While the article is 24 hour old, it remains important. Yesterday the Washington Post reported:
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 long and the short of it is that the CIA (note: not the Pentagon, that's clear) has become a jailer. We are holding about 100 Al Qaeda prisoners (30 "high value, 70 "medium value"). We are holding them outside the US so that the CIA can't be accused of breaking US law (if they were held in the US then we would have to obey international laws, including the Geneva Convention, on treatment and access).
It is truely an stunning piece of journalism, and clearly points to huge issues. What is the oversite on these places? Who knows about them (do the foreign countries even know? - the article claims that sometimes only the foreign head of state knows)? What governs the conduct of the CIA employees? Is "torture" used (and what, exactly, is "torture"?)? What are the long term plans for these captured terrorists?
What have we gotten ourselves in to, and how does it look to the rest of the world?
Posted by baltar at November 3, 2005 08:50 AM | TrackBack | Posted to International Affairs