CIA prisoner 'rendition' program began under Clinton: ex-agent

[sabra]

http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id=5717

CIA prisoner 'rendition' program began under Clinton: ex-agent


<snip>

Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, told Thursday's issue of the newsweekly Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system.

"President Clinton, his national security advisor Sandy Berger and his terrorism advisor Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of 1995 to destroy Al-Qaeda," Scheuer said, in comments published in German.

...

At the time, he said, the CIA did not arrest or imprison anyone itself.
"That was done by the local police or secret services," he said, adding that the prisoners were never taken to US soil. "President Clinton did not want that."

...

"We started putting people in our own institutions -- in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. The Bush administration wanted to capture people itself but made the same mistake as the Clinton administration by not treating these people as prisoners of war."

[TheDebbieDee]

1. Two wrongs don't make a right...but we live in the here & now!

* is the President! He IS the pig in charge.

Too bad Ken Starr spent all those millions looking for dirt on Clinton and didn't find this, but instead found only a scandalous, trivial, personal misadventure for which to impeach Clinton!

[Stand and Fight]

4. So, you accept this as being accurate? If so, why? n/t

[TheDebbieDee]

9. Cause I heard the news report on Air America Radio, too.

However, it makes no difference to me if the story regarding Clinton is true or not. Whether or not Clinton did it is not relevant to the situation shrub finds himself today! Clinton is not the President now but * is.

We need to stay in the here and now!

[Stand and Fight]

10. I concur. n/t

[Stand and Fight]

2. Oh good grief...

:eyes: They must be really desperate. I'm so sick of this bullshit.

[C_U_L8R]

3. So.....

that doesn't excuse Bush for practicing this unethical and illegal activity.

How lame.

[rox63]

5. Just the same old 'Clinton-did-it-too' bullshit

Same as they tried with the illegal spying.

[Vincardog]

6. Is this the same CIA that the shrub's father was in charge of? The same

CIA that would not kill OBL THREE TIMES after Clinton ordered them to?
Will these lying children ever admit and take responsibility for their actions?

[RBHam]

7. This is a bi-partisan False Flag Operation...

The "renditions" began at the same time as the spate of "Al Qaeda" bombings.

First you get the mercenaries working for the Pentagon to blow something up, then you torture Muslim patsies into false confessions that are used to manufacture a War of Civilizations.

Until the CIA/NSA/FBI/ etcetera are completely dismantled and the truth allowed to be discovered by the American people - this continuing slide towards a nightmarish Orwellian future will only increase.

[shance]

13. What specifically is a "False Flag" operation?

Is it a manufactured/staged event?

[ewagner]

8. Sandy Berger? Richard Clark?

These two are still around and should be asked to verify or deny these claims.

Once the veracity is known we can deal with whatever the truth is....condemn if it was done.

[HuffleClaw]

11. or, put another way... 'BUT BILLY ! !! ! '

good lord, they really do only have a handful of excuses to 'justify' their behavior.

[FrankLee]

12. I believe the story

Without even reading the story, I do believe it because I remember hearing about it awhile back and it checked out then. I'll bet you Richard Clarke would confirm the program.

What it does is, yet again, put the lie to the charge that Clinton did nothing to fight terrorism.

While I don't like the program, kidnapping suspected terrorists (and only those for whom much evidence is in hand) is frankly, to me, while distateful, the lesser of evils. Fighting terrorism is, after all, police work. If you can kidnap top terrorists, then you reduce the amount of collateral damage that might be inflicted at some future time by, let's say, bombing.

I trust the Clinton administration only used rendition in rare circumstances, when there is no doubt they could get a bad guy. Kidnapping of terrorists might explain why, during Clinton's term, there were no large-scale, effective terrorist strikes (a la 9/11) on US soil. I extend no such trust to the Bush cabal, however, who have shown over and over their propensity for lying and knee-jerk responses to crises.

[bemildred]

14. "circumvent the cumbersome US legal system"

In other words, find a way to circumvent the law and the Constitution and get away with it.
And anybody that thinks this started with Clinton needs to read more History.

[Vidar]

15. And they impeached Clinton--we can do no less for *.