Showing posts with label Scahill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scahill. Show all posts

Thursday, May 10, 2018

TORTURE, INSANITY, AND NUKES



THE ABSURD TIMES


Torture does work: The man who confessed that recruited black panthers from Montana to join Al-Quaeda, Isis, and the Talaban under torture. Now really, how else would one get such a startling bit of information?


Torture and Insanity

This is the fourth attempt. If this does not work, it means that Microsoft has declared that this information is classified and to be kept secret. Perhaps by now, a lobbyist has managed to bribe someone in the Trump regime to let it out. We shall see. If we get that far, we will can think about the Iran vandalism (we could not call it a policy decision, for obvious reasons). Trump's decision there has given Israel the authority to bomb Syria viciously and in violation of all civilized behavior.
Even more so, it gives a valuable lesson to other countries: get your own nuclear weapons. If anyone thinks that North Korea is foolish enough to abandon nuclear weapons now, either they or North Korea is insane. Of course, both could be. Yet we have the history of Iraq which never had nukes, but Condelezza Rice kept talking about some mushroom cloud over a horizon and Colin Powell giving his chemical warfare presentation at the UN as examples. Even more, we have the case of Gaddafi who abandoned nuclear weapons in order to make peace with the west and we know how well that turned out. In fact, we know how well both turned out for the U.S. as well. Right now, we see the results of Iran suspending its program as Israel bombs Syria. The lesson all countries will take from this is obvious.
But what we need to talk about is the torture program advocated by the Trump people. Below is a discussion of this by Jeremy Scahill of the INTERCEPT. He is the one who broke the Blackwater story and made other crucial breakthroughs.
It is not clear how much more of this can even be tolerated. Gina Haspel is now nominated for Director of the CIA, yet she can not bring herself to say that torture is immoral. In other words, she disagrees with the Nuremberg decision and all the rules and judgments we made about Nazi Germany. There is really no other logical explanation of it, although this would be sharply contested by any establishment organ or figure.
The warning is clear: avoid at all costs any information sent via American mass media and the BBC is not much better. So far, we have been told that China people have millions of jobs here in the United States as a result of the work of Cocaine Mitch, Senate Majority leader. The term China people reminds one of the very old Flash Gordon movies where the Clay People would attack Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkoff (I guess we were at war with Germany at the time, so Russia was our ally?) There was really no chance of this person being even nominated, but the media tried its best to make it look so in order to generate interest and thus increase ratings.
We also learn, from a Trump supporter, one of the Africa People, that slavery was a choice. One tries to imagine the lines of natives from African lining up to catch a ship to Dixie in order to pick cotton and be whipped. Just sign on the dotted line. Are we really supposed to take this seriously?
Well, as the descendant of the Germany people, I can tell you that we got a raw deal during World War II. (I'm not saying who 'we" are, however.)
New these are terms we have come to expect and hardly flinch at these days. This is the Zeitgeist in the Age of Trump. He has released the inhibitions on the worst aspects of human nature, the sort of things used to keep poor white people thinking they are being attacked by even poorer people rather than the upper 1% or less of our population, the rich and greedy.
Many think there is not much difference between the two parties, and they are right. The only difference is that the Republican Party is evil and the democrats are bad. Until such a time as we can actually get beyond good and evil, we are stuck with a choice between evil or bad. We will not be safe at all until the Republicans are once again reduced to a small minority. We can only hope that Trump can do today what Goldwater and later Nixon did for their party in the past.
Now can we say that torture does not work? Nope. For example, Khaled Sheik Mohammed who was water boarded over 80 times finally came up with the statement that the Black Panther Party in Montana was working with Al-Quaeda, Isis, and the Talaban. I mean, things like that just don't pop into your head, do they?



