Light Shone on a CIA Secret in Bucharest

“We’ve got to restrict freedom in order to save it”… what arrant nonsense…

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For the first time, media representatives visited a former CIA secret prison, codenamed “Bright Lights”, where CIA agents subjected suspected Al Qaeda members to brutal interrogations…

Journalists from the American news agency Associated Press and the German TV outlet ARD visited a building in the northern part of the Romanian capital, Bucharest, which had housed one of the secret CIA prisons. People knew that it existed, but no one knew its exact location until now. The prison, code-named “Bright Lights”, according to unnamed former members of the US special services, housed suspected members of the international terrorist group Al Qaeda, including Sheikh Mohammed, a suspect accused of organising the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 in the USA. The prison became operational in autumn 2003, after the CIA decided to transfer prisoners from a secret facility in Poland to another location. In 2006, the Americans transferred the prisoners from Bucharest to the prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. The building also contains the Romanian office for transferring classified information from Romania to NATO and the EU.

During a November interview, Adrian Kamarasan, a senior Romanian bureaucrat, said that the basement office is one of the most secret facilities in Romania. However, he claimed that Americans never headed the prison. As a location for a secret facility, it was a perfect choice. The local residents knew that the government owned the building, but no one suspected that it contained a secret prison, RIA-Novosti reported. There were six prison cells in all. During their first month of imprisonment, the staff deprived the prisoners of sleep, doused them with water, and forced them to stand in uncomfortable positions. Then, they treated them better… doctors gave them checkups, and they received food prepared according to Islamic standards.

CIA secret prisons existed in several European countries, including Lithuania, Poland, Britain, and some other EU countries. The Americans took terrorism suspects by force to these locations, where they put them in prison, some were tortured, and others simply disappeared. International human rights organisations now accuse these countries of complicity with the CIA, as they allowed it to place prisons on their territory, as well as allowing overflights of CIA planes with alleged terrorist suspects, and allowed the CIA to use their airports to transport prisoners to other countries. Per the Associated Press, the CIA shut down all the secret prisons by May 2006. In 2009, US Attorney General Eric Holder demanded an investigation of the CIA’s activities. His rationale for asking such was that declassified data documented the conduct of CIA staffers during interrogations of suspected terrorists.

8 December 2011

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2011/12/08/61818854.html

Editor’s Note:

One reason why the Bushies rolled up the secret prisons was that the word was getting out about them in the host counties, and it was hurting the American lickspittles there. Indeed… Lithuania elected a leftist president! In the Ukraine, word of such leaked out and it damaged Yushchenko, perhaps, fatally. On top of all that, word leaked out to segments of the American media hostile to the Republican Party. That’s why the Bushies closed these prisons… not because they were opposed to them on principle, oh no (especially amoral filth like Senator DeMint).

The USA didn’t need to run secret torture facilities in World War II or the Cold War. It only “needed” to do so in the so-called “War on Terror”. If this doesn’t prove to you that George W Bush and Richard Cheney were cowardly and soulless brutes… nothing will. It proves the nihilistic amoral vacuity of the present GOP, and points up why all decent people must not only not vote for it, but also refuse to associate with its leadership or have anything to do with its spokesmen. Don’t be fooled by the GOP’s “anti-abortion” plank. Note well that it contains NONE of the social welfare provisions that His Holiness considers vital in a TRUE Pro-Life approach. Rick Perry calls himself Pro-Life… when he’s a hangman who’d make Judge Jeffreys blush with shame. There’s something HORRIDLY wrong with that picture.

Note to Russian Orthodox people:

Jonas Paffhausen (along with all the rest of the loud konvertsy) supports the Republican Anti-Life platform (he speaks in extremist forums and sucks up to far-right Mormons)… not the Seamless Garment Pro-Life agenda as put forth by His Holiness… what else can I say?

BMD

13 December 2011. Gleanings from My Mailbag…

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As for Babas… my earliest memory of a babushka was of my aunt. She threw a massive peppermint (one of those that once they’re in your mouth, forget about speaking, concentrate on breathing) at a young man lounging on the pew far below us. I was very impressed. Much later, when I discovered Orthodoxy, I was amused at people talking about babushkas as if they’re a purely Orthodox phenomenon… they aren’t.

