The CIA's International Torture Club
Gaddhafi's secret service had excellent relations with the CIA and the MI6. This was widely assumed but is now supported by new evidence.
But the NYT's report on Files Note Close C.I.A. Ties to Qaddafi Spy Unit depicts a wrong premise of the cooperation between those services. It opening paragraph states:
Documents found at the abandoned office of Libya’s former spymaster appear to provide new details of the close relations the Central Intelligence Agency shared with the Libyan intelligence service — most notably suggesting that the Americans sent terrorism suspects at least eight times for questioning in Libya despite that country’s reputation for torture.
The CIA folks never had qualms about other countries torturing as it is doing just the same when no subcontractor is available to do it for them. Indeed a country that tortures is of much more value to the CIA than a country that has reservations about such crimes. A correct version of that paragraph would therefore read:
Documents found at the abandoned office of Libya’s former spymaster appear to provide new details of the close relations the Central Intelligence Agency shared with the Libyan intelligence service — most notably suggesting that the Americans sent terrorism suspects at least eight times for questioning in Libya because of that country’s reputation for torture.
Interestingly the piece contains a new detail about Abdelhakim Belhadj aka Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq, a former terrorist and now military commander of Tripoli. As it turns out the CIA captured, tortured and abducted him to Libya at the request of the Libyan government:
When Libyans asked to be sent Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq, another member of the group, a case officer wrote back on March 4, 2004, that “we are committed to developing this relationship for the benefit of both our services,” and promised to do their best to locate him.Two days later, an officer faxed the Libyans to say that Mr. Sadiq and his pregnant wife were planning to fly into Malaysia, and the authorities there agreed to put them on a British Airways flight to London that would stop in Bangkok. “We are planning to take control of the pair in Bangkok and place them on our aircraft for a flight to your country,” the case officer wrote.
...
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Belhaj gave a detailed description of his incarceration that matched many of those in the documents. He also said that when he was held in Bangkok he was tortured by two people from the C.I.A.
Oceania is now no longer at war with the jihadists of Eurasia but has declared war on its dictator-friends in Eastasia. From now on the CIA will listen to all requests from Abdelhakim Belhadj and will capture, torture and abducted to Libya anyone he will ask to have delivered to him.
That of course only as long as Abdelhakim Belhadj will agree to torture others at the CIA's request.
Posted by b on September 3, 2011 at 3:16 UTC | Permalink
Gaddhafi's secret service had excellent relations with the CIA and the MI6.
Yes, he was a ‘western success’ as regards an ‘Arab’ (meaning some foreign parts Afr-ME-etc. crucial figure) Leader, his appeasement and collaboration was exemplary! Stellar!
Will the W do better with the next lot?
Short term, getting money from the ‘frozen funds’ (btw they are in the main not K’s funds but that of the Lybian central bank, maybe that distinction is not vital, but still..) for ‘reconstruction’ and the hope of some less rigid oil contracts - read more profitable to the W - than under K, and other possibilities, are a reality.
There is no dearth of vultures hovering for short-term deals - once security, safety and an ersatz ‘democracy’ are established, which may be a long time coming..
The Gvmts. invested in this venture will hand out tremendous piles of cash - Lybia’s and their own. (See Iraq, Afgh. and Kosovo, all different.)
Basically, destruction, aggression and killing are *profitable* for certain groups, or are simply embraced out of sadism / imperialism, and we - as individuals, as international institutions, as members of a national group - are powerless to stop them.
Posted by: Noirette | Sep 4 2011 14:15 utc | 3
oh please! not more found documents! Remember Iraq and George Galloway reports saga?
meanwhile forget the NYT and other trash journals
Lizzie Phelan has her first report since her return from Libya:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_63691.shtml
and the new Libya
the new libya? How ironic its the one so many 'progressives' have helped bring into being! But wouold they live in it? Gadafis libya was liveable, this one will be a night mare, engineered by the best of intention folks from the NTY BBC SBS ABC PRESS TV, most of the left wing media...Even Yvonne would find it uncomfortable.
sonsofmalcolm Sukant Chandan
@yvonneridley @akalamusic Women under th nato-puppet regime in Libya complain, pro-nato Libyan men tell them to shut up tiny.cc/cuqoo
8 hours ago
http://sonsofmalcolm.blogspot.com/2011/09/libyan-women-suffering-under-new-nato.html
Posted by: brian | Sep 5 2011 4:32 utc | 4
'Documents found at the abandoned office of Libya’s former spymaster appear to provide new details'
lets take a trip down memory lane:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0620/p01s03-woiq.html
Beware found anything, esp if it gets written up by the NYT!
Posted by: brian | Sep 5 2011 4:34 utc | 5
Meanwhile, today's Guardian is running a story about the English spooks (MI6) involvement in rendition and torture, in partnership with the Libyan secret services: Libyan papers show UK worked with Gaddafi in rendition operation.
What an interesting tangled web…
Posted by: Philippe | Sep 5 2011 5:44 utc | 6
The guardian is one of those media ready to serve in the demonisation of Gadaffi, so id be wary of anything they say
Posted by: brian | Sep 5 2011 21:54 utc | 7
Brian @comment7
I knew you'd say that. But you're missing the point the point on why I posted that link: as one more element in a narrative that is being build up to distinguish the present colonialist(s) from the previous ones: Obama-Cameron vs Bush-Blair. Notice how fast the UK prime minister called for an inquiry ? As if he knew in advance that this story would come out.
(and that is probably only a tinny part of the narrative)
And no, I don't believe the story as being written in the Guardian - as written is too clean, too convenient. The offending documents were so easily found, etc.
Posted by: Philippe | Sep 6 2011 0:37 utc | 8
@Philippe | Sep 5, 2011 8:37:39 PM
Like Atta passport which just so happened to be found amidst all the rubble? Or George Galloway papers showing he received money from the Iraq government while rest was burnt. You want something no problem, we do it all the time in our fiat dominated economy!
Posted by: hans | Sep 6 2011 10:33 utc | 9
Guess WHO 'Found' these documents??
Step forward our old friends at Human Rights Watch, spinners of propaganda stories about who-fired-what-munitons, stories which turned out to be 180-degrees turned-around from reality, which mysteriously just happened to benefit NATO in the middle of a fierce propaganda war.
Fresh from accusing Libyans of firing Spanish made mortars which Libya had no access to, - HRW sure have been busy beavers in Libya, no?
Posted by: Hu Bris | Sep 6 2011 11:09 utc | 10
@ hans
More like the Calloway story, probably. The point is to build a narrative to keep the peeps busy (and on the way dammage some local=uk opponents). All this to happily bury more, real, bad info. And yeah, HRW has been busy.
Posted by: philippe | Sep 6 2011 11:46 utc | 11
Indeed Hans 9 and philippe 11
It was HRW who also found the 'cluster bomblets' in Misrata! and blamed them on the Libyan govt...they are good at finding things!
Posted by: brian | Sep 6 2011 21:39 utc | 12
The comments to this entry are closed.
Libya lifts any fog on colonialists tactics that have not changed since the British and French empires. Promise every side support to control and fight each other, so you are the winner every time. The more insular and fanatic locals are the better. Just this is globalized time and technology, so it is open to see for everybody, and cheap terrorist techniques can be applied everywhere. It is not in the interest of Europeans, US-citizens, Libyans, Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians, Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Iranians, anybody. We have to get rid of the politicians who do this.
Posted by: somebody | Sep 3 2011 8:16 utc | 1