On Capitol Hill Wednesday, President Trump's nominee to head the CIA, Gina Haspel, announced she would not restart the CIA's interrogation program. But she repeatedly refused to call the CIA's post-9/11 treatment of prisoners "torture," and declined to state whether she believes torture is immoral. Haspel's comments came in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, as she made her case to become the first woman to head the agency. Haspel is a 33-year CIA veteran who was responsible for running a secret CIA black site in Thailand in 2002, where one prisoner was waterboarded and tortured in other ways. Haspel also oversaw the destruction of videotapes showing torture at the black site. At least two Republican senators have come out against her—Rand Paul and John McCain, who said her "role in overseeing the use of torture is disturbing & her refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying." But Haspel may still be confirmed with the help of Democratic lawmakers. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has already announced he will back Haspel. We speak with Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept and host of the weekly podcast "Intercepted."
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: On Capitol Hill, President Trump's nominee to head the CIA, Gina Haspel, announced she would not restart the CIA's interrogation program. But she repeatedly refused to call the CIA's post-9/11 treatment of prisoners torture, and declined to state whether she believes torture is immoral.
Haspel's comments came in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee as she made her case to become the first woman to head the agency. Haspel is a 33-year CIA veteran who was responsible for running a secret CIA black site in Thailand in 2002, where one prisoner was waterboarded and tortured in other ways. Haspel also oversaw the destruction of videotapes showing torture at the black site.
This is Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California questioning Haspel.
SENKAMALA HARRIS: Do you believe that the previous interrogation techniques were immoral?
GINA HASPEL: Senator, I believe that CIA officers to whom you referred—
SENKAMALA HARRIS: It's a yes-or-no answer. Do you believe the previous interrogation techniques were immoral? I'm not asking, "Do you believe they were legal?" I'm asking, "Do you believe they were immoral?"
GINA HASPEL: Senator, I believe that CIA did—
SENKAMALA HARRIS: It's a yes-or-no answer.
GINA HASPEL: —extraordinary work to prevent another attack on this country, given the legal tools that we were authorized to use.
SENKAMALA HARRIS: Please answer yes or no: Do you believe, in hindsight, that those techniques were immoral?
GINA HASPEL: Senator, what I believe, sitting here today, is that I support the higher moral standard we have decided to hold ourselves to.
SENKAMALA HARRIS: Can you please answer the question?
GINA HASPEL: Senator, I think I've answered the question.
SENKAMALA HARRIS: No, you've not.
AMY GOODMAN: Gina Haspel's confirmation hearing was repeatedly interrupted by anti-torture protesters.
PROTESTER: The question is: What do you do to human beings in U.S. custody? Bloody Gina! Bloody Gina! Bloody Gina! Bloody Gina! You are a torturer! Bloody Gina!
AMY GOODMAN: Another protester who interrupted Haspel's hearing was retired 27-year CIA officer Ray McGovern. In dramatic video posted online, police can be seen dragging the 78-year-old McGovern out of the room, throwing him to the ground and dislocating his arm.
POLICE OFFICER 1: Stop resisting us!
RAY McGOVERN: I'm not resisting.
POLICE OFFICER 1: Yes, you are! Give me your—
RAY McGOVERN: No, I'm not! I'm lying on the ground.
POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm! Give me your arm!
RAY McGOVERN: I'm lying on—
POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm!
RAY McGOVERN: It's dislocated, man!
POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm!
RAY McGOVERN: My left arm is—
POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm!
RAY McGOVERN: My left arm is dislocated, damn it!
POLICE OFFICER 1: Give me your arm!
RAY McGOVERN: Don't you understand?
WITNESS: Stop hurting him!
POLICE OFFICER 1: Stop fighting.
RAY McGOVERN: Don't you understand? My left arm is—ahhh!
POLICE OFFICER 2: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
POLICE OFFICER 1: Stop fighting.
RAY McGOVERN: I'm not fighting. I'm on the ground.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Hold on, guys. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
RAY McGOVERN: And if you'd let me get my glasses on, I could see what's happening.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Let's get him up. Let's get him up.
WITNESS: You're hurting him!
POLICE OFFICER: Let's get him up first.
RAY McGOVERN: You guys are hurting me.
WITNESS: Stop hurting him!
RAY McGOVERN: I'm immobilized. I'm immobilized. You're going to dislocate my shoulder again. And, look, would you pick up my glasses, before you step on them?
AMY GOODMAN: A lawyer who spoke to Ray McGovern in jail said he's being held overnight and faces arraignment this morning. Ray McGovern, long time worked for the CIA, one of the top briefers for President George H.W. Bush years ago.
On Wednesday night, President Trump tweeted, "Gina Haspel did a spectacular job today. There is nobody even close to run the CIA!" he tweeted.
But at least two Republican senators have come out against Haspel: Rand Paul and John McCain. McCain said her, quote, "role in overseeing the use of torture is disturbing & her refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying." But Haspel may still be confirmed with the help of Democratic lawmakers. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has already announced he'll back Haspel.
For more, we're joined by Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, host of the weekly podcast Intercepted, author of the books Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield, and the Oscar-nominated film Dirty Wars.
Jeremy, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about what happened yesterday, and talk about Gina Haspel's record.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, first of all, I think that if we look at the fact that we're 17 years removed from 9/11, and we look at how this country has not come to terms with all of the acts of torture, kidnapping, extrajudicial killing, that was done with the veneer of legalism, put over it by very creative, albeit creative in a sort of evil way, lawyers in the Bush administration, what has resulted in not holding those torturers accountable is that one of them is now ascending to the highest post in the CIA.
And, you know, Amy, the CIA is generally prohibited from engaging in operations inside of the United States, and also prohibited from engaging in propaganda aimed at the American people. And yet, to me, this whole Gina Haspel nomination really seems like a CIA operation itself. You know, the CIA, throughout history, from its origins—and this was the case with its predecessor, the OSS—has had a mastery of coups and interventions and interfering in affairs of other nations and waging propaganda battles. Gina Haspel, when she was nominated for the CIA, was the recipient of an enormous amount of support from the CIA's social media accounts, Twitter and others. And it was a propaganda campaign that was aimed at all of us, at the American people. It was aimed at lawmakers, it was aimed at journalists, where they sort of tweeted a—and they did it over and over and over, and they even did it once Haspel was technically in charge of the CIA, where they're giving her biography, making her sound like some combination of like Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, with Jack Bauer. I mean, it was really kind of incredible.
And then they selectively—the CIA—declassified documents, including one from a Hillary Clinton supporter, Mike Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, that sought to exonerate Gina Haspel of any wrongdoing in the destruction of the CIA tapes, pinning all of the blame on her boss, Jose Rodriguez. The reason I'm bringing all of this up is because Gina Haspel is—has been embraced by Republican and Democratic nominees, everyone from John Brennan, who was sort of Obama's killer priest—you know, they always said, "Oh, John Brennan, it's like he's like priest-like. He has this great conscience." This man ran a global assassination program. Michael Hayden, Bush's former CIAdirector, I actually respect his intellectual honesty, because, unlike Brennan and Clapper and others, Hayden says, "I support torture, and torture works, and that's part of why I support Gina Haspel." What we saw yesterday was a CIA propaganda operation. Gina Haspel's answers were very carefully prepared, the way she refused to answer Kamala Harris's questions about the immorality of torture.
And, you know, one of the things I found was astounding was she said the CIA has historically not been in the business of interrogations. What on Earth is she talking about? And why wasn't she pressed on that? I believe that what she was doing was relying on a technicality, which is that the CIA traditionally outsources those interrogations, or they will have people like those mental health professionals, Mitchell and Jessen, who were essentially the ones that came in and said, "Here's how we can reverse-engineer the tactics that we use to train our own personnel to resist torture or to face torture. Let's reverse-engineer that and actually apply it in an offensive manner against prisoners."
