Posted on 06/29/2008 11:44:15 AM PDT by lizol
Defence Minister: Poland not 51st US state
Created: 23.06.2008 12:30
Poland’s Defence Minister Bogdan Klich has expressed outrage at an article in The New York Times alleging that “Poland has been the 51st state” of the USA acting as host to a secret CIA prison for terrorists.
"That is unacceptable. The sheer fact that we are in tough negotiations with the Americans regarding the anti-missile defence shield suggests that we are indeed an independent state,” Minister Klich said on Radio ZET, Monday morning.
The Saturday issue of The New York Times reopened the topic of the secret prison camp for Al Qaeda terrorists, allegedly located in Szymany, northern Poland.
According to an anonymous former CIA official, Poland was chosen to house so called ‘rendition’ prisoners because there were no local cultural and religious ties to Al Qaeda, making infiltration or attack by sympathizers unlikely.
The prison is said to have closed in late 2005 after allegations made by Human Rights Watch and journalists from the Washington Post claimed that prisons in Poland and Romania were used to hold suspected Islamist terrorists.
Most importantly, Polish intelligence officials were eager to cooperate, claims The New York Times. The official recalled James L. Pavitt, then director of the agency’s clandestine service, declaring that ‘Americans have no idea’, about the rendition programme or Poland’s involvement in it.
In the Polish Defence Minister’s view, the recurring allegations that Poland played host to CIA secret operations, including detention and torturing suspected terrorists, constitutes an attempt to undermine Poland’s position on the international arena and present it as a country where international standards were violated.
Bogdan Klich told the private radio station that he believed the issue was most likely reheated by NYT for political reasons before the forthcoming presidential election in the USA.
The issue has been the subject of investigations by the EU and the Council of Europe, which said that though no ‘smoking gun’ evidence has been found of any such prisons in Poland, testimonies from former Polish secret agents, corroborated by former staff at Szymany airport, points to the likelihood that the centres did indeed exist.
In June, 2007, the author of the Council of Europe’s report, Dick Marty, said that: "What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven: large numbers of people have been abducted from various locations across the world and transferred to countries where they have been persecuted and where it is known that torture is common practice."
Polish politicians, including former president Aleskander Kwasniewski have repeated denied knowledge of any CIA camps in Poland.
Mr. Klich was far too diplomatic.
57? (check my tagline)
“Polish intelligence officials were eager to cooperate, claims The New York Times.” Yeah, as in former commies left out in the cold after the Poles got control of their own country back from Russia.
Heck, I wouldn’t mind it.
Plus it might mean cheaper airfare and not needing a passport to go there.
Traitors of the NY Times working to undermine a great alliance.
Traitorous scum of the NY Times working to undermine the GWOT.
Leftist vermin of the NY Times working hard as always to help terrorists and harm the defenders of freedom.
What else is new?
Great alliance .... hmmm, well... probably you’re right.
The thing is, that Obama (the “God prevent him to become” future President of the USA) has just announced, that he’ll go to Europe to visit countries, that are the closest European allies of the USA, and “key anchors of the transatlantic alliance and have contributed to the mission in Afghanistan”.
Which are the Great Britain, and ... Germany and France.
Those peoples of Poland that are not still in love with the old Soviet system* should take great pride in the fact that the NYT has chosen them for a propaganda target.
The NYT only picks on those elements that cause the remnants of the Uncle Joe fan club angst and fear.
The New York Times. Voice of defeated sovietism and juvenile leftardism.
* I am assuming there’s at least a few who are. There’s always some dumbsh**s pining away for the good ol’ days, no matter how brutal those days were, in every society.
Tusk and Kacz will be fucking traitors If they agree to place that crap.
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