Senator Leahy Just Ripped Alberto Gonzales a new hole over torturing suspected terrorists. Haw haw. Guess Alberto didn't get the memo that it's not Republican Patty-Cake Land up on Capitol Hill any longer...

Thank goodness that we have a guy with a spine like Senator Leahy in that job now. Where's Hilary Clinton's outrage? Or Barack Obama's angry statement about the fact that our President is a willy-nilly torturer?

Black Dahlia's Top Ten Most Outrageous Civil Liberties Violations of 2006

Dahlia Lithwick, one of the best writers out there about about legal matters, has a great article today at Slate.com where she lists her "Bill Of Wrongs" for 2006:

10. Attempt to Get Death Penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui
9. Guantanamo Bay
8. Slagging the Media
7. Slagging the Courts
6. The State-Secrets Doctrine
5. Government Snooping
4. Extraordinary Rendition
3. Abuse of Jose Padilla
2. The Military Commissions Act of 2006
1. Hubris

Good list. Good writing about each point in the list. Go read the article.

US Special Forces Spy Teams Operating In Europe

US Seeks to Rein in Its Military Spy Teams
By Greg Miller
The Los Angeles Times
Monday 18 December 2006

Washington - U.S. Special Forces teams sent overseas on secret spying missions have clashed with the CIA and carried out operations in countries that are staunch U.S. allies, prompting a push for tighter rules for military units engaged in espionage, according to senior U.S. intelligence and military officials.

The spy missions are part of a highly classified program that officials say has better positioned the United States to track terrorist networks and capture or kill enemy operatives in regions such as the Horn of Africa, where weak governments are unable to respond to emerging threats.

But the initiative has also led to several embarrassing incidents for the United States, including a shootout in Paraguay and the exposure of a sensitive intelligence operation in East Africa, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter. To date, the effort has not led to the capture of a significant terrorist suspect.

Some intelligence officials have complained that Special Forces teams have sometimes launched missions without informing the CIA, duplicating or even jeopardizing existing operations. And they questioned deploying military teams in friendly nations - including in Europe - at a time when combat units are in short supply in war zones.

More in link, but how much more do you need to know that our President is a fucking madman who sees enemies every direction he looks, whether they exist or not?

Europeans Helped CIA Kidnap Squad

So much for the "But we had No Idea this was happening to our citizens" defense.

Also, note that these are only the cases which this report could PROVE. There are quite a few more, I would guess, that they know about but can't prove, or sadly, don't even know about.

Once more, WHEN did America become the world's jailer?
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Testimony Helps Detail CIA's Post-9/11 Reach
By Craig Whitlock
The Washington Post
Saturday 16 December 2006

Europeans told of plans for abductions.

Milan - A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA station chief in Rome paid a visit to the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, Adm. Gianfranco Battelli, to float a proposal: Would the Italian secret services help the CIA kidnap terrorism suspects and fly them out of the country?

The CIA man did not identify which targets he had in mind but was "expressly referring to the possibility of picking up a suspected terrorist in Italy, bringing him to an airport and sending him from there to a foreign country," Battelli, now retired, recalled in a deposition.

This initial secret contact and others that followed, disclosed in newly released documents, show the speed and breadth with which the CIA applied in post-9/11 Europe a tactic it had long reserved for the Third World - "extraordinary rendition," the extrajudicial abduction of Islamic radicals overseas for interrogation in friendly countries.

A year after the first contact, the CIA officer held another meeting with his Italian counterparts, this time sharing a list of more than 10 "dangerous people" the agency was tracking in Italy, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands, according to a deposition from Gen. Gustavo Pignero, another high-ranking Italian military intelligence official. "It was clear that this was an aggressive search project, that their willingness to employ illicit means was clear," Pignero said, adding that the list was later destroyed and he could not recall the names.

U.S. spies drew up suspect lists with the help of European intelligence agencies and chased some of the men around the globe before putting a brake on the operations in early 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, according to documents unearthed in criminal investigations, lawsuits and parliamentary inquiries.

All told, the U.S. agency took part in the seizure of at least 10 European citizens or legal immigrants, some of them from countries not cited in that list of "dangerous people" received by the Italian spies. Four renditions occurred on European soil: in Sweden, Macedonia and Italy. Six operations targeted people who were traveling abroad or who had been captured in Pakistan; European intelligence agencies provided direct assistance to the CIA in at least five of those cases, records show.

Each prisoner was then secretly handed over to intelligence services in the Middle East or Africa with histories of human rights abuses. Some remain imprisoned in those countries; others have been taken to the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One man was later released after being taken from the Balkans to Afghanistan, the victim of an apparent case of mistaken identity.

In the early stages, the CIA had prepared even more ambitious plans, according to the depositions from the Italian intelligence officials, who testified last summer during a criminal investigation into a CIA- sponsored kidnapping of a radical Islamic cleric in Milan.
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more in linked story...

Terrorist Whines to Congress About Torture

Alleged CIA Torture Victim Speaks Out

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Khaled el-Masri, who claims the CIA kidnapped and tortured him, recounted his story on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and said he hoped he could help prevent others from suffering a similar fate.

The Kuwaiti-born German citizen said he had brought his story to Washington to encourage greater oversight of CIA activities and force the U.S. government to acknowledge what happened to him.

El-Masri alleges he was kidnapped while trying to enter Macedonia for a vacation on Dec. 31, 2003. He claims he was flown to a CIA-run prison known as the ''salt pit'' in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was beaten and sodomized with an object during five months in captivity.

Jeez, this guy AGAIN? Doesn't he know that he's just lucky we let him go the first time? How many times do we have to illegally kidnap and torture this guy before he gets the hint that he's not supposed to complain about us illegally kidnapping and torturing him?

Besides, rape is the sentence that every single American prisoner receives alongside his years in jail (some 25% of prison inmates are raped and America has chosen to ignore this). Why should our foreign terror suspects receive better prison treatment than our domestic forgery and drug abuse convicts? BRING ON THE RAPE!

Bind. Torture. Rape. Kill.

Incidentally, I'm all for "support our troops" and all, but what is it about America's military and intelligence cultures that brings out all the rape and forced sodomy?