Hate to burst your apparently inpenetrable bubble, but the Pentagon has CONFIRMED to Congressman Murtha that the story about the massacre is true

That would no doubt be from the same source as the fake Army veteran video.

Michael THE AAOT

I AGREE, MURTHA IS A DIRTY ROTTEN TRUTHTELLER!
HE’S FOLLOWING A PATH OF DISGUSTING INTEGRITY AND HONESTY.
REAL AMERICANS CAN’T ABIDE SUCH AN AGENDA.

[Do you have a link for this? --Ed]

#9 – Gryph – Pathetic.

The Khalid El-Masri case is not only unproven, it’s placed in significant question by the mainstream news citations I gave in #6.

Actually, it is your response that is pathetic. No surprise.

Aside from the fact that your citation in #6 did not mention the al Masri case at all, al Masri did not claim that, after he was abducted by CIA agents in Macedonia, he had been taken to a secret prison in Eastern Europe. His claim was that he had been taken to Afghanistan and held there for a number of months. His case has been reported in recent days in the German media because his legal case for compensation from the US government was recently thrown out by a US federal court (more on that later).

In addition to the al Masri case, there was the case of Maher Arar, who held dual Canadian-Syrian citizenship. He was kidnapped by US officials at NYC’s Kennedy airport while on transit from Tunisia to his long-time home in Montreal and sent to Syria. While in Syria, he had been tortured and eventually released by the Syrians.

Moreover, there is the case of Jose Padilla–you know, the American citizen, who was a supposed “terrorist,” who was transferred to military custody after having been in civilian custody for a month. The transfer was miraculously announced by John Ashcroft from Russia while he was on a trip there. After the transfer, Padilla had been kept incommunicado–even from his lawyers. Even American citizens aren’t safe from being abducted by their own government.

Those are only three cases of which I am aware.

According to reports here in Germany, the al Masri US federal court case was dismissed merely on the basis of the Bushies’ malAdministration’s claim that going to trial would require the divulgation of information that was vital to “national security.” They provided no evidence to that effect, merely the assertion. And the US federal court bought their argument. Tying all of the above together, it is clear that, to the Bushies and their supporters–and, apparently the US judiciary–the US government can abduct anyone they want to (yes, even American citizens) anywhere in the world, send them wherever they want to, and all that they need to do to avoid supervision by a supposedly independent US judiciary is to assert a claim of “national security.” Heimat Sicherheit. The “H” and the “S” (umgekehrt, selstverstaendlich) somehow reminds me of a phrase from Germany of the 1930s.

Since reading comprehension of my question wasn’t your strong suit, I will repeat it:

Cite one PROVEN case (a MAINSTREAM NEWS ARTICLE NOT LATER DEBUNKED, with a civilian name) where a civilian, NON-Saudi national was SENT TO SAUDI ARABIA [the nation you had cited in #3 as "practicing torture"] for torture that the United States intended, desired or benefitted from in any fashion.

(words unchanged; emphasis added)

The Khalid El-Masri case is not only unproven, it’s placed in significant question by the mainstream news citations I gave in #6.

And, more than that, IT DOES NOT ADDRESS MY QUESTION.

I knew you couldn’t come up with a case. I was right.

You lose.

They are both deserve America’s contempt… and I consider them both to be ex-patriots who, for different reasons, should be stripped of their US citizenship. Just when I thought Murtha couldn’t slink any lower, he does it. He makes NancyPelosi look like a screaming war hawk and a whore to the flag-wavers. Murtha and Moore and Belafonte –media celebrities without moral relevancy.

I’m not asking you to. But you can look up the released Government docucments and corraborate them with other sources.

Caraloto
Here is a German kidnapped citizen.

Khaled El-Masri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri

I would like to apologize for a particularly awful construction in #4, “false slander”. It was a typo. There is, obviously, no such thing as a true slander!!!

In my mind, I had the phrases “slanders of the U.S.” and “false claims about the U.S.” side by side. They mashed in my fingers, and I failed to catch it during edit.

I will be travelling most of today / tomorrow – so – if you cite a case where the United States sent a civilian, NON-Saudi national to Saudi Arabia for torture that the United States intended, desired or benefitted from in any fashion – my analysis of it may be delayed. I’m sure Dan, Matt, NDT or someone can look into it.

If, by chance, you should wish to change the subject to “CIA prisons in Eastern Europe” – please note in advance that even hostile European Union investigators can’t find any sign they are a real story. (New York Times article here. Boston Globe article here.)

And I wouldn’t trust the ACLU as a source on this topic given its left-wing drift over the past few years.

Fair point about the Schlesinger Commission, but in this post, I was addressing Murtha and Abu Ghraib, not the general allegations of torture leveled against the Administration.

Glad we agree on Murtha — and the Marines — though.

Indeed.

“Or why kidnapping and rendition of prisoners to countries that are known to torture, such as Saudi Arabia, is a continuing practice that innocent civilians have been caught up in on more than one occasion.”

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt! Wrong answer.

Cite one proven case (a mainstream news article NOT later debunked, with a civilian name) where a civilian, NON-Saudi national was sent to Saudi Arabia for torture that the United States intended, desired or benefitted from in any fashion.

Obviously, my belief-in-advance is that either (a) you won’t be able to, or (b) if you think you are able to and you do provide some kind of citation, rational people will find on examination that it doesn’t hold up.

But I do want to compliment you on a couple things, Gryph.

Although you continued your false slanders of the United States in the second half of your post, still, (1) you took the right stand in the first half, and, (2) you got through the post without using ad hominems or curse words. I honestly appreciate (or acknowledge you for) those things.

That does not however, clear the Bush Administration of wrong-doing. Nor does the Schlesinger Commission report, which had a deliberately narrow focus. It does not explain away for example, why waterboarding is considered an acceptable interrogation tactic. Or why kidnapping and rendition of prisoners to countries that are known to torture, such as Saudi Arabia, is a continuing practice that innocent civilians have been caught up in on more than one occasion.

I predict that in the last days of his office, the Bush Administration will be issuing a lot of preemptive pardons. Or his successor will.

http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/search/search.html

There will always be a few bad apples doing a few bad things. That’s one of the reasons war is bad and we avoid it. But clearly, we (the U.S.) are running an open system where torture is de-valued and punished. Saddam Hussein ran the opposite. Anyone who can’t see that has a “moral equivalency disorder” of the worst kind. Period.