<p>See the link:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/10/frist.secretprisons.ap/index.html[/url]”>http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/10/frist.secretprisons.ap/index.html</a></p>
<p>Interesting priorities. </p>
<p>Of course, when it comes to CIA agents, the leaks are no big deal.</p>
<p>Very strange.</p>
<p>
Gee, I don’t know…it seems to me that leaking information about <em>real</em> secret operatives and their <em>real</em> secret operations that are <em>really</em> happening overseas with regard to some of the most dangerous, murderous characters on earth is a great deal more serious than “exposing” a soccer mom who happens to have a desk job in Langley. You think that’s strange? A lot of you do. That’s why you won’t see your party back in power in your lifetimes. It’s impossible to take your position on these matters seriously.</p>
<p>Well, wait a minute. We don’t know if the secret operations exist. If the secret operations don’t exist, then there was no leak. Since the Administration doesn’t know, because they are in the grasp of a supersecret conspiratorial intelligence cabal at the CIA, they are in no position to claim there is any problem. Just like Fitzgerald can’t claim that a law was broken in outing Plame because perjury and obstruction of the front man impinges on his view. </p>
<p>So the leaks are no big deal if the operations don’t exist, and if the operations do exist, well I paid good money for 'em and want to know all about it.</p>
<p>
Oh come on. I certainly hope we have secret prisons for the jihadists, just as I hope that there really is a Delta Force, and that there really is a Task Force 121, and that they are all working in unison to track down terrorists with Mossad-like determination. The fact that such things have to be top-secret doesn’t mean that the top people in the administration wouldn’t or shouldn’t know about them. And exposing such operations–if that’s what happened–is whole lot worse on many levels than “exposing” the soccer mom would have been, had it actually even happened. The conspiratorial leak cabal at the CIA is hardly supersecret…every reporter in town seems to be in on it.</p>
<p>I am much more interested in the leaks than the prisons. I think we have all assumed that there were secret prisons and having them makes perfect sense - why should we tell al Qaeda where we are keeping their top officers? Somehow people just assume that because they are secret prisons that we are also pulling finger nails out in them. If that is the logic that they use then why are they concerned about what may or may not happen in Guantanamo? Does the fact that it is not secret imply anything? Of course not, so why does a “secret” prison imply anything other than we don’t want al Qaeda to take action against the prison or the hosting country. It’s just another excuse for the left to get their knickers in a twist and spout righteous indignations.</p>
<p>" I think we have all assumed that there were secret prisons and having them makes perfect sense"</p>
<p>Oh yea? Maybe you think having operations outside the law is OK. Maybe you think the end justifies the means. Certainly that argument has been used before. </p>
<p>Personally, I think this country used to be a democracy that believed in a degree of openness, honesty of disclosure etc.</p>
<p>Oh well. No surprise.</p>
<p>
Secret doesn’t mean outside the law. We have many state secrets. Always have. Why do you always assume the worst about our country?</p>
<p>“Secret doesn’t mean outside the law.”</p>
<p>I bet it does in this case. That’s why they wanted it secret. Some of you just don’t get it. </p>
<p>I don’t ASSUME the worst. I’ve seen it. Brownie. Abu Grieb. Declarations of enemy alien status for citizens. (maybe you are next…)</p>
<p>And I save the best for last:</p>
<p>TAX BREAKS FOR OIL COMPANIES! Have you SEEN the recent profit reports? Like they need the help.</p>
<p>“Oh come on. I certainly hope we have secret prisons for the jihadists, just as I hope that there really is a Delta Force, and that there really is a Task Force 121, and that they are all working in unison to track down terrorists with Mossad-like determination.”</p>
<p>Just because you “hope”, doesn’t make it so.</p>
<p>" I think we have all assumed that there were secret prisons and having them makes perfect sense."</p>
<p>Just like torture, and killing half a million children. All in a day’s work. It’s really no big deal. You can even talk about it on national tv, especially if you’re a Democrat.</p>
<p>I know. There are reasons. There are ALWAYS reasons.</p>
<p>
You and TD and others carry a fairytale image of what this country is and then compare today’s reality with your fairytale image. Openness? Check out the degree of secrecy and consorship of news and soldier’s mail carried out by FDR in WWII and compare that to today. Sanctioned atrocities? Check out what our soldiers did to captured enemies in WWII and compare that to the relatively mild humiliation of unsanctioned activities in Abu Ghraib - activities which, without any media attention, were already being addressed. Of course allegations of “secret prisons” conjures up the worst notions if you come from a fairytale image of how life is supposed to be and then add to it an unfounded and cynical conviction that this country has devolved into some sort of evil empire. The fact is that we are more open than we have ever been - so open that I doubt that a war like WWII could have been won using today’s standards.</p>
<p>I always admire folks like FF who look to WWI to establish comparisons. </p>
<p>I admire the amount of imagination such a comparison must take. Frankly, I’m just not up to making such leaps of fancy.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks WWII and the current events have anything in common must also be seeing a fairytale image.</p>
<p>And the fact that we got away with it last time does not justify a repeat performance, at least not in my value structure.</p>
<p>“more open”? Yeah, right…</p>
<p>…secret advisors devising an energy policy.
…witch hunts when the “wrong” side leaks, but OK when the leak comes out of the executive offices.</p>
<p>Who has the “fairytale image”? Hmmm.</p>
<p>OK, so apparently you admit that WWII was a period where “we got away with” being less open. So, exactly what point in US History serves as your utopia that we should aspire to go back to?</p>
<p>"Sun Nov 13, 4:43 PM ET</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AFP) -
CIA interrogators apparently tried to cover up the death of an Iraqi “ghost detainee” who died while being interrogated at
Abu Ghraib prison, a US magazine reported, after obtaining hundreds of pages of documents, including an autopsy report, about the case.
ADVERTISEMENT
[-78160]</p>
<p>The death of secret detainee Manadel al-Jamadi was ruled a homicide in a Defense Department autopsy, Time magazine reported, adding that documents it recently obtained included photographs of his battered body, which had been kept on ice to keep it from decomposing, apparently to conceal the circumstances of his death.</p>
<p>The details about his death emerge as US officials continue to debate congressional legislation to ban torture of foreign detainees by US troops overseas, and efforts by the George W. Bush administration to obtain an exemption for the CIA from any future torture ban.</p>
<p>Jamadi was abducted by US Navy Seals on November 4, 2003, on suspicion of harboring explosives and involvement in the bombing of a Red Cross center in Baghdad that killed 12 people, and was placed in Abu Ghraib as an unregistered detainee.</p>
<p>After some 90 minutes of interrogation by CIA officials, he died of “blunt force injuries” and “asphyxiation,” according to the autopsy documents obtained by Time."</p>
<p>Yea, I guess we need more secrecy…</p>
<p>What need was there to hide it?</p>