore. Not one whit. They don't care what the hell happens --even it it strikes the person standing right next to them. As long as their cell session is not interrupted. They're *unaware* that anyone else exists; they're concentrating 100% on vapor-trail conversations with whoever's in their inbox. They can't tell that there's any difference anymore between real people and digital surrogates.

I've seen "moms" (supposedly) grocery shopping, walking down the supermarket aisle; holding their phone out in front of them like seeing-eye dogs. If a call comes in while they're shopping; they stop right in the middle of the aisle and have a conversation. The phone never leaves the 'ready' position in their hands. What tasks can a people like this accomplish or see-through-to-the-end; if everything they do is subordinate to taking a text message? How could they even concentrate on a topic like prison abuse, much less do anything about it?

Yeah, I'm pissed because my weekend is over and i have to go back out among these nimrods tomorrow morning.

But, nevertheless, there is just no way anyone with a cell would ever bother to worry about injustice or government malfeasance anymore. In their minds, there is no awareness of 'past' or 'history'. They are unable to grasp "working to change life" now, in order that it might be better "in the future". They have no future. They do not register that they have to take steps to prevent anything from happening 'in the future'. Right now, they have everything they need.

As long as their marvelous digital plaything screen is glowing; time stands still. I'm tellin' ya... its worse than if these crowds were all on LSD at the same time.

Secret Prisons https://reprieve.org/secret-prisons/
We investigate extrajudicial and military detention in secret prisons around the world

After 9/11, the CIA built and maintained a network of secret prisons across the globe for the detention of terrorism suspects who were often transported via ‘extraordinary rendition‘. Some facilities remain operational to this day. Since these ‘black sites’ operated outside of US borders and outside of US jurisdiction, evidence has shown that ‘rendered’ prisoners were thrust into a legal black hole and subjected to brutal torture and other human rights abuses.

CIA prison facilities have been uncovered in Afghanistan, Diego Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territory), Djibouti, Egypt and Syria, among others. In 2005, it emerged that the CIA was detaining prisoners in Europe, transporting them covertly through European airspace and airports.

Reprieve investigates extra-judicial detention and military detention in secret prisons around the world, working to reunite ‘disappeared’ prisoners with their human rights under US and international law. We are investigating the role of corporations in the illegal rendition, incarceration and torture of prisoners in the ‘war on terror’, as well as the complicity of European states, including Romania, Poland and Lithuania. In 2014, we secured a successful ruling in the European Court of Human Rights that Poland facilitated CIA torture in black sites – the first ruling on European complicity in the CIA torture program.

‘extraordinary rendition‘ - love that expression!

Haha!
More like Extraordinary Acts of Evil!