So, the fact that—this hearing was a farce, where, unfortunately, some of the Democrats and all of the Republicans engaged in a collective endorsement of what is, in my view, quite clearly, a CIA propaganda operation. It's a coup of sorts to have someone like Gina Haspel, who has been involved with destroying evidence, torture, kidnapping, and refuses—refuses—to denounce any of it. I mean, it's incredible that 17 years after 9/11 and—and, I'm sorry, Obama plays a huge role in how this happened. The moment Obama said, "We need to look forward, not backward," was the moment that Gina Haspel was able to become a viable candidate for CIA. And, I mean, this is a very, very serious development and the result of a probably extralegal propaganda campaign and an operation aimed at the domestic American public.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to go back to who you mentioned, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California, questioning Gina Haspel at Wednesday's hearing.
SENKAMALA HARRIS: Would you agree that given this appearance of conflict or potential conflict around the classification or declassification of these documents, that—would you agree that Director Coats, instead, should have the responsibility for declassification decisions regarding your background?
GINA HASPEL: Senator, I think one important thing is that this committee plays a unique role to review the classified record. And we have sent over every piece of paper we can lay our hands on about my classified record, all of my evaluations over a 33-year career. And I hope every senator has had the opportunity to look at that classified material.
SENKAMALA HARRIS: Indeed, I have.
GINA HASPEL: But there are—
SENKAMALA HARRIS: And I have another question for you, then, because I only have a few minutes left—I only have a few seconds left. The president has asserted that torture works. Do you agree with that statement?
GINA HASPEL: Senator, I don't believe that torture works. I believe that in the CIA's program—and I'm not attributing this to enhanced interrogation techniques—I believe, as many people, directors, who have sat in this chair before me, that valuable information was obtained from senior al-Qaeda operatives, that allowed us to defend this country and prevent another attack.
SENKAMALA HARRIS: Is that a yes?
GINA HASPEL: No, it's not a yes. We got valuable information from debriefing of al-Qaeda detainees. And I don't—I don't think it's knowable whether interrogation techniques played a role in that.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Jeremy, if you could respond to what Gina Haspel said, and also elaborate on what exactly she was responsible for at that CIA black site in Thailand?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, the CIA black site in Thailand was called Cat's Eye. And, you know, at the time, Gina Haspel was—I mean, they describe her as a mid-level officer in the CIA. But let's remember, this was the most closely guarded, sensitive program of the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and they chose Gina Haspel—the CIA chose Gina Haspel to be in charge of one of the main black sites that the CIA was using when they would either kidnap individual—I mean, they call it "rendition," it's kidnap—when they would kidnap individuals, purchase them from warlords or receive them from allied forces either in the Middle East or in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And her job was to oversee the interrogation, the debriefing, as she puts it, of prisoners that were snatched off the battlefield.
And the rationale for it was, A, we need to find out who knows what about how 9/11 happened and who planned it, and, B, are there more attacks planned. And if you remember, at that time, 17 years ago, there was a lot of concern that there was going to be another attack. There was the whole anthrax thing going on. I mean, there was real hysteria. So, that is the part of it that they—that at yesterday's hearings everyone up the focus on. It was like, "Let's remember what was going on at that time." So, Haspel is sent there. And my understanding is that prior to her arriving there, there was some extreme torture used against prisoners. And then, during her time there, what they've publicly acknowledged is that at least one individual was waterboarded dozens and dozens of times.
AMY GOODMAN: And slammed against a wall and—
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, the whole focus has been on waterboarding, and Gina Haspel yesterday said, "Well, I will follow the U.S. Army Field Manual," which has been on the books for a long time, and remains on the books, of what DOD personnel are allowed to do during an interrogation. And that includes extreme sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, putting people in very confined spaces. I mean, let's remember, they would put people in boxes, the CIA would. They sometimes would place inside of those boxes insects and tell them they were poisonous. They would do walling, where they would have a chain on one side of the wall, the prisoner is attached to that chain on the other side of the wall, with a hole in it, and they could yank them and then slam them against a wall. And then you had, of course, waterboarding.
Now, you know, the question was, though: Is this a moral? And Gina Haspel kept saying, "Well, it was legal." There's no record that Gina Haspel protested, expressed concern. And there is a record that at other sites—and, in fact, at that site later—that interrogators did sort of rebel and say, "Wait a minute. Are we really supposed to be doing this?" I mean, you know, as Trump became president, I've spent a lot of time over the past year, year and a half, studying World War II and the aftermath of World War II. And, of course, everyone has heard of the Nuremberg trials, where the Nazis were put on trial. And it was everyone from very high-ranking people all the way down to lower-ranking people. In fact, very recently, in the past years, the Israelis and the United States have both tried to apprehend people that were guards at facilities, people that weren't even accused of directly killing anyone. And the Nuremberg principles dictate that saying you were just doing your job is not a defense. And yet, that is the primary defense of Gina Haspel.
And, Amy, final point on this, in Japan, after World War II, the tribunal was called the Tokyo Trials. And, yes, they prosecuted very top-level people. They also prosecuted—this was U.S. prosecutors—they also prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding, for waterboarding American POWs. And I read the primary testimony of some of those soldiers. Ted Kennedy, actually, in 2006, on the floor of the Senate, read some of the testimony of American soldiers who had water sprayed up their nostrils, doused on their faces. Some of those people were executed. And among the charges they were executed for was waterboarding—not solely waterboarding, but waterboarding was one of the main charges. And others were sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. What's Gina Haspel's sentence? Oh, to be nominated as Central Intelligence Agency director.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let's go to Jack Reed, the Democratic senator of Rhode Island, questioning Gina Haspel.
SENJACK REED: If one of your operatives were captured, subjected to waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques, which you, I believe, supervised, would you consider that to be moral, since perhaps the other entity did not have legal restrictions, and good tradecraft, as you appeared to do when you were involved in it previously?
GINA HASPEL: Senator, I don't believe the terrorists follow any guidelines or civilized norms or the law. CIA follows the law.
SENJACK REED: Excuse me, madam, you seem to be saying that you were not following civilized norms and the law or anything else, when you were conducting those self-same activities, if that's the analogy you're going to draw.
GINA HASPEL: Sir, I'm sorry, can you—I—
SENJACK REED: Very simple. You have an operations officer who is captured. He's being waterboarded. I've asked you, very simply: Would you determine that to be immoral and something that should never be done, condoned in any way, shape or form? Your response seems to be that civilized nations don't do it, but uncivilized nations do it, or uncivilized groups do it.
UNIDENTIFIED: The United States does it to the soldiers.
SENJACK REED: A civilized nation—a civilized nation was doing it, until it was outlawed by this Congress.
GINA HASPEL: Senator, I would never, obviously, support inhumane treatment of any CIA officers.
AMY GOODMAN: And let's turn to Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine questioning Gina Haspel.
SENSUSAN COLLINS: As a candidate, President Trump repeatedly expressed his support for waterboarding. In fact, he said we should go beyond waterboarding. So, if the CIA has a high-value terrorism suspect in its custody, and the president gave you a direct order to waterboard that suspect, what would you do?
GINA HASPEL: Senator, I would advise—I do not believe the president would ask me to do that.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Gina Haspel doesn't believe that the president would ask her to do that. This is Donald Trump while he was running for president.
DONALD TRUMP: Don't tell me it doesn't work. Torture works. OK, folks? Torture—you know, have these guys: "Torture doesn't work." Believe me, it works, OK? And waterboarding is your minor form. Some people say it's not actually torture. Let's assume it is. But they ask me the question: What do you think of waterboarding? Absolutely fine. But we should go much stronger than waterboarding. That's the way I feel.
AMY GOODMAN: "I would go much stronger than waterboarding," says President Trump. Jeremy Scahill?
