It's definitely pressspeak - Guantanamo is a prison but its unsuitable for debriefing. If what I've read in spy novels for thirty years bears any relation at all to reality (and I believe that in this respect it does) 'debriefing' or interrorgation is most effective when done in isolation. Removing a terrorist of unknown intelligence value to a location where few people speak English or his native tongue seems reasonable to me. I'd pick Romania, Poland and Bulgaria if given a choice. Does a house on the periphery of a moderately sized Eastern European city used for interrogation count as a "secret prison"? In Dana Priest's febrile imagination it may. As a confirmed seditionist (or Machiavellian Marxist) she knows that she must expose the true enemy - the elected government of the United States - in the worst light possible. So safe houses become 'secret prisons' and interception of communications between terrorists and their agents in the US becomes 'domestic spying'.
It's a pity that hanging traitors is so difficult today.
Does anyone remember the name of that Soviet city that was created just to make nukes? It has been abandoned pretty much. I saw a story on 60 Minutes years ago about it and it was so creepy.
7 comments:
Since Plame was clearly a CIA sting run against the WH, it would be satisfying justice if the CIA traitors were themselves caught in a sting.
I really really doubt it. Rick cautioned us in a thread at JOM that the term 'secret prison' itself could be a media construct.
As in think of safe houses where terrorists could be kept and interrogated--don't look like prisons, do they?
It's definitely pressspeak - Guantanamo is a prison but its unsuitable for debriefing. If what I've read in spy novels for thirty years bears any relation at all to reality (and I believe that in this respect it does) 'debriefing' or interrorgation is most effective when done in isolation. Removing a terrorist of unknown intelligence value to a location where few people speak English or his native tongue seems reasonable to me. I'd pick Romania, Poland and Bulgaria if given a choice. Does a house on the periphery of a moderately sized Eastern European city used for interrogation count as a "secret prison"? In Dana Priest's febrile imagination it may. As a confirmed seditionist (or Machiavellian Marxist) she knows that she must expose the true enemy - the elected government of the United States - in the worst light possible. So safe houses become 'secret prisons' and interception of communications between terrorists and their agents in the US becomes 'domestic spying'.
It's a pity that hanging traitors is so difficult today.
David
with the climate of the time, filing charges against Fonda would have backfired big time and it would be even worse than it is today I think.
My understanding is that the numbers of prisoners were in the dozens not hundreds or thousands, so a large basement could serve as a prison.
FA,
I was just thinking that Chernobyl would be a wonderful site for a prison for terrorists. Might be a little tough to recruit guards, though.
Does anyone remember the name of that Soviet city that was created just to make nukes? It has been abandoned pretty much. I saw a story on 60 Minutes years ago about it and it was so creepy.
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