Nemesis, nemesis, everywhere you look.
I made a flippant comment a while back that doesn’t seem quite so snarky now; I said that the administration should’ve issued its torturers and kidnappers with cyanide capsules in case of apprehension, so they couldn’t be made to spill on their bosses in the White House.
BBC, Spiegel and others:
Germany issues CIA arrest orders
Germany has issued arrest warrants for 13 people over the alleged CIA-backed kidnapping of one of its citizens.
Munich prosecutors said the arrest warrants were linked to the case of Khaled al-Masri, a German national of Lebanese descent.
Mr Masri says he was seized in 2003 in Macedonia, flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan and mistreated there.
Click for map of European rendition flights
No wonder the minor functionaries of the CIA have been so anxious about their liability insurance. Remember this?
Worried CIA Officers Buy Legal Insurance
Plans Fund Defense In Anti-Terror Cases
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 11, 2006; Page A01
CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing, according to current and former intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the program.
The new enrollments reflect heightened anxiety at the CIA that officers may be vulnerable to accusations they were involved in abuse, torture, human rights violations and other misconduct, including wrongdoing related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They worry that they will not have Justice Department representation in court or congressional inquiries, the officials said.
The anxieties stem partly from public controversy about a system of secret CIA prisons in which detainees were subjected to harsh interrogation methods, including temperature extremes and simulated drowning. The White House contends the methods were legal, but some CIA officers have worried privately that they may have violated international law or domestic criminal statutes..
May have violated the law? Did violate the law and did so knowingly. Don’t tell me those goons thought kidnap and torture was lawful, they knew damned well it was not. Why else be so worried about their insurance cover? That alone presupposes knowledge of iilegality.
Names and nationalities are to follow later this afternoon, but we can’t expect arrests of any Americans accused:
German arrest warrants are not valid in the US but if the suspects were to travel to the European Union they could be arrested.
It would be karmically pleasing though if, instead of applying for extradition, the Germans were to just round the accused up off the streets and fly them back to Germany in goggles, chains and nappies, never to be seen again. But civilised societies don’t do things like that, do they?
But with warrants being issued all over those agents must realise that although they may never be arrested or charged in the US, nevertheless they’re going to be named. This means that they’lll have to take the entire fall for Bush, Cheney and Gonzalez’ torture policy publicly, without even the benefit of a trial (unlike those Europeans who may be accused of colluding) and not one of their bosses will lift a finger to help. Deniability, see. The loyalty only ever went one way.
We’ll see if these ‘few bad apple’ agents will choose to tell all rather than be exposed to the fuill blast of public notoriety.
If they do the White House, if they didn’t issue the poison pills along with the Halliburton Secret Agent kits, may be rather wishing they had.