JEREMY SCAHILL: You know, my question for anybody watching or listening right now is: When you hear the phrase "speaking truth to power," you know, who do you think of? You think of people like Martin Luther King. You think of, you know, activists. You think of people of conscience. That is the phrase that lawmakers, you know, the people that introduced her, former CIA directors—they say, "Gina Haspel is the person that you want speaking truth to power." And there's this sort of hashtag #resistance view of Gina Haspel that exists, which is, "Well, Haspel already knows all of this stuff. She understands. She's been in the CIA for 30 years. She's going to be able to sort of do that dance with Trump and stand up to him." No. We already know how she views these. There were people that were interrogators that protested. There were CIA officers and State Department people who resigned. Gina Haspel followed the orders. And so, whether it is George Bush and Dick Cheney or it's Donald Trump, the track record of Gina Haspel is that she does what she's told, even if it's a heinous act of torture.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the destruction of the videotapes? Explain what she did.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, first of all, Gina Haspel claimed, in this hearing, that there were 92 tapes and that it was 92 tapes of one individual. You know, Jason Leopold, who is a BuzzFeed news journalist that has done really incredible work FOIAing information—he and Marcy Wheeler have tracked this stuff more than anyone else—said that it was tapes of two individuals. Gina Haspel claims that they took the—that they had these recordings, that there was concern because the program—meaning the extraordinary rendition program and the black sites program—had started to seep out into the media. It was being reported on in The Washington PostNew York Times, Sy Hersh, other people. And they said, "Oh, well, we can't have these things leaked, because it's going to put at risk the agents in the field."
And Haspel and her boss, Jose Rodriguez, who openly brags—he goes on his book tours and stuff, openly brags that he jump-started the torture program, said it worked, etc. Haspel was his deputy at the time that these tapes were ordered destroyed. And Haspel had to actually draft the memo for Jose Rodriguez. Now, her defenders portray it as though she was like Rodriguez's secretary and was doing it. No, she was one of the people that ran the site where these tapes were filmed.
And she said, openly, in the hearing, which actually contradicted a lot of what her defenders said about her—she said she absolutely supported destroying the tapes. Now, and then she's asked during the hearing—now, mind you, this is someone who is up for CIA director. She is asked, "Why didn't you preserve a copy of it in a secure way? OK, we understand that you wanted to destroy any tapes that may have been not held securely. Why didn't you preserve a copy?" She says, "Oh, I'm not a technical person." Huh? You're not a technical person, and you're going to be the director of the CIA? This is what I'm saying. This whole thing is a PSYOP against us.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let's turn to Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California questioning Gina Haspel yesterday.
SENDIANNE FEINSTEIN: Were you an advocate for destroying the tapes?
GINA HASPEL: Senator, I absolutely was an advocate, if we could within and conforming to U.S. law and if we could get policy concurrence to eliminate the security risk posed to our officers by those tapes. And the consistent legal—
SENDIANNE FEINSTEIN: And you were aware of what those tapes contained?
GINA HASPEL: No, I never watched the tapes.
SENDIANNE FEINSTEIN: No, but you—
GINA HASPEL: But I understood that our officers' faces were on them and that that was very dangerous at a time when there were unauthorized disclosures that were exposing the program.
SENDIANNE FEINSTEIN: But it also exposed how the program was conducted.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So that's Gina Haspel responding to questions by Feinstein. I wanted to ask, Jeremy, given what you said earlier about the history of the CIA and their not only participation in programs of torture, but also intervening in other countries, overthrowing various governments, whether anyone in the CIA would not be complicit in what Gina Haspel has been complicit in, or variations of the same. And then, second, the point that Trump made about, you know, waterboarding and worse. What about the fact that the CIA, for worse things than waterboarding, principally rendered—or, as you say, kidnapped—detainees and sent them to places like Syria, Iraq, Jordan, etc., where they knew the torture would be much more brutal?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, first of all, yes, there are people who worked in the CIA—a lot of people who worked in the CIA that I don't think you could say, "Oh, these people are responsible for torture." But even if we want to look at sort of—and I'll answer that question directly in a second. But even if you want to look at sort of grades of involvement, Gina Haspel is like at the top. You know, she was one of the people who was running one of the early sites where the United States was doing this. So, it's clear that—and the fact that she refuses to call it immoral or to say that the tactics that the senators were specifically citing was torture—she kept saying, "Well, you know, we got this valuable information. Uh, it's a mystery. I don't know. Maybe it was attributable to that, maybe it wasn't."
But, you know, in general, the CIA is divided into two big camps. I mean, there's lots of little nuance, but two big camps: the analytical side and the operations side. The operations side is sort of the dark side, the Dick Cheney view of it. Those are the people that were conducting the operations that Gina Haspel was involved with. Then you have people that are on the analytical side. And those were the people that the neocons said was like a liberal think tank. They would have been the people that were pushing back internally against, for instance, the information that was put in front of Colin Powell when he went to the United Nations to sell the Iraq War for the Bush administration. Ray McGovern, who was dragged out of that hearing and had his arm dislocated, you know, this is a man who's almost 80 years old. Ray McGovern came out of the analytical division at the CIA. Glenn Carle, another person who was also a CIA interrogator—he actually was on the operations side—was against torture and spoke out about torture.
So, you know, I certainly don't mean to be heaping any praise on the CIA. But to directly answer your question: of course. And there were people that were very seriously protesting, including people who were in the same position as Gina Haspel after her, who were saying, "Uh-uh, this is not right."
AMY GOODMAN: What do you feel is the critical question that wasn't asked, as we wrap up?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I think that the Democrats should have shut the entire thing down and refused to participate anymore until Gina Haspel answered the question about is waterboarding torture, and not get into some legalistic thing of what John Yoo, a man who would justify all manner of torture and say, "Well, anything short of killing them is not actually torture"—
AMY GOODMAN: Who's at UC Berkeley Law School.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Who's at—yeah, ironically. Look—
AMY GOODMAN: Jay Bybee, federal judge.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yes, also. I mean, they had all these—
AMY GOODMAN: John Brennan.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Exactly, right. And, you know, Hitler also had a lot of lawyers that could make things legal. And people say, "Oh, you're comparing the United States to Nazi Germany." No, they're doing it. They're doing it by using the very excuse that war criminals the world over attempt to use. So, I think they should have pushed her on the idea that: Do you think that just doing your job is an excuse? Your conscience plays no role in this? You know, have you ever heard of a conscientious objection? But the fact—and I think John McCain, as discredited as he is on a lot of issues, the man was tortured and understands this issue and has made the point that the United States prosecuted Japanese war criminals for doing these same things. His point was good. It is totally disqualifying, no matter what you think, if you're a Republican, Democrat, not to say that was immoral.
AMY GOODMAN: And she gets to classify or declassify the documents. She's in charge of the CIA right now, right? Acting director.
JEREMY SCAHILL: She is. And I also—and the other point—I mean, look, this was all they talked about yesterday, for the most part, this and then, you know, Marco Rubio and others sort of saying, "Oh, we love the CIA, and you're all so great." They didn't talk about any other issues. Gina Haspel at one point mentions the relationship between the Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA has never been closer. I mean, to me, the elephant in the room of all of this is that the CIA and the U.S. military's darkest elements, they're in a golden era right now. I mean, Trump is an ideal person for them. All of this stuff about the deep state is trying to destroy Trump—establishment neocons hate the man, but they love what's going on right now. And, unfortunately, they're in an alliance increasingly with liberals.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, I want to thank you for being with us, co-founder of The Intercept, host of the weekly podcast Intercepted, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary ArmyDirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield and The Assassination Complex.
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions,







Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Mr President, You know better:


Mr. President:

Surely you know better.  You can not work the streets of south side Chicago and know the likes of Reverend Wright without knowing better.  You can not forget – no one forgets being in Chicago that long.
Look, we are not calling on you to actually do anything right now.  We are simply asking you to stop doing certain things and it will save money as well.  How can you beat that?
Stop the extraordinary rendition.  Stop inoculating people, uninvited, in their own countries as you did with the false inoculation deal in Pakistan. 
Stop attacking Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Kenya, and so on.  It will save money.  Honest!
Here is an interview or so with Amy Goodman:


Guest: , national security correspondent for The Nation magazine and author of the new Nation article, "The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia." He recently returned from Somalia. He is the author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Related stories

Rush Transcript

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
 - , , ,
More...
 


Related Links

AMY GOODMAN: As famine and drought grip Somalia in what’s being called the worst humanitarian disaster in the world right now, The Nation magazine has revealed the CIA is greatly expanding its covert operations inside Somalia. Following an in-depth, on-the-ground investigation inside
Mogadishu
, the magazine revealed the agency has set up a secret counterterrorism training base at the international airport in Somalia, where it’s training an indigenous Somali force to conduct targeted combat and capture operations against members of Al Shabab, the militant group with close ties to al-Qaeda.
The Nation has also revealed the CIA is using a secret underground prison in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency. While a U.S. official told The Nation that the CIA does not run the prison, he acknowledged the CIA pays the salaries of Somali agents. Some of the prisoners in the prison have been snatched on the streets of Nairobi, Kenya, and rendered to Mogadishu.The revelations come as the Joint Special Operations Command, known as
JSOC
, has increased its targeted killing operations inside Somalia. On June 23rd, JSOC forces targeted an alleged Shabab convoy and then landed inside Somalia to collect the bodies.
We’re joined now by , the national security correspondent for The Nation magazine. He has just returned from Mogadishu, Somalia. He’s a longtime Democracy Now! correspondent. His
story
 in this week’s Nation magazine is called "The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia."
Jeremy, talk about what you found in Somalia.JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I traveled to Somalia with Rick Rowley from Big Noise Films. He’s a filmmaker. And we were there for about 10 days. And we were investigating the institution of targeted killing that is increasingly present in the U.S. national security strategy, particularly under President Obama. And when we arrived in Mogadishu, within days, we discovered that the CIA had just finished construction of a pretty massive compound at the  in Mogadishu. And the compound, which is not even hidden in plain sight—it’s just in plain sight—looks like a gated community. It has about a dozen buildings inside of it, brand new. It’s a walled compound with guard posts at all of its—at each of its four corners. It’s right on the banks of the
Indian Ocean
. And then next to it there are six or eight small hangars. And the CIA also has its own aircraft there.
I was able to track down a senior Somali intelligence official and began the process of investigating this facility. And what I discovered is that the CIA is training what was described to me as an indigenous strike force, members of Somalia’s National Security Agency, its intelligence division, to conduct operations in the areas controlled by the Shabab in Mogadishu. And, you know, the situation is very fluid, but the Shabab control a huge portion of Mogadishu. And the internationally recognized government controls about 30 square miles of territory. When I asked a very prominent businessman who works in the port of Mogadishu who controls the rest, he said the Shabab government, and referred to it as such. And everyone says that if the 9,000 troops from Uganda and Burundi that are there as part of the African Union were to pull out, that the Shabab would take over in minutes, if not seconds. And so, we discovered that the CIA was expanding its operations there.But then I also met a man who claimed that he had been held in an underground prison in the basement of the National Security Agency, which is one of the facilities where the CIA has its personnel, and it’s literally behind the presidential palace in
Villa Somalia
, which is the semi-fortified area where Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, the U.S.-backed government, is based. And he described to me that he had seen prisoners inside of this and talked to prisoners inside of this basement dungeon who had been there for 18 months or more. There were people that he described as young boys inside the prison, old men, described infestation of bedbugs and mosquitoes, no windows. Prisoners are never allowed to see the light of day, and people are literally going crazy in the basement of this prison. And he said that he had seen both U.S. and French agents, white men, interrogating prisoners, and that some of the prisoners claimed that they had been snatched in neighboring Kenya and brought, rendered, to Somalia. And so, I started that investigation, and more sources came forward when I was in Mogadishu to describe this and confirmed that CIA personnel and possibly U.S. military intelligence personnel are interrogating prisoners held in that basement facility.
We found one man, in particular, the case of one man, in particular, named  Hassan, who was a 25- or 26-year-old Kenyan of Somali descent, but he’s a Kenyan citizen, who was snatched from his home in July of 2009. And his lawyers allege that he was rendered to Somalia, and they said that it had all the hallmarks of a U.S. rendition. So I investigated that case, and what I learned—and, in fact, what—I can’t say where the U.S. official worked, because they wouldn’t allow us to report it, but let’s just say a U.S. official very familiar with these operations acknowledged the case of  Hassan, said to me directly, "The U.S. did not render him." And I said, "Well, we’re not alleging that the U.S. rendered him. We’re alleging that the Kenyans rendered him." You have to understand, in 2007 alone, the Kenyans rendered 85 —or, excuse me, 85 people from Kenya to Somalia on behalf of the U.S. and other governments, including Ethiopia. So there is a long pattern here of the U.S. using proxy forces such as the Kenyans to do these renditions. So, the U.S. doesn’t have to put them on a plane itself. But the U.S. official acknowledged that the U.S. provided the Kenyans with the intelligence that led to Hassan, quote, "being taken off the streets." So, the U.S. is playing semantics with this. It’s clear that they made it abundantly clear they wanted him removed from the game, and he was swiftly abducted, hooded, taken to Wilson Airport, and then rendered to Mogadishu. This man was identified in an intelligence report, that’s believed to be a U.S. intelligence report, that was leaked by Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit—he was identified as "the right-hand man" of Ali Nabhan, who was one of the most wanted suspects regarding East Africa that the U.S. was pursuing. He was wanted for questioning over his alleged connection to the 2002 bombings in Kenya that targeted a hotel and an Israeli aircraft that was parked at the airport in Mombasa. Two months after Hassan was snatched off the streets of Kenya, President Obama authorized his first
targeted killing
 in Somalia and killed Ali Nabhan, the man that Hassan was allegedly the right-hand man to. So, the U.S. role in that case seems very, very clear.
As far as the interrogations go inside of this basement prison, the U.S. official that was made available to me for this story said that the U.S. does not directly interrogate prisoners, we jointly "debrief" suspects with Somali agents present—again, it’s all a semantic game—and insisted that it’s only happened a few times in the past year.AMY GOODMAN: And what is the significance of this?JEREMY SCAHILL: In January of 2009, President Obama signed a series of executive orders that were intended to end the practices that President Bush and Vice President Cheney had implemented in the  that candidate Obama had denounced on the campaign trail: torture, secret prisons, renditions. And CIA Director
Leon Panetta
 said in April of 2009 that the U.S. was in the process of decommissioning all of its secret prison sites. Two months later, Hassan is rendered to a secret prison in Somalia.
