Stop use of Shannon as Torture transit Airport

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Stop use of Shannon as Torture transit Airport
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87489
Friday May 09, 2008

The following letter has been published in the Irish Times on 9th May 2008. This is a significant development, because the Gardai and the Irish Government authorities have clearly failed to carry out their duties towards prevention of the crimes of torture at Shannon airport. This however does not relieve the citizens of Ireland of their responsibilty to prevent torture. It is the moral and legal duty of all Irish citizens to take 'all neccessary means' to prevent the possible continuing use of Shannon airport by the CIA and the US military for the purpose of transporting prisoners for torture.

A CHANCE TO END 'RENDITION' FLIGHTS

Madam, - Last month the Republic of Ireland witnessed the resignation of Bertie Ahern as the leader of Fianna Fáil. He has been succeeded by a new party leader and Taoiseach, Brian Cowen.

We believe this transfer of political power presents the Government with a significant opportunity to review its policy on the use of Irish airports by US aircraft suspected of involvement in illegal kidnappings, the so-called "extraordinary renditions".

Aircraft landing at Irish airports, such as Shannon, are suspected of regularly travelling to and from countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, where torture is used. Such aircraft, usually owned by commercial companies but actually operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), are also suspected of heading for countries in Eastern Europe, where secret internment camps exist.

However, since the inception of the seemingly endless and calamitous "war on terror", the Government has merely accepted "diplomatic assurances" from the US administration that Irish airports are not being used as stop-over points for aircraft carrying kidnapped individuals. Thus, requests by peace activists for the Garda Síochána to search suspected aircraft have been refused. We believe this situation is no longer politically or morally tolerable.

For example, in April the Council of Europe's rapporteur on secret detentions, Dick Marty, castigated what he referred to as the "hypocrisy" of European governments in continuing to deny their involvement in secret detentions or illegal renditions.

Speaking at a Brussels conference about reporting on torture, Mr Marty asserted: "The United States made a choice to fight the war on terror using illegal means, but they at least made it openly and defend it. European governments, on the other hand, have been entirely hypocritical since their complicity has been clandestine. Even now, they do not have the courage to declare their involvement, unless forced to do so."

Furthermore, we agree with Mr Marty that governments "must also stop hiding behind the hypocrisy of diplomatic assurances. They are not worth the paper they are written on, and it is to be complicit in torture to accept them."

We, the undersigned - comprising diverse groups and individuals living and working in the west of Ireland, elsewhere in the State, and in other jurisdictions - have now decided to form a People's Inspection Team.

From today we are, therefore, beginning to recruit active lay inspectors to aid the Irish Government and the Garda in undertaking thorough and meaningful inspections of all aircraft suspected of involvement in "extraordinary renditions" landing at Shannon. - Yours, etc,

RHUHEL AHMED (Former detainee, Guantanamo prison facility); JOHN ARDEN (Playwright fellow of the World Society of Literature, Galway); TONY BENN (Former Labour MP, London); RONAN BENNETT (Author, London); RICHARD BOYD BARRETT (Chairperson of Irish Anti-War Movement); Prof NOAM CHOMSKY (Academic and author, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA); SARAH CLANCY (Galway One World Centre); Rev Canon PATRICK COMERFORD (President of Irish CND); CATHERINE CONNOLLY (City councillor, Galway); Dr JOHN CUNNINGHAM, (Historian, National University of Ireland, Galway); MARGARETTA D'ARCY (Member of Aosdána, Galway); MARY DEMPSEY (Artist, Galway); Dr SABER ELSAFTY (Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Ireland); NIALL FARRELL (Galway Alliance against War); DENNIS J. HALLIDAY (Former UN Assistant Secretary-General); BRIAN HANNEY (Teacher, Galway) EDWARD HORGAN (Irish Peace and Neutrality Alliance); PAUL MICHAEL GARRETT (Siptu Shop Steward, National University of Ireland, Galway); JIMMY KELLY (Regional Secretary, Unite); FRANK KEOGHAN (People's Movement); MARILYN LAROSA (Galway); KEN LOACH (Film director, London); DONAL LUNNY (Musician, Okinawa, Japan); PATRICIA McKENNA (Green Party); DETTE McLOUGHLIN (Social Workers' Party, Galway); PHELIM MURNION (Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology); JOE MURRAY (Afri: Action from Ireland); Mgr RAYMOND MURRAY (Armagh); TREASA NÍ CHEANNABHÁIN (Palestinian Solidarity Campaign); SEOSAMH Ó CUAIG (County Councillor, Galway); LAURENT PARDON (Galway); Prof WILLIAM A. SCHABAS (Director, Irish Centre for Human Rights, Galway).

