kidnapping & torture: states secrets

* beeb:

"Doubts have been raised about how technically advanced Iran's nuclear programme is, after it emerged Tehran may have used material from China."

* this via laura:

"The Pentagon has secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms from Bosnia to Iraq in the past two years, using a web of private companies, at least one of which is a noted arms smuggler blacklisted by Washington and the UN.

According to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales, the US government arranged for the delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence of the guns reaching their recipient."

* Doug farrah:

"Yet there is no record of the aircraft landing or the weapons being signed over. So what happened? We will likely never know. But Bout has double-dealt with all sides of every war he has supplied. He has routinely rerouted weapons shipments for his own commercial gain, and that does not inspire much confidence. A person who can supply the Taliban and the Northern Alliance at the same time, and who has experience dealing weapons in Bosnia, would be unlikely to flinch at the thought of further weapons diversions."

(farrah and laura have been on Bout's case for a while. he is a total piece of work)

(update: eriposte: "It's unclear if the shipment reached Iraq but for consistency's sake I hope Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld ask whether this suggests that Iraq has sought arms from America.")

* jeebusfukkingkristopath:

"A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by a German man who said he was illegally detained and tortured in overseas prisons run by the CIA, ruling that a lawsuit would improperly expose state secrets.

Thursday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III makes no determination on the validity of the claims by Khaled al-Masri, who said he was kidnapped on New Year’s Eve 2003 and detained for nearly five months before finally being dumped on an abandoned road in Albania.

The ruling hands a victory to the Bush administration, which intervened in the civil lawsuit to prevent exposure of its tactics in the war on terrorism.

[]

Ellis said he was satisfied after receiving a secret written briefing from the director of central intelligence that allowing al-Masri’s lawsuit to proceed would harm national security.

“In the present circumstances, al-Masri’s private interests must give way to the national interest in preserving state secrets,” Ellis wrote.

[]

He said it is absurd to think al-Masri’s lawsuit would expose state secrets because many of the details of al-Masri’s detention have been made public and confirmed by government sources in newspaper reports.

[]
Judge Ellis’ ruling “confers a blank check on the CIA to shield even the most outrageous conduct from judicial review,” Wizner said.

Ellis did not describe what information he received that convinced him a lawsuit would expose state secrets and harm national security.

But he said he received a briefing labeled “JUDGE’S EYES ONLY” and that “it is enough to note here that al-Masri’s publicly available complaint alleges a clandestine intelligence program.” Ellis added that “any admission or denial of these allegations by defendants in this case would reveal the means and methods employed pursuant to this clandestine program and such a revelation would present a grave risk of injury to national security.”"

when will it fucking end? these people make me angry. really fucking angry.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.