AMY GOODMAN: Is it your sense that, for example, the ICRC, the International Red Cross, knows about this, is going in and visiting the prisoners?JEREMY SCAHILL: There’s no Red Cross in Mogadishu. There’s no one in Mogadishu. There’s no—there’s no aid agencies. No one will go there. Prison visits? No, there’s not even a, you know, food distribution program that has any Westerners on the ground. They just—all of the white Westerners are hiding inside of AMISOM’s compound, the African Union compound, and Mogadishu is left to suffer completely. It is the most horrifying scene I have ever seen in my life. The prisoners held there, not only do they not see the Red Cross, they are not ever presented with charges. There is no court system to speak of at all in Mogadishu.And, you know, the U.S. can say—can talk until it’s blue in the face about how this isn’t a secret U.S. prison, and at the same time confirm that they pay the salaries of the people that run those prisons and are running Somalia’s intelligence. It was described to me how the CIA does not trust the Somali government, which is regularly denounced by the U.S. as corrupt and unable to control its own territory. So they literally, every month, the CIA lines up the Somali agents and pays them $200 in cash. So, how is it that you can say, "This isn’t our
secret prison
. We’re just there"? And, you know, CNN gets spun by the CIA yesterday, after my story comes out, and they say, "Well, the Somalis assure us that they’re treating the prisoners humanely." You’re paying their salaries. You know, that is using that site, at a minimum.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, you write, "The CIA presence in Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counterterrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations."JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Well, as I said, President Obama has made Somalia and Yemen major focus points of his continuation the Bush-era doctrine that the world is a battlefield and we have the right to kill anyone that we deem to be a terrorist at any time that we want in any country around the world, started his targeted killing operation authorizations, as far as we know, in September of 2009.And just in the past month, there have been a number of U.S. strikes inside of Somalia. There was the June 23rd strike that you mentioned where strikes were conducted against a convoy that allegedly was headed by Shabab members, and then  forces land on the ground and collect the bodies. They did the same thing with the Ali Nabhan hit in 2009. JSOC landed inside the country and took his body for verification. Then—that it was him. Then, on July 6th, there were three more U.S. strikes in another area of Somalia called
Kismayo
, which is about 300 miles away from Mogadishu. And you have—I also was told by a very senior Somali official—and I’m going to be writing about this in the coming weeks—that JSOC actually has forces on the ground that are directly targeting Shabab, not just flying in and hitting them, but actually on the ground onducting operations.
But I have to say, though, that while we can talk about the expanded presence of the CIA and this counterterrorism program, as far as the Somali agents are concerned, it’s been a tremendous failure. The only time that they’ve attempted a targeted operation inside of a Shabab-controlled area in Mogadishu was late last year, and it was described to me as a categorical disaster, where the Somali agents were killed, and they haven’t tried another operation since. So I think that the CIA is certainly operating in what is perhaps the most dangerous and unstable environment that it operates in, and we’re clearly increasing the amount we’re spending on it and the amount of personnel that we’re allocating to it, but to what effect is really unclear.AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, AP reported this: "A federal judge reacted skeptically [...] to the Obama administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit by an American citizen who says he was held in Africa for four months and allegedly interrogated more than 30 times by U.S. officials." Amir Mohamed Meshal, a Muslim man living in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, said "he was subjected to unlawful rendition from Kenya to Somalia and Ethiopia carried out at the behest of U.S. officials."JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. If that case is from 2007, the story there was that the United States backed an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia to unseat a coalition of groups that called themselves the
Islamic Courts Union
 that had taken control of Mogadishu, defeating the CIA’s warlords, who operated effectively as a death squad. And they brought some semblance of order to Mogadishu. They were ruthless, but they brought order to Mogadishu and were widely seen as the sort of most stable people that had taken power since the regime of Siad Barre was brought down in 1991 and then the Black Hawk Down incident happened. And the U.S., of course, you know, took a position, under the Bush administration, that an Islamic government was not acceptable, and they backed an Ethiopia invasion, and then JSOC went in and also did targeted killing operations.
So, many  began to flee the Ethiopian invasion. And the Kenyans, in particular, along with the Ethiopians, started just mass renditions, where they were snatching people off the streets and then sending them to either Mogadishu or another area of Somalia, where there was a , called Baidoa. I interviewed a former Islamic warlord who JSOC tried to kill in 2007. He was then abducted by Americans inside of Somalia and rendered to Ethiopia and held by the Ethiopians for two years. Despite the fact that the U.S. backed this invasion that really radically worsened the situation, the current president of Somalia, , is a former leader of the
Islamic Courts Union
, and he now is backed by the United States. So, you know, it all comes full circle. And U.S. policy has, if anything, strengthened the role of Al Shabab, who—they were minor players within this Islamic Courts Union. The U.S. and Ethiopian response made them the premier militants on the block.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to break, then come back and also talk about the famine that is engulfing Somalia, the drought. Jeremy Scahill with us. "The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia" is his exposé in The Nation magazine this week. Stay with us.[break]AMY GOODMAN: We’re with Jeremy Scahill. In a moment, we’re going to go to Nairobi, Kenya, where we’ll be speaking with a representative of the ICRC. But Jeremy Scahill, talk about Warsame.JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, when Admiral
McRaven
, who was the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, appeared before the Senate for his confirmation hearings to become head of U.S. Special Operations Command, he mentioned that the U.S. military was holding certain prisoners near Somalia and Yemen on naval ships. And then, the next week after—this was in July, in early July—the next week after McRaven made that statement, the U.S. announced that it had transferred a Somali man who had been captured in a boat between Yemen and Somalia and taken him back to the United States, to New York, and they charged him with terrorism-related charges. And this has ignited a debate about the Obama administration’s stated policies regarding the legality, or lack of stated policies, regarding the legality of holding prisoners incommunicado, as Warsame was for two months, with no access to lawyers or the Red Cross, and then charging them in U.S. courts. The Center for Constitutional Rights put out a series of questions for the Obama administration to answer about why this is legal and why you’re allowed to hold these kinds of prisoners on naval ships without any access to due process whatsoever, especially if you’re going to then charge them in civilian courts in the United States.
The other issue that’s raised by this, though, is the case I’ve been talking about, this Ahmed Abdullahi Hassan. His lawyers are preparing to file a habeas petition in the U.S. alleging that the U.S. is aware of his whereabouts and has access to him in this basement prison in Somalia. And it’s going to be another challenge, not to President Bush, but now to President Obama, on the assertions being made by the executive branch regarding their ability to simply just hold indefinitely anyone that they believe to be a threat.AMY GOODMAN: And how does the so-called
war on terror
 in Somalia, though President Obama is no longer calling it "the war on terror," fit into the bigger picture of U.S. operations in Yemen, in—well, throughout the area?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Well, I mean, these are the new battlegrounds for President Obama’s interpretation of how to fight the war he dare not call "the war on terror" anymore, although they constantly imitate all of the policies of Bush and take them even further. John Brennan, the President’s top counterterrorism adviser a few weeks ago laid out what he called the new U.S. strategy, which is going to rely less on large conventional forces and occupying nations and more on what he called "surgical targeted strikes" against individual terrorists. And so, the U.S. has been dramatically increasing its involvement in both Yemen and Somalia and has asserted the right to kill people in those countries without coming forward and saying, "This is the law under which we’re doing this." And there’s a lot of questions being raised in the human rights and the civil liberties community about this deafening silence in Congress. Almost no one in Congress will touch this at all.AMY GOODMAN: We’re with Jeremy Scahill, investigative reporter, Democracy Now! correspondent, has done a major exposé for The Nation magazine on "CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia."