[oshea.declan]

DEATH RAY OVERFLIGHTS (from "The Phoenix",May 30,2008, Ireland)

WATCHERS AT Shannon should keep in eye on C-130 Hercules planes traversing the Pentagon's Atlantic Air Bridge. One in particular to watch out for is a modified AC-130 aircraft with the tail-letters ET - or any other Hercules gunship which has a belly-slung radome aft of the flight deck.
The AC-130 has been modified to carry a 'death ray" weapon known as a Precision Airborne Standoff Directed Energy Weapon (PASDEW). This is designed to have 'particularly devastating psychological effects". Such weapons, when used against people "can be compared to long range blow torches or precision flame throwers, with :corresponding psychological advantages for CF [Coalition Forces]", according to a US Marine Corps specification leaked to the respected
American web daily www.wired.com.
Last year, US Marine commanders in Iraq signed off on an "urgent operational need" for an airborne tactical laser that could, in the words of the formal request, create "instantaneous burst-combustion of insurgent clothing, a rapid death through violent trauma, and more probably a morbid combination of both". According to the Marines' request this wouldn't be just be an improved killing machine - but would kill people in really gruesome, frightening ways - particularly because the beam from such weapons is invisible to the human eye.
In Pentagon jargon: "A precision engagement of an insurgent by a DEW (Direct Energy Weapon) will be a highly surgical and impressively violent event. It is estimated that the aftermath of a sub-second engagement by PASDEW will also be an observable event leaving an impression of terrifyingly precise CF (Coalition Forces) attribution in the minds of all witnesses.
The PASDEW capability will give CF an asymmetric psychological edge over the insurgency. It is a lethal capability they cannot readily counter and will not fully comprehend, particularly as the DEW is invisible to the unaided eye and the aircraft can engage from significant stand off. For all witnesses, it will be perceived that overt insurgency participation ... is less attractive due to the terrifying potential consequences."
Last year, in tests at Kirtland Air Force Base near Los Alamos, New Mexico, the laser was fired 50 times. The plane is now lined up to "fire the chemical laser in-flight at mission-representative ground targets ... through a rotating turret that extends through the aircraft's belly," according to Scott Fancher, vice president of Boeing Missile Defense Systems.
Next stop Iraq, via Shannon of course,assuming the first of the many of these death ray gunships
on order - which could not complete a journey from the US to Iraq without a trans-atlantic
stop-over - hasn't already transited Shannon.

[oshea.declan]

THE PHOENIX (DECEMBER 12, 2008)
     

Affairs of the Nation

MARTIN REJECTS GUANTANAMO PLEA



THE response of foreign minister Micheal Martin and the government to a request for assistance in the legal defence of Guantanamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohamed, who has been subject to rendition and torture and who could face the death sentence if convicted by US military authorities, has been a two-fingered letter.
One line of defence for Mohamed, charged with terrorist offences, is that he was illegally rendered across international boundaries; another is that he was tortured. Evidence already gathered by various agencies, including the German and Italian governments (both of whom are trying to prosecute CIA crew members involved in renditions), has identified various individuals and flight details of the planes that carried out renditions and which also passed through Shannon.

Mohamed is a classic case in point. His torture allegedly involved the multiple cutting by razor of his private parts in a Moroccan detention centre to where he had been rendered by the CIA's infamous "torture taxi", the Gulfstream jet N379P.
The day after he was deposited in Morocco, the jet flew to Shannon on July 22, 2002, where they rested up overnight before heading back to Washington.
In January, 2004, Mohamed was transferred from Morocco to Kabul by the "Guantanamo Bay Express", a Boeing 737, tail number N313P. This plane had earlier landed in Shannon on January 16, 2004, and its crew relaxed again overnight before heading off on their grizzly business to North Africa and Afghanistan. In its prosecution of those believed responsible for the rendition of a German national, Khaled el-Masri, German authorities have issued warrants for the arrest of the CIA crew of N313P and under aliases given to the German prosecutors. They face charges of abduction and causing serious bodily harm.
The British based legal charity Reprieve is defending Mohamed and last summer they wrote to both Micheal Martin and Brian Cowen with details of the above flights and their stop-overs in Shannon and requesting the names of the crews on both flights. Martin's response, after a delay of nearly four months, was a classic of its kind.
Admitting that both flights landed in Shannon on the dates in question (the first from Rabat, Morocco, en route to Washington, the second from Washington en route to Larnaca, Cyprus, in line with the flight paths of the renditions as detailed) and that their crews overnighted here. However, Martin denied that a single screed of information relating to their identities was available.
Conceding that the crew members and passengers (21 in July, 2002, and seven in January, 2004) had their passport details inspected at the airport, Martin insisted that no details of the passports, landing cards or anything else had been retained. It is known that the government has had problems with computers in the past but is it really believable that such details were not logged and stored by the vigilant guardians of the nation's security?
In another scarcely credible passage in his letter, Martin told Reprieve that the above mentioned flights were handled by Signature Flight Support (SFS), a private company, and suggested that the legal charity might like to contact SFS for "further details". SFS boasts that it is the world's largest FBO (fixed base operation) for business aviation services with over 80 locations on five continents and a HQ in Orlando, Florida. If the Irish government is reluctant to assist Reprieve and Mohamed with details of the CIA crews involved, it is hardly likely that the US multinational, SFS, will do so — as Martin knows full well. The company had nothing to say to Goldhawk this week.
Martin added, reassuringly, that "the Government of Ireland has received assurances from the highest level from the US Administration that no prisoners have been transferred through Irish territory, nor would they be, without our permission". And in a further reassuring comment Martin wrote, "Let me once again reiterate the complete opposition of the Irish Government to extraordinary rendition."

