ABC Reports C.I.A. “Black Site” Found in Lithuania
This is just incredible:
The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.
Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a café, the CIA installed a concrete structure where it could use harsh tactics to interrogate up to eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at a time. …
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Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the “black site” in 2004.
Lithuania — where all but about 15,000 of that country’s pre-World War II Jewish population of 210,000 were murdered by the Nazis. It’s not that the C.IA. torture program is equivalent to the Nazi extermination of European Jewry, but that’s not the point for me. It’s the moral symbolism — and I’m not sure that’s the correct word that expresses how this makes me feel. It’s the profound disrespect for the memory of those tortured and murdered souls, to set up a secret torture site in the heart of where that horror took place. This is my country that did this. I really feel betrayed.
I suppose that decades from now, visitors will be touring these former torture centers just as visitors tour places like Dachau and Auschwitz today.
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21 Responses to “ABC Reports C.I.A. “Black Site” Found in Lithuania”
Well it’s commonly known that Israel hunts down, tortures and kills it's suspected terrorists. Sort of destroys your symbolic triangle Kathy.
…and good for the Israelis…
Problem is, we “say” we don’t torture. It’s because we lie.
You two bring up a subject I've been wanting to go deeper into for some time. There are bad people in every nation and they nearly always rise to the top. In fact, the more cunning their evil, the more likely they will rise to positions of power unnoticed, or at least unchallenged from sheer fear of their personas.
What is going on with the internet, new unfettered flow of information is evil's worst enemy: exposure. It's not that the men and women [OK, mostly men] who are at the top and evil are necessarily bad. It is something inside of them that has gone rotten. Greed, lust for power and overweening ambition long ago sang their soothing charm. The more power they got, the more they liked it. And the snowball effect, the gradual and invisible eroding of their souls shaped them into the monsters they are today.
It could happen to anyone really. So singling out this or that person, this or that agency, this or that nation only serves to divert the real issue at hand. We always think: “this couldn't happen to me”. But it could at any time. If we think of ourselves as somehow different from “them”, then their unsavory ways are still foreign to us.
These people, these bad men who feel entitled to subjegate others and torture them, as if their own slate was clean, or their skin color or religion or nationality or secret brotherhood somehow was their “devine right” to do so…their fates are much worse than those they torture. They should pray to be so lucky…The pity is that few of us will see what lies in wait for them. If we could somehow see that now, not a single one of us would ever be tempted to stray in the direction they're going. There is a reason for lulling them into a false sense of security and righteousness. We are here to face the choice of debauchery over benevolence without any apparent consequences, at first..
How else could we be trusted if not given the choice that seems the most pleasurable, the easiest, the most rewarding even if at the expense of others? It is the weeding ground of sociopaths and angels and none of us are exempt from the final tally.
I think the Israelis are using these harsh methods are just trying to protect their population. They are surrounded, after all. Surely, we can consider their side of this issue.
Well it’s commonly known that Israel hunts down, tortures and kills it's suspected terrorists. Sort of destroys your symbolic triangle Kathy.
I don't have the slightest what this means. Symbolic triangle? Huh?
“The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania.”
Good job! Good for a Hollywood movie, too. To think I was satisfied with various sites in Vernon or Cudahy, in the industrial part of Los Angeles County, when I ride through it on Amtrak in the past…
There is fancy riding and polo playing to be found near Washington, DC. Why not do it there, guys?
Your sentiments are not altogether clear DLS. Would you please state clearly whether or not you think the CIA having a torture chamber in Lithuania is a good idea or not and why? Or is it that you are mad that it was exposed? [refer to my previous post]
I was engaging in some relevent humor, that's all. There is no reason for puzzlement or bewilderment.
Sorry Kathy, but I think you are way off on this one. You are trying way too hard to drag Nazism into a debate where it doesn't belong.
Torture chamber = very bad and illegal.
We don't need to drag the SS into the debate in order to win it. It is morally wrong for the US to have torture bases anywhere for any reason.
Well, Shannon, it's the way I feel. And given my family history, I think there's some gravitas behind my feeling.
This is not about “winning the debate” by “dragging the SS into it.” Not for me, at least. You can take what I wrote in the post at face value, because that's how I meant it. No ulterior motives.
“I was engaging in some relevent humor, that's all. There is no reason for puzzlement or bewilderment”~DLS
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I notice you didn't answer my question. Here, I'll ask it again. For some reason I really want to know your take on the matter.
Would you please state clearly whether or not you think the CIA having a torture chamber in Lithuania is a good idea or not and why? Or is it that you are mad that it was exposed?
And please, no glib siderails, tangents or diversions. Just answer the question. Do you think the CIA having a torture chamber in Lithuania is a good idea or not and why?
“Would you please state clearly whether or not you think the CIA having a torture chamber in Lithuania is a good idea or not and why? Or is it that you are mad that it was exposed? “
If you really are that “challenged”: I (obviously — or at least, it should be obvious) don't approve of torture. Nor (obviously…) was I upset that one “black” torture site may be exposed.
Enough remedial education, already.
You really didn't answer FT's or my comments about Israeli torturing. Does the issue have more than one side?
Those who set up rendition and torture programs showed no respect for international law, their own nation's rules of interrogation or any ethical or moral consideration. That they would also show no respect for the memory of the murdered dead of history's darkest days is despicable, but not surprising.
The ammorality of this program did not recognize, care about or consider bounds of decency.
I'm not sure I understand how your question connects to the post I wrote. Can you explain?
I guess my post referred to the torture quote you responded to for Father_Times original comment about Israelis torturing. “Well it’s commonly known that Israel hunts down, tortures and kills it's suspected terrorists. Sort of destroys your symbolic triangle Kathy.”
Feel free to ignore the subject.
I guess my post referred to the torture quote you responded to for Father_Times original comment about Israelis torturing. “Well it’s commonly known that Israel hunts down, tortures and kills it's suspected terrorists. Sort of destroys your symbolic triangle Kathy.”
Yes, and if you scroll up and actually read my very brief reply to F_T, you will see that I had no idea what he meant by “symbolic triangle.” So far, he has not clarified.
Since you apparently understand what he meant, perhaps YOU can explain. And then next maybe you can explain the connection to my point, above, that a secret C.I.A. black site found in Lithuania is a slap in the face to victims of the Holocaust.
Gee, I thought you were pretty sharp. I don't a rat's behind about “symbolic triangle” or any other kind.
Feel free to drop this hot topic and let Father_Time explain whatever he meant.
Well it’s commonly known that Israel hunts down, tortures
http://www.btselem.org/english/torture/HCJ_Ruli…
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Israel/Israel…
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Pol…
Well it’s commonly known that Israel hunts down, tortures
<a
The Israelis Supreme Court barred torture. For all there faults, the Israelis did ban torture. So much for torture and the ticking time bomb, at least in Israel.
href=”http://www.btselem.org/english/torture/HCJ_Ruling.asp” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.btselem.org/english/torture/HCJ_Ruli…
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Israel/Israel…
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Pol…
The Israelis Supreme Court barred torture. For all there faults, the Israelis did ban torture. So much for torture and the ticking time bomb, at least in Israel.”~Rudi
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Yes and our Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment. So much for intent vs reality..
Wow, first time I agreed with you.