Secret Prison in Poland
The Raw Story reports that British and Polish intelligence officials have admitted that there was a secret “interrogation and short-term detention facility for suspected terrorists within a Polish intelligence training school with the explicit approval of British and US authorities.”
The Raw Story claims to have seen a memo which indicates that British “Prime Minister Tony Blair told Poland’s then-Prime Minister Leszek Miller to keep the information secret, even from his own government.”
The location of the facility: just outside of the village of Stare Kiejkuty, a “Soviet-era compound once used by German intelligence in World War II” and it is “best known as having been the only Russian intelligence training school to operate outside the Soviet Union.”
Furthermore: it seems that British MI6 and the CIA came up with the plan and invited Poland to ‘join’ the special ‘program’ in 2002. Poland agreed and the program lasted until 2004.
Also interesting to note is that the U.S. and Britain had a somewhat innovative approach:
According to British and Polish intelligence officials, foreign journalists, and EU sources interviewed for this article, the countries participating in the US rendition and detention program and their governments were kept largely out of the loop. Officials say Bush and Blair administration contacts selectively chose politicians in the EU and other countries, keeping their respective governments in the dark.
If The Raw Story‘s report is accurate, and I fear it is, this will be incredibly bad for the image of the U.S. and for the position of Britain and Poland in Europe. If confirmed, this will backfire, and not a little bit. (Other) Europeans aren’t exactly fond of this kind of thing. It’s too secretive, it happens too much in the darkness, it reminds us of totalitarian regimes that made people disappear.
Hell, the people who were interrogated in the campfacility in Poland did disappear (for a while).
And what happened to those people? How were they treated? Were they, indeed, treated according to international law? How do we know? How can we be sure about that, no ‘checks and balances’ existed.
If this will get a lot of attention in European media – and I am sure it will – I fear that relationship between West-European countries and America will worsen significantly. And it’s already not what it once was.
This program is detestable. No true Democracy should advocate the practice of ‘rendition’. Fight terrorism, yes, but do it without breaking the very principles our democracies are built on.
More at Democrats.com and TalkLeft
This has been cross posted at my own blog.
8 Responses to “Secret Prison in Poland”
W has turned US into the ‘evil empire” that Reagan helped to bring down. The Soviets were so evil we copied the ‘best’ of the gulags.
“Fight terrorism, yes, but do it without breaking the very principles our democracies are built on.”
Exactly. We are stronger than them because of the way we live, not by chance, not by a higher power, because the principles that many on the far right are so ready to cast aside produce better results over the long run.
I understand fear makes things like habeus corpus and rights to privacy seem like the luxuries of a weak society, but its exactly that misconception that our leaders should be fighting against in the war on terrorism.
Agreed, that’s also an important part of leadership and I, obviously, also agree with this: “We are stronger than them because of the way we live, not by chance…etc.”
Well said.
This story is based upon a number of media reports. The only NEWS is the memo that was supposedly shown to RAW STORY.
It would be interesting to know how RAW STORY got a memo that the EU investigators could not get.
This RAW STORY article is written either by someone with English as a second language, or someone with an elementary school education. Consider the following line:
“Miller was asked to keep it as tight as possible,� the memo said.
The memo said that “Miller was asked to keep it as tight as possible”?
Obviously, whoever wrote that does not understand what a quotation is, or how to write one.
I am sceptical. Someone with the clearance to access such a memo would be leaking it to the NYT or the Guardian…not to RAW STORY.
That, together with the fact that everything else in the paper is cobbled together from existing stories, rumors, Clinton-era CIA folks who feature regularly on Left blogs (Larry Johnson anyone?)…suggests this is a typical OUTRAGE OF THE DAY story.
Does anyone recall the “imminent indictment of Karl Rove”?
Unless RAW STORY can provide more info, this is dubious.
Komrad Marlow – You are dubious of rendition and secret prisons? Why are we so quick to give up rights for one horrendous attack? A Libertarian is will to let a few guilty to go free to guarentee the rights of the many. The authoratarian crowd is willing to give up rights even if a few innocent are swept up in the “crack down”. The Libertarian principle is a part of America, the other is …
Komrad Rudi…you mistake my point. I fully believe that the Polish site was used as a temporary secret prison. As I believe that rendition flights were common etc. I don’t know anyone sane who doubts this.
My point is, all of this was commonly reported in various stories in the media.
What makes this story NEWS is that the authors of this RAW STORY article allege that they have seen a memo from Blair about this Polish site, and that this is the “smoking gun” that can bring down the whole affair.
The EU was unable to provide such definitive proof. Yet RAW STORY has such proof?
When I highlighted the very sloppy English writing in the article, this was to emphasize the “amateur” nature of this story.
Much like the endless Leopold stories on Rove’s imminent indictment by Fitzgerald…stories that were widely rumored etc….but no smoking gun.
The basis of this story as “NEWS” is that RAW STORY has access to a memo no one else has seen…a memo the EU investigators would love to get their hands on.
But unless this memo is supplied, this story is no more “NEWSWORTHY” than Leopold’s reports from unnamed sources of Rove’s imminent indictments.
Komrad Marlow – Raw Story does sometimes have good articles, but it is a very Leftist site. You have to wait for more info or MSM outlets going further with a story. Our supposed Liberal MSM is usually late to stories like this. I don’t know if this is because of a too friendly alliance with Washington or just budget constraints of the ‘new corporate” media.
O/T K O’Beirne and M Matlin were on cable spreading the Rightwing Libby talking points. Imus smacked down MM, Matthews was dumbfounded by O’Beirns false assertions.
I also felt this was old news. We’ll see about the ‘smoking gun’. If it’s true, it will come out elsewhere.
Raw Story loves screaming headlines and a scandal mongering style. I always suspected they seem ‘lefty’ because the ‘right’ is in power and therefore is more fertile ground for scandal and capital letter outrage. They run exposes of Dems fairly regularly (Murtha’s earmarks, Reid’s land deals).
They do often get an early whiff of something that the MSM develops only later. Marlowecan is absolutely right, though, you have to remain sceptical and they are not good as an only source.
On the other hand, you can’t trust the MSM to get it always right, either. A good dose of scepticism is good to keep on hand, no matter where you get your news.
About the Poland prisons and the CIA, it makes me sick with shame at what my country has become.