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WHEN SPIES FALL OUT TRUTH TUMBLES OUT

HUSH HUSH!!

THE fall-out from Britain's dirty war in the north has created nearly as much tribunal work as have corrupt politicians. But how about a proper inquiry into US renditions via Shannon?

Funny how the arrival of Barack Obama changed coalition attitudes about the Pentagon's Atlantic air-bridge and Ireland's policy on CIA special renditions through Shannon. For years, American clandestine operations in Ireland have been ignored, presumably in the interests of good relations with George Dubya Bush. Internationally-illegal abductions from third countries on aircraft identified in the US media as CIA-operated "Guantanamo Express" carriers were overlooked. The myth was that the government had no evidence that America's hush-hush warriors were getting up to mischief at Shannon, that the gardai were powerless to investigate a suspected crime -and that there were solid US assurances that all was above board.

The second line of defence for the coalition blind-eye policy towards what the Bush administration and its spooks were doing was that there were assurances from trustworthy US diplomats that nothing underhand was happening. How naive. Spooks tell lies with the ease that pigs grunt. For those who doubt that proposition, Goldhawk presented evidence during the year that the CIA architect of the Shannon renditions programme, Dusty Foggo (see The Phoenix, 17/10/08), was a liar and a crook. He admitted this in a Federal court when he pleaded guilty to one of 28 multi-million dollar corruption charges, plea-bargaining away from a 24¬year sentence and hoping, as the US media predicted, for a mere four years* jail time at his sentence hearing in January 2009.

So much for the defence of Irish blind eye policy on Shannon by pointing to assurances from US persons of integrity. Goldhawk showed Dusty Foggo was the CIA Executive Director, number three in that organisation, behind its politically-appointed Director and Deputy Director. In September. 2008. after he pleaded guilty, The New York Times described him as a "free-wheeling covert logistics officer who organised secret CIA supply lines from the US to Muslim countries through Europe". In the 11 years he was based in Frankfurt as the top Clandestine Operations Organiser, Dusty was a frequent visitor to Ireland in general and Shannon in particular. What a pity the Garda Special Branch, concentrating their gaze on harmless peace activists, didn't pay more attention to Dusty and his CIA colleagues - or perhaps they did and, in accordance with government hints, chose to turn a blind eye.

Full Story Here: http://info-wars.org/hushhush.html

[mr anderson]

You know what...you just jogged my memory about the Australian Defence Force involved or complicit in rendition flights.

It was heavily denied and nobody would comment on it.

I'll have to search for it.

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Protester lashes out at Gormley in news conference
Irish Independent
4 June 2009

THE Green party's final call for support before the 'Super Friday' elections was hijacked by an anti-war protester yesterday.

Former army officer Dr Ed Horgan invaded a news conference in Dublin to publicly tear up his Green Party membership card because the party had "sold out" on the use of Shannon Airport by US troops.

"I'm resigning from the Green Party because of all the promises you have broken," he said.

"The Green Party has effectively incinerated its principles. They can now use the new incinerator in John Gormley's constituency to dispose of unwanted principles," he also added in a statement he handed out at the event.

Green Party leader John Gormley interrupted him to say he had helped Mr Horgan to get into the US. He told him: "Good luck to you."

The Green Party said later that Mr Horgan had not been a paid-up member since December 2007.

Mr Gormley gave implicit backing to struggling Fianna Fail Dublin MEP Eoin Ryan by saying that Green Party voters should vote "number one" for Green party candidate Senator Deirdre de Burca and then give their next preference to candidates who were in favour of the Lisbon Treaty.

Senator Deirdre de Burca said she wanted to continue the tradition in the Dublin constituency of electing a woman.

"I want to be that woman. It would be very disappointing if we elected three older men," she said, in an apparent reference to Labour MEP Prionsias De Rossa, Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell and Fianna Fail MEP Eoin Ryan.

Green Party Senator Dan Boyle said he hoped to be in contention for the final seat in the Ireland South constituency, despite his poor showing in the polls.