GQ this month has an article called Blowback about the CIA kidnapping and rendition of Abu Omar. He was a suspected terrorist under watch in Italy. Higher ups in the CIA wanted to send him to Egypt for questioning against the recommendation of the local CIA guy Bob Lady. Omar was questioned and released after a year. He was told never to talk of the event but called his wife and told her. He was recaptured and imprisioned ever since. A reporter found out about the kidnapping and tracked it down. The CIA were apparently very sloppy using cell phones and being dumb, so the reporter found out everything in a few months. Bob Lady, and otherwise good agent, retired and was left to take the fall for this. The agency refuses to talk about the case on his behalf.
But the thing that got to me about the story was this. After Omar talked is when they started torturing him. "The former senior CIA official said the Egyptians were known to torture, but only after they got the information they wanted. 'They're a good intel service,' he said 'They use sedatives and psychological manipulation to get someone to talk. If they're mad or you're of no use--that's when they get mean'". Does it get any sicker than that?
In other torture news the Washington Post has the story of Marwan Jabour who spent two years being tortured in secret CIA prisons around the world. And this while "The US military has appealed to the producers of 24 to tone down the torture scenes because of the impact they are having both on troops in the field and America's reputation abroad."
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