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I liked what you said about corporations being ”soulless golems”… some, do, of course, have a “human” aspect, but they get that from it being infused by actual humans (like a family business that treats its employees and customers fairly, or Ben and Jerry’s deciding to limit the distance between top salaries and bottom salaries). That kind of “corporate responsibility” isn’t an inherent attribute of the corporation per se, but something that you CAN be add, as one might accessorise an outfit with a belt or scarf, creating a much more pleasing appearance.

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Karlgut posted some rubbish on Monomakhos, but the regulars on the site blew him off. He hasn’t been back since someone confronted him and revealed the reasons why the OCA fired him as an investigator. I noticed that a poster sounded very familiar… I looked at it, and I’m certain that someone with the username “another one” is Gregory Jensen. The person calling themselves “another one” used the phrase “a thought experiment” more than once… that’s straight off of his website. Jensen used to post under his actual name, then, his posts stopped… at that point, “another one” surfaced. Funny… considering he was going after a person confronting Karlgut, accusing them of being Stokoe, while he uses a pseudonym himself… they’re a bunch of hypocritical crazies over there. They kiss the bum of that Internet bishop Tikhon… it’s unreal.

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I found your recent posting about the meeting at St Tikhon’s Seminary (STS) discussing a possible closure in January rather disturbing. I’m sure that you’ve seen the postings on the STS website about the renovations at the seminary, funded by large donations. I’m not aware of the situation with SVS, but STS seems to enjoy a lot of support amongst the OCA rank and file. If I recall correctly, STS has continued to have high enrolment.

If Jonah and his faction want to close down STS, I believe they’d let loose a revolt, especially in the two Pennsylvania dioceses, and in parts of the Midwest, too, probably in all the pre-World War I parishes. Many people I know, lifelong OCA’ers, pay very little attention to ecclesiastical goings-on at the national level. Even if their priest gave them a short update on news out of a Sobor or Diocesan Assembly, who knows if they’d listen. People care much more about what happens on their local level. As long as their priest’s relatively decent, they only pay attention to what’s happening in their parish, and, maybe, at the parishes of friends. I suspect some wouldn’t notice if there was a different metropolitan or diocesan bishop named in the litanies!

Mess with STS, though… and there’ll be trouble. Close SVS, and I think that only a few would miss it. STS graduates more grounded priests. When I hear BS, more often than not, it comes from an SVS grad. The only times I’ve heard silliness from an STS student or grad was when the guy already lacked common sense.

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This time, it was all from my contacts… that’s what was worth sharing with a general audience. As always, I removed all tell-tales to respect the anonymity of my friends. Keep on writin’, dear ones…

BMD

Secret CIA Prisons: A Prison Farm in Romania

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Not only the journalistic community, but also the highest political levels, have long discussed the question of the existence of CIA prisons in Europe. We know very well about the great scandal surrounding the identification of a so-called transit prison in Poland, where the Polish authorities, incidentally, didn’t let in journalists from the Baltic States. Now, we discovered a secret prison hidden in the heart of Europe. Of course, the CIA isn’t the sort of outfit that’ll hang out a sign stating that this building’s their prison. It used deviousness to try to hide such a scandalous installation. They only established themselves in countries that gave the CIA assurance that there’d be complete secrecy for such bases. That was true in the present case.

Secondly, the question naturally arises, why doesn’t the CIA operate such prisons at home, why does it scatter them throughout Europe? In my opinion, this is due to two reasons. The agents of the CIA operate in every NATO member-state. This [case in Romania] was an example of a kind of prison farm, containing those suspected of terrorism or other crimes. Yet, if the CIA were to consolidate operations at one such prison, it’d be a big item in the CIA budget. Their budget’s large, but it isn’t bottomless. Therefore, the CIA shifted part of the cost of maintaining its secret prisons onto the countries where they were located. The arrangement was even profitable for them. I’d say that the operation of secret CIA prisons is a part of the CIA’s whole system, which has the world in its tentacles, which tries to imprison anyone that it deems dangerous.

9 December 2011

Colonel Viktor Baranets

military commentator

Komsomolskaya Pravda

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2011/12/09/61899451.html

Editor’s Note:

The Bush Administration funded secret torture centres in the Baltic States, Eastern Europe, and the Ukraine… where American puppet states allowed the CIA to use the most brutal interrogation methods. The Republican Party approves of such Nazi totalitarian methods and votes for them every chance that it gets. A vote for the Republican Party is a vote for effectual Nazism. These secret prisons are evidence of that. That’s proof that the America of the Republican Party ISN’T the Socialist New Deal America that helped to win World War II and stood by its principles of freedom, free speech, and justice for all. New Deal or Slobberin’ Ronnie? One of these things is NOT like the other. None dare call it treason.

