Nordstream Is Burning

[Stuart Galbraith]

11 minutes ago, ink said:

Sorry, just noticed this and all I can say is, you've got to be kidding me! 😳

You do know what the whole point of extraordinary rendition is/was, right?

I couldn't be happier that you brought this up as an example. It proves my point so neatly that I believe we needn't continue with this discussion.

As far as arresting guys, sure there was a little outside help. The rest of it, the movement, the interrogation, the shuttling to gitmo, was all an American operation. So thats about 95 percent of the entire operation then.

Of course, if you have evidence to the contrary, happy to glance it over.

 

[ink]

29 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

The truth is, you are taking a lot of stuff that happened in the 50s and 60's and future projecting it to the present day. The CIA learned the risks of using outside contractors from Watergate. 

Sorry but since you brought up rendition (can't believe I didn't think of it myself), I've lost all interest in using Contras and Cubans as an example. As you say, some of that stuff was pre-Church and in any case, rendition is a much better example.

Putting aside pointless, boring and somewhat desperate attempts to turn this into a semantic discussion centred on the word "proxy", rendition is a perfect example of the CIA working with others both to achieve various clandestine outcomes and to circumvent the letter of the law (and civilian oversight) back home.

You and others have asked when the CIA ever used other organisations and individuals in its operations and here we have an example of a much documented multi-year practice of doing just that.

I love it. It's such a good fit!

It even involves cooperation with Ukrainian intelligence:

In November Giovanni Fava, an Italian member of the European Parliament, claimed to have information suggesting that in 2005 a Ukrainian airstrip was used by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-operated planes involved in the United States government's extraordinary rendition program.

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2008/country-chapters-1#:~:text=In%20November%20Giovanni%20Fava%2C%20an,States%20government's%20extraordinary%20rendition%20program.

[ink]

27 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

As far as arresting guys, sure there was a little outside help. The rest of it, the movement, the interrogation, the shuttling to gitmo, was all an American operation. So thats about 95 percent of the entire operation then.

Of course, if you have evidence to the contrary, happy to glance it over.

 

Please do more than five seconds of reading about it.

The whole point of extraordinary rendition was transferring inmates to foreign sites for interrogation. It involved MI5 and MI6, Polish intelligence, Ukrainian intelligence, Egyptian intelligence, Libyan intelligence... black sites and air strips in foreign countries (including *drum roll* Diego Garcia) I could go on, of course, all day basically.

Much of this stuff has been the subject of court cases in the US and UK and Human Rights Watch and Amnesty reports. Not to mention books of all kinds. You could spend a year researching it and not cover everything that's out there.

How you arrive at this being a 95% US operation is beyond me. Just can't figure out if you're even being serious any more.

[bojan]

You are never going to present enough evidence to convince Stuart of anything, while he can post twatter crap with claims of absolute truth. Know your place subject.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Quote

t even involves cooperation with Ukrainian intelligence:

In November Giovanni Fava, an Italian member of the European Parliament, claimed to have information suggesting that in 2005 a Ukrainian airstrip was used by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-operated planes involved in the United States government's extraordinary rendition program.

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2008/country-chapters-1#:~:text=In November Giovanni Fava%2C an,States government's extraordinary rendition program.

Well necessarily they had to have somewhere to land, using airliners and not helicopters....

What are you saying, that the Ukrainians were entirely in the pocket of the CIA now? You really are jumping off the cliff of conspiracy theory here.

Ive read a considerable amount of CIA air operations, both on Air America, and rendition. But as always, this is an example of conspiracy theory being chosen over written evidence. Can you show a proven link, between foreign contractors and the torture of CIA prisoners? No. And ive looked.

Have fun anyway.

Edited August 30 by Stuart Galbraith

[ink]

5 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ive read a considerable amount of CIA air operations, both on Air America, and rendition. But as always, this is an example of conspiracy theory being chosen over written facts.

Have fun anyway.

😆 

In all your reading, did you come across the Open Society report detailing how 54 countries were involved in the US rendition programme?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition

CIA participating countries

According to a report by the Open Society Foundations, 54 countries participated at one point or another with the CIA's extraordinary rendition program:

Afghanistan

Albania

Algeria

Australia

Austria

Azerbaijan

Belgium

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Canada

Croatia

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Djibouti

Egypt

Ethiopia

Finland

Gambia

Georgia

Germany

Greece

Hong Kong

Iceland

Indonesia

Iran

Ireland

Italy

Jordan

Kenya

Libya

Lithuania

Macedonia

Malawi

Malaysia

Mauritania

Morocco

Pakistan

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Saudi Arabia

Somalia

South Africa

Spain

Sri Lanka

Sweden

Syria

Thailand

Turkey

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom

Uzbekistan

Yemen

Zimbabwe

[ink]

17 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ive read a considerable amount of CIA air operations, both on Air America, and rendition. But as always, this is an example of conspiracy theory being chosen over written evidence. Can you show a proven link, between foreign contractors and the torture of CIA prisoners? No. And ive looked.