Creative Commons LicenseThe original content of this program is licensed under a . Please attribute legal copies of this work to . Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions,
contact us
.


Famine in Somalia, Horn of Africa Described as "Worst Humanitarian Disaster in the World"

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has issued an urgent appeal over the crisis in Somalia, where more than 11 million people are in need of life-saving assistance as they face the worst drought in decades. The United Nations describes the Somali drought as the worst  in the world, and a top U.N. official, Valerie Amos, urged the world to make the link between  and the drought. The extended drought is forcing an estimated 3,000 people a day from Somalia to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia. We speak to Yves van Loo in Nairobi of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia, who was in Mogadishu just two weeks ago. We also speak to investigative reporter
Jeremy Scahill
, who recently returned from assignment in Somalia. [includes rush transcript]
Filed under
,
Africa
Guests: , spokesperson for International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia
, national security correspondent for The Nation magazine and author of the new Nation article, "The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia." He recently returned from Somalia, where he visited camps for residents displaced by the drought. He is the author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Related stories

Rush Transcript

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
 - , , ,
More...
 

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to what’s been characterized as the worst  in the world: the famine in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued an urgent appeal yesterday to respond to the crisis, where more than
11
 million people are in need of life-saving assistance as they face the worst drought in decades. Secretary-General Ban said, quote, "The human cost of this crisis is catastrophic. We cannot afford to wait."
The extended drought is forcing an estimated 3,000 people a day from Somalia to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees,
António Guterres
, also issued an urgent appeal earlier this week.
ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: I have no doubt that Somalia is today the worst humanitarian disaster that we face in the world. Here in the outskirts of the Somali refugee camp of
Dadaab
, we have the poorest of the poor, the most vulnerable of the vulnerable in the world.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined on the phone by Yves van Loo in Nairobi, Kenya, the spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia. He was just in
Mogadishu
 two weeks ago.
Yves, explain the scope of this catastrophe that is unfolding now in Somalia.YVES VAN LOO: Actually, we get the report from all of the staff still based in Somalia. They’re all speaking about the same, that there is no water, that with the real lack of rain this year, it’s the second agricultural season that is lost for the country. So people are desperately seeking for shelter. They try to escape the drought. They try to escape also the insecurity, because, as you know, Somalia is still facing a war. And people try to avoid to stay too close to the front lines. So we could see, especially in Mogadishu and, as your correspondent mentioned, in neighboring countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, that thousands of people are just gathering to a improvised or structural refugees camp.AMY GOODMAN: How bad is the famine right now, and what is causing it?YVES VAN LOO: What we can see, for the ICRC, we are supporting a huge network of therapeutic feeding centers and clinics operated by a partner from the Somalia Red Crescent. What we could see, that for the last three months the admitted children just doubled. We pass—for instance, for this Bay region, in June we got three times more children than the children that were already inside the center. The malnutrition rate just raised up to 11 percent. It is twice the alarm level. So the situation is very, very bad. I mean, it’s a huge effort to be made to feed the population.AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your response to the reports that some aid organizations say relief efforts have been hampered in Somalia due to U.S. anti-terrorism laws that bar any person or organization from providing any type of material support, even humanitarian aid, to groups that have ties to Al Shabab, a designated terrorist organization that controls part of Somalia. Groups like Mercy Corps are saying this. Are you finding this, as well?YVES VAN LOO: Well, for us, I mean, the way we’re operating, of course, we do not pass through the authorities. What we do with any authority that is in charge or in control of the territory is, of course, to inform them and ask permission to operate. But then, of course, the operation is conducted exclusively by ICRC personnel. So, the assistance that will be provided will be straightly delivered to the beneficiaries. It doesn’t pass through any local structure, any local organization, controlled by any government or any group in charge of a territory.AMY GOODMAN: Yves van Loo, since you are a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia, in our last segment, we were talking with investigative journalist  about the secret prison in Mogadishu and wondering whether the
ICRC
 knows about it and is visiting the prisoners inside?
YVES VAN LOO: No, we are not visiting, and we’re not aware of any secret prison there. What I know is that, of course, in Somalia you have secret services, and you have also foreign intervention, like African Union there. So, of course, we suspect that some of the people there belong to intelligence. But now we do not conduct any activities with them. I saw that—I heard your correspondent refer to the arrest and the transfer of Mr. Warsame. But so far, I mean, we—yeah, we’ve been notified by the Department of State, but yeah, we do not have any detention activities so far in Somalia.AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill?JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, I’m happy to provide you with the location of the secret prison. Just go to where President Sheikh Sharif’s office is, and it’s right behind it in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency. And I think that the Red Cross should demand immediate access to this prison from both the United States government and the Somalia , because, according to former prisoners, lawyers and Somali intelligence officials, there are scores of people that have been held without charge in this basement, some of them, as far as we can document, for more than 18 months. And the Red Cross should be insisting on access to this prison, which is actually within the TFG’s, the Somali government’s compound in
Villa Somalia
.
YVES VAN LOO: OK. So, just thank you for the information. What I suggest is maybe offline that you give me your contact. Then we can speak further on this matter. But I think—I mean, with no information from my side, it’s difficult to make any comment on that. But that’s very interesting.AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, you were also in the camps. Can you talk about the effect of the famine and what you saw? You are just back also from Somalia.JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, I mean, we also traveled down to the Kenya-Somalia border, and it is the largest refugee camp in the world at
Dadaab
, and—the one operated by the United Nations. It was originally built in 1991 for about 90,000 people. There are now almost 400,000 people that are in that camp. And then there are tens of thousands of others who have set up their own ad hoc housing outside of the camp and are hoping to make their way into the camp. I mean, it’s an utterly horrifying situation.
And part of what’s happening is that there is a Somalia crisis industry that is profiting from this, largely based in Nairobi, people with large salaries and maids and nannies, living in nice apartments in Nairobi, that never step foot anywhere inside of
Mogadishu
, except within the protected confines of the African Union or U.N. presence there near the airport. And, I mean, we were in the only trauma hospital in Mogadishu, and they said there are—they have four surgeons there. They get a lot of support from the Red Cross, but only in supplies. There are no—there is no international presence that can be seen, whatsoever, in the vast majority of Mogadishu, and that is a part of the problem.
And, you know, the Shabab areas are the most desperately affected in terms of the civilian consequences of what we saw, and that was an indiscriminate shelling by the African Union forces, armed and backed by the United States, launching missiles from their base miles away from
Bakara Market
, randomly just hitting buildings there. We saw bodies buried, decapitations that had happened, communities that reeked of rotting human flesh, wastelands where animals roam eating trash. And there’s nothing. There’s no one there. There are no doctors in the Shabab-controlled area. One doctor that we talked to was kidnapped by the Shabab and taken to their area to train nurses. And he told us, "I would have gone there if they had asked me, but they snatched me off the streets and took me there and forced me to train nurses." What’s desperately needed is someone to stand up and say, "We will take the risk to go in there and bring humanitarian aid, regardless of what governments tell us not to do it."
AMY GOODMAN: Yves van Loo, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, we just got this news from
Al Jazeera English
. "The UN World Food Programme would welcome any assistance from the hardline Muslim group al-Shabab to help avert a humanitarian disaster in the Horn of Africa, a spokesman [has] told Al Jazeera.
"Al-Shabab has [already] lifted a ban on humanitarian agencies supplying food aid to millions of citizens [amid] one of the region’s worst droughts in 60 years."How significant is this? And what are you calling for the world to do now for and with Somalia?YVES VAN LOO: What is clear is that the Somali population has been suffering for the last 20 years. You know, it’s the political instability, this war. They have drought and flooding. So, of course, any organization that is coming to the country will be welcome to support the existing organizations already working in the country. The needs are huge. I mean, it’s difficult really to give figures because, you know—because of insecurity, it’s very difficult to conduct large assessments.I wanted also to react to what your correspondent just stated about doctors. I mentioned in the beginning of my intervention that we are supporting also a network of clinics from the Somalia
Red Crescent
 and some hospital. And actually, there are some doctors also in the Al Shabab-controlled areas. And we support also those facilities.
AMY GOODMAN: And on your last point, the Shabab says they will allow the food through and the humanitarian groups to operate.YVES VAN LOO: Yeah, it’s good things. I mean, it’s a bit—the point is that, I guess, that, like the
ICRC
, most of the organizations will decide what is the most appropriate program to support the Somali population.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you, Yves van Loo, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia, just back from Mogadishu, speaking to us from Nairobi, Kenya. And Jeremy Scahill, who has an
exposé
 in this week’s Nation magazine called, national security correspondent for The Nation. It’s called "The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia." Jeremy Scahill also a Democracy Now! correspondent. Thanks. I look forward to your next report, Jeremy, and we’ll link to The Nation for this one.

Creative Commons LicenseThe original content of this program is licensed under a . Please attribute legal copies of this work to . Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions,
contact us
.

