anchor
Google Earth: CIA Prisons 1.0
"Satellite images could help determine if the CIA ran secret prisons in Europe, according to a Swiss lawmaker who is drawing up a report on the issue for the Council of Europe human rights watchdog." Wired. Also, earlier.
8 Comments
and, the planes
Patrick, as far as the history of South America goes, the CIA is very far from being this kind of humble, neutral, obidient servant that you would so love it to be. And if the CIA insists on throwing itslef on their leaders swords then so be it.
Stop whining! (as if you didn't have access to post directly in the news section yourself, Patrick.)
Patrick - As the person who posted both this news item and the earlier one, cited above, about secret CIA prisons; and therefore as the person who is at least indirectly described by you as posting 'anti-intelligence' articles 'not directly related to architecture' as part of 'my personal political platform,' I have to say that I have several responses.
Keeping it simple: 1) Google Earth, and PointingIt, for example, are entirely on point for Archinect's stated educational mission. That a 'Swiss lawmaker' is using similar geo-imaging technology to locate illegal prisons operated by a foreign power in his 'homeland' is therefore entirely justified as a news item. Had this 'Swiss lawmaker' simply been opening an investigation - without using new cartographic methods of geographical surveillance - I would not have posted it as a stand-alone news item. (Though, yes: perhaps I would have posted it as a comment to the earlier post).
2) I am not 'anti-intelligence'; secret prisons, torture, and human rights abuses are. One has to look no further than John McCain to see that these policies don't work, and are therefore themselves anti-intelligence. The CIA, too, is not 'anti-intelligence'; a number of agency policies adopted in recent years do, however, seem to be. If a person would stand against the illegal, pseudo-Stalinist prison archipelago apparently now in operation around the world – with the unfortunate support of the CIA – and within which torture and human rights abuses occur, that person would be pro-American, pro-intelligence, and in defense of 'Western values.'
The opposing implication is obvious.
3) If you have interesting architectural news items about JFK - say, an artist reproduction of the room within which Kennedy sadistically mongered war, or perhaps a Kennedy family bunker that has gone on sale in Massachusetts - I, personally, would be fascinated. I would encourage you to post anything of the sort. However: would that make you anti-US, or anti-intelligence, or even anti-military, for posting such a news item? Of course it wouldn't; but you, perhaps, think it would? This is not a rhetorical question.
which part of plane facts are unsubstantiated and biased?
actually i've read about the so called torture planes in several turkish papers yesterday and this morning. after that i went two or three news sites further and found the story very interesting from the cia operational point of view, setting up satellite prison systems around the globe.
picture was linked from a turkish daily, hurriyet, a popular, credible right wing nationalistic paper sold widely in europe and available in print here.
you are a passionate poster on politics but jump on conclusions too fast.
i am not an activist and that was my first visit to Bellaciao chasing the cia docs. i don't care about your judgement of my credibility, but just so you know that i visit cia official web site every once in a while.
one more,
i don't make any secret of my fiction when displayed.
well patrick, i am no defender of turkish media but if you've read and understood turkish i could've recommended some decent papers with great journalists on their staff.
nor i am a defender of military check points anywhere and a 'stalinist' PKK and turkish military war taking a place in eastern turkey claiming the lives of innocent people daily with suicide bombers and clandestine military operations.
i am usually checked 4 times minimum on my way to ashland ohio or entering any country on my travels.
anyway, regarding the said cia plane, it's landing in an istanbul airport, first acknowledged by the minister of transportation himself and later denied, causing headlines in the papers.
good night patrick..
i think the idea that there are 'invisible' prisons (alternative communities, of a sort) has fascinating architectural implications. heterotopia, anyone?
...and the idea that someone might be using a plane as a non-place, outside of any jurisdictions, is pretty interesting, too. coffee, tea, or atopia?
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