You know what to do next year… do NOT vote for ANY Republican candidate… for ANY office.

BMD

13 December 2011. Post-Election Images from Russia… The REAL DEAL… NOT American Provocations…

Say NO to Fascism!

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United Russia: They Stole Your Voice!

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Vigilance: Our Weapon

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The KPRF announced that it has Official Approval for a Rally Involving 15,000 People on Lubyanka Square in Moscow on Sunday 18 December

The KPRF was the main victim of the United Russia election fraud… just ask any parish priest, they’ll tell you the truth of the matter!

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KPRF Protest in Ulyanovsk

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NTV Report of 11 December Rally in Moscow

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Even if you don’t know Russian, watch these vids for the visuals… they’re not doctored and false American reports full of propaganda and hot air.

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KPRF image for the planned Lubyanka Square rally on 18 December

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On Sunday, 18 December, Interfax reported that the KPRF’s holding a protest against the rigged parliamentary elections in the centre of Moscow, according to Vladimir Kashin, the deputy chairman of the KPRF Central Committee and RF Gosduma deputy. He said, “After lengthy negotiations with the Moscow City government, we received approval to hold a mass rally on Lubyanka Square, which is scheduled to start on 18 December at 12.30 MSK (05.30 UTC 03.30 EST 00.30 PST), and we think that it’ll last two hours”. He noted that the agreement reached between the KPRF and the Moscow mayor’s office was a compromise, saying, “In our application as filed in City Hall, we stated that we wanted to hold a meeting with 5,000 participants, who would march from Pushkin Square along Tverskaya Street and Okhotny Ryad to Lubyanka Square, where we’d hold a rally”. Kashin explained that a march in the centre of Moscow was impractical because it would impede the free flow of traffic. “As a result of a compromise, we agreed not to hold a march, but rewrote our application, stating that we expect 15,000, not 5,000, participants at the rally”, he said.

12 December 2011

KPRF Official Website

http://kprf.ru/actions/100327.html

Good Sense Rules… Los Angeles (CA) City Council Votes Unanimously… Corporations aren’t People and Money isn’t Speech

THIS is what the Far Right Republicans want… you don’t matter if you interfere with their “right” to make money… after all, “Corporations have rights and money’s speech”… Citizens United said so…

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In a discussion about money in politics, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously agreed Tuesday that corporations aren’t people and they aren’t entitled to the same constitutional protections. If supported by the mayor, the city would be on record in support of federal legislation that would ensure that corporations aren’t entitled to the same rights as people, especially when it comes to spending money to influence elections. It also proposed language for a constitutional amendment declaring that money isn’t a form of speech and affirming the right of the federal government to regulate corporations. …

Sylvia Moore, with the group Move to Amend, which has the broad mission of opposing laws they say prevent the American people from governing themselves, said, “Corporations have taken over our society. They’re deciding what we eat, how people educate their children, and whether or not we have health care”. … The resolution cites Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black‘s 1938 opinion on the subject, “I don’t believe the word ‘person’ in the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations”.

8 December 2011

AMERICAblog

http://www.americablog.com/2011/12/la-city-council-votes.html

Editor’s Note:

Let’s recall what Theodore Roosevelt said about corporations:

The great corporations, which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts, are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it’s duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown.

That is, corporations are artificial constructs of the state with no inherent rights whatsoever. People, on the other hand, are natural creations of God, endowed with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by that Divine Creation. There’s no similarity between the two at all. The corporation is a soulless golem of the state… people are the living soulful creations of Almighty God. Any questions?

A Note to Russian Orthodox People:

You should be aware that Jonas Paffhausen, Victor Potapov, Rod Dreher, Lyonyo Kishkovsky, Patrick Henry Reardon, and John Whiteford all support the Far Right and its lunacy that corporations have “inalienable rights”, the same as people do. I agree with His Holiness, who called the Free Market (and corporations, which are its embodiment) a fraud. Whom do you stand with? It’s not inconsequential, you know…

BMD