Red Cross Provided with Location of Secret Somali Prison Used by CIA

Democracy Now! correspondent and The Nation investigative journalist
Jeremy Scahill
 provides an International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson with the location of the secret prison used by the CIA he uncovered in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, which the Red Cross says it didn’t know existed. "There are scores of people that have been held without charge in this basement, some of them, as far as we can document, for more than 18 months," Scahill says. "The Red Cross should be insisting on access to this prison, which is actually within [a] Somali government compound." [includes rush transcript]
Filed under
,
Africa
Guests: , spokesperson for International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia
, national security correspondent for The Nation magazine and author of the new Nation article, "The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia." He recently returned from Somalia. He is the author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Related stories

Rush Transcript

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
 - , , ,
More...
 


Related Links

AMY GOODMAN: Yves van Loo, since you are a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia, in our last segment, we were talking with investigative journalist
Jeremy Scahill
 about the secret prison in Mogadishu and wondering whether the ICRC knows about it and is visiting the prisoners inside?
YVES VAN LOO: No, we are not visiting, and we’re not aware of any secret prison there. What I know is that, of course, in Somalia you have secret services, and you have also foreign intervention, like African Union there. So, of course, we suspect that some of the people there belong to intelligence. But now we do not conduct any activities with them. I saw that—I heard your correspondent refer to the arrest and the transfer of Mr. Warsame. But so far, I mean, we—yeah, we’ve been notified by the Department of State, but yeah, we do not have any detention activities so far in Somalia.AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill?JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, I’m happy to provide you with the location of the secret prison. Just go to where President Sheikh Sharif’s office is, and it’s right behind it in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency. And I think that the Red Cross should demand immediate access to this prison from both the United States government and the Somalia Transitional Federal Government, because, according to former prisoners, lawyers and Somali intelligence officials, there are scores of people that have been held without charge in this basement, some of them, as far as we can document, for more than 18 months. And the Red Cross should be insisting on access to this prison, which is actually within the TFG’s, the Somali government’s compound in
Villa Somalia
.
YVES VAN LOO: OK. So, just thank you for the information. What I suggest is maybe offline that you give me your contact. Then we can speak further on this matter. But I think—I mean, with no information from my side, it’s difficult to make any comment on that. But that’s very interesting.

Creative Commons LicenseThe original content of this program is licensed under a . Please attribute legal copies of this work to . Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions,
contact us
.
What the hell – might as well include this too:


Egyptian Protests Grow amidst Widespread Frustration over Revolution’s Progress

A massive week-long demonstration continues in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in perhaps the largest rallies in the five months since the uprising that led to the fall of former president, Hosni Mubarak. Protests have also been held in the coastal cities of Alexandria and Suez. The protesters are calling for all the demands of the Egyptian revolution to be met, including a wider purge of members of the Mubarak’s regime. Yesterday, 30 men armed with knives and sticks stormed the protesters’ tent camp at the square, wounding six. Egypt’s army has called on protesters to stop the demonstrations, only to draw a large protest in Tahrir last night. Speaking from Cairo, Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous says, “The Egyptian revolution has reached a critical turning point. This is not what people fought for, this is not what people died for, in this revolution. And that’s why people have taken to the streets.” [includes rush transcript]
Guest:
Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent reporting from Cairo, Egypt.
Related stories

Rush Transcript

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...

Related Links


AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to what is happening in Egypt, a massive demonstration once again underway in Tahrir Square in Cairo, perhaps the largest in the last five months since the uprising that led to the fall of the former dictator, Hosni Mubarak. Protests have also been held in coastal cities of Alexandria and Suez.

For nearly a week, Egyptian protesters have camped out in Tahrir. The protesters are calling for all the demands of the Egyptian revolution to be met, including a wider purge of members of Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Several dozen protesters are also continuing a hunger strike, vowing to continue until their demands are met. The protesters dismissed the offer from Prime Minister Essam Sharaf on Monday to reshuffle his cabinet this week.
For more, we go to Cairo, where Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous joins us live. We talked to you last week, Sharif, where this was the beginning of the largest protest since January and February. Talk about what’s happening now.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, I really think the Egyptian revolution has reached a critical turning point, and we’re seeing—we’re bracing now for a showdown between the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, which has ruled the country since February 11th when Mubarak stepped down, and to the thousands, the tens of thousands of protesters that have taken to the streets across the country.
Tahrir has really—it’s entering the sixth day of a sit-in that’s reminiscent of the one that captured the world’s attention back in January and February. And there’s sit-ins being staged in Alexandria and Suez and Mansoura. And as you said, the heart of the matter really lies in the fact that the basic demands, the very basic demands, of the revolution have gone unfilled, with little indication that there’s a path for any real kind of change, that the calls for justice and accountability for members of the former regime have gone unanswered, that the revolutionary demands—one of the cries, the main cries, was "Bread, freedom and social justice"—have all but been abandoned. And on Friday, as you said, we saw this massive protest take place in Tahrir and across Egypt.
But what really happened since then is that this sit-in has continued to grow in Tahrir. Every day, there are more and more tents. There’s more structures being built. And yesterday, the Supreme Council finally—people have been waiting for them to give any kind of indication that [inaudible] any kind of [inaudible]—they finally spoke yesterday, with a very provocative and dismissive statement saying that Egypt was facing a planned and organized attempt to disrupt the country’s stability. And the general, Mohsen El-Fangary, said the Council—he was wagging his finger while he was doing it, there’s a lot of people are speaking about this—will take any and every action to confront and stop the threats surrounding the country.
So, the response to that last night was a huge turnout in Tahrir. I haven’t seen it that packed since the January and February sit-in that happened. Many, many thousands of people were there last night, and that was a direct response to that statement. And there was a big march that happened on Qasr El-Aini Street to the Council of Ministers, to the parliament, where people—I have never heard calls like this, this widespread, this loud, directly against Tantawi, Field Marshal Tantawi, who ruled—who’s effectively the head of the country right now, calls directly against the Supreme Council.
And one of the other things that really was another blow to the demands of the revolution for economic and social justice, there was the final draft of the 2011 budget was recently released. And in it, in a bid to reduce the deficit in Egypt, there were huge cuts to social spending in Egypt, and a lowering of the proposed minimum wage had been—they had proposed to raise it to 700 pounds a month, which is under $120. That was lowered to about 684 pounds. And so, this came at the—they could have—many argue the deficit could have been reduced by taxing real estate, by introducing a progressive tax. But we’re seeing things that we see in other parts of the world with these austerity [inaudible]. This is not what people fought for, this is not what people died for, in this revolution. And that’s why people have taken to the streets. And they are determined not to leave right now Tahrir. And so, it’s a bit of a tense situation because of what the army said yesterday in its provocative statement.
AMY GOODMAN: And the level of violence and what you fear, Sharif?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, yesterday we saw an attack on the square. There was a group of armed men, some wielding swords, tried to attack the square. They were overcome. Two of them were detained, and one of them was handed over to police, although there was a lot of argument over whether to hand people over to the very institutions that they’re protesting against. There’s a lot of security around the square, a lot of it organized by the April 6 Movement, but a lot of it organized just by the people themselves there. They take shifts in organizing these popular committees, where they pat people down and so forth.
The fear is, is that it is extremely hot in Egypt right now, in summer—
AMY GOODMAN: Five seconds.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And so, the fear is that violence may ensue, but people are determined to stay in the square until demands are met.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent, speaking to us from Cairo.

Creative Commons LicenseThe original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.