Since you're no longer being a genuine interlocutor, this response isn't really directed at you.

For anyone interested in whether there is a documented and proven case of the CIA kidnapping someone and handing them off to a foreign agency to be tortured, I point you to the case of Abu Omar.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Mustafa_Osama_Nasr

Abu Omar was kidnapped in Milan by CIA operatives and transported to Egypt where he was interrogated and tortured. In a landmark case, Italian courts convicted 22 known and suspected CIA operatives of participating in the operation. So, thanks to the Italian legal system, everything about this case is indeed documented in great detail.

Of course, Italy stopped short of demanding the extradition of the convicted men from the US but that doesn't mean this isn't a case of the CIA using outside agencies to do it's dirty work, in part to circumvent the laws and rules governing their activities back in the US, just as I had originally claimed they regularly do.

 

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

 I already believe I said bases. We know the CIA utilized facilities abroad. They clearly had to use Runways in foreign countries to access them. But once again, what you are NOT doing is demonstrating the CIA used contract staff to staff those prisons. You have proved nothing other than a long list of places we already knew the CIA operated facilities to imply that they were all staffed with foreign contractors. They could for example, be staffed by foreign intelligence services in an informal bilateral agreement between intelligence services. That is not contract staff.

And the reasons are obvious. If you are using people swimming in those kind of mirky waters, they will get arrested for something else, and fess up. Or, if their links to the CIA become known, the CIA is implicated in something they didnt even do. This was illustrated very clearly with the arrest of James McCord, Howard Hunt and the Cubans in Watergate and precipitated the Church Committee. They are simply not going to go down that road again.

Even if you did somehow prove that they did use them in rendition, you have still not validated your original argument, the CIA used contractors to blow up the Nordstream pipeline in this specific instance. I can point to many occasions when the Russians have certainly used contractors, remarkably recently. You yet have been able to point to an occasion since the 1970's when the CIA have.

Show me a link, a single link between anyone on that boat and the CIA. If you can do that, Ill buy it. If you cant, then its just yet more conspiracy theory.

(edited before your reply, apologies, there was a lot I tried to fit in there)

[ink]

25 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

What are you saying, that the Ukrainians were entirely in the pocket of the CIA now? You really are jumping off the cliff of conspiracy theory here.

Nope, I'm just saying there is a history of cooperation between the CIA and Ukrainian intelligence on covert operations.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 minute ago, ink said:

Since you're no longer being a genuine interlocutor, this response isn't really directed at you.

For anyone interested in whether there is a documented and proven case of the CIA kidnapping someone and handing them off to a foreign agency to be tortured, I point you to the case of Abu Omar.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Mustafa_Osama_Nasr

Abu Omar was kidnapped in Milan by CIA operatives and transported to Egypt where he was interrogated and tortured. In a landmark case, Italian courts convicted 22 known and suspected CIA operatives of participating in the operation. So, thanks to the Italian legal system, everything about this case is indeed documented in great detail.

Of course, Italy stopped short of demanding the extradition of the convicted men from the US but that doesn't mean this isn't a case of the CIA using outside agencies to do it's dirty work, in part to circumvent the laws and rules governing their activities back in the US, just as I had originally claimed they regularly do.

 

 

Ok, so if you are just going to turn obnoxious because you dont like having a serious discussion, then go argue with yourself.

[ink]

2 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

1 minute ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ok, so if you are just going to turn obnoxious because you dont like having a serious discussion, then go argue with yourself.

 

3 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Show me a link, a single link between anyone on that boat and the CIA. If you can do that, Ill buy it. If you cant, then its just yet more conspiracy theory.

(edited before your reply, apologies, there was a lot I tried to fit in there)

 

Of course, I cannot show you a link between the Nordstream pipeline incident and the CIA. That's why I've been very clear that my opinions on it are pure speculation. Some on here, your good self included, have chimed in to call my speculation unfounded.

So all I could do in defence of my original speculative posts was to show that indeed the CIA does regularly use outside agencies (including Ukrainian agencies it turns out) for covert operations that are sometimes specifically designed to evade restrictions on what the CIA can and cannot do back in the US.

I believe that with your help (thanks for mentioning rendition btw) I have done this and more. I'm fine with it if you remain unconvinced - although, frankly, I don't see how you could - but I think I have presented what might well be enough evidence now for an informal discussion on an online forum.

[sunday]

1 hour ago, bojan said:

You are never going to present enough evidence to convince Stuart of anything, while he can post twatter crap with claims of absolute truth. Know your place subject.

There was that time SG thought rail transport of coal from the mines of the province of Leon, in the northern Castillian Plateau, to the sea was easy because there were scant 100 miles between the mines and the sea, and I needed multiple posts to convince him there is a frigging big mountain range in between.

Edited August 30 by sunday