What do you think?
Rate this book
Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights
"A report on clandestine Central Intelligence Agency activities, including the maintenance of secret military bases with detention facilities, known as black sites, in Afghanistan and elsewhere.... We're so used to being fed politics as fantasy entertainment, by art and the media, that we end up never being sure when we're looking at the real thing..."
--"The New York Times"
SURPRISE BUSH ANNOUNCEMENT CONFIRMS DETAILS OF
NEW BOOK ON SECRET CIA PROGRAM
SEPTEMBER 6, 2006--In a surprise admission, President Bush today confirmed widespread suspicion that the U.S. has maintained a network of secret prisons since 9/11--the first time the administration has acknowledged a secret CIA program despite worldwide criticism for the treatment of detainees, including accusations of torture and international kidnapping.
The announcement confirms charges made in a new book, "Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, "the first book on the secret U.S. program.
The "extraordinary rendition" program the president spoke of is part of what has become the largest single U.S. clandestine operation since the end of the Cold War. However, the President said that he would not divulge specifics of the CIA program, because "Doing so would provide our enemies with information they could use to take retribution against our allies and harm our country."
But investigative journalist A.C. Thompson--winner of a 2005 Polk Award for investigative reporting--and "military geographer" Trevor Paglen have systematically investigated the CIA program for more than two years, learning much about the specifics of the CIA's operations. In a series of journeys investigating the agency, they have uncovered all of the major elements of the CIA's rendition and detention operations.
In "Torture Taxi," they travel to suburban Massachusetts to profile a CIA front company that supplies the agency with airplanes; to Smithfield, North Carolina, to meet pilots who fly CIA aircraft; study with a "planespotter" who tracks CIA planes in the Nevada desert; and go to Afghanistan to visit the notorious "Salt Pit" prison and interview released Afghan detainees.
Contradicting the President's depiction of the CIA program as a legal and useful tool for bringing terrorists to justice, "Torture Taxi" proves that the CIA's operations since 9/11 have been tainted by torture and a long series of intelligence failures.
--"The New York Times"
SURPRISE BUSH ANNOUNCEMENT CONFIRMS DETAILS OF
NEW BOOK ON SECRET CIA PROGRAM
SEPTEMBER 6, 2006--In a surprise admission, President Bush today confirmed widespread suspicion that the U.S. has maintained a network of secret prisons since 9/11--the first time the administration has acknowledged a secret CIA program despite worldwide criticism for the treatment of detainees, including accusations of torture and international kidnapping.
The announcement confirms charges made in a new book, "Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, "the first book on the secret U.S. program.
The "extraordinary rendition" program the president spoke of is part of what has become the largest single U.S. clandestine operation since the end of the Cold War. However, the President said that he would not divulge specifics of the CIA program, because "Doing so would provide our enemies with information they could use to take retribution against our allies and harm our country."
But investigative journalist A.C. Thompson--winner of a 2005 Polk Award for investigative reporting--and "military geographer" Trevor Paglen have systematically investigated the CIA program for more than two years, learning much about the specifics of the CIA's operations. In a series of journeys investigating the agency, they have uncovered all of the major elements of the CIA's rendition and detention operations.
In "Torture Taxi," they travel to suburban Massachusetts to profile a CIA front company that supplies the agency with airplanes; to Smithfield, North Carolina, to meet pilots who fly CIA aircraft; study with a "planespotter" who tracks CIA planes in the Nevada desert; and go to Afghanistan to visit the notorious "Salt Pit" prison and interview released Afghan detainees.
Contradicting the President's depiction of the CIA program as a legal and useful tool for bringing terrorists to justice, "Torture Taxi" proves that the CIA's operations since 9/11 have been tainted by torture and a long series of intelligence failures.
212 pages, Paperback
First published September 24, 2006
5 people are currently reading
248 people want to read
About the author
Trevor Paglen
28 books46 followersTrevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer whose work deliberately blurs lines between social science, contemporary art, journalism, and other disciplines to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to see and interpret the world around us.
Paglen's visual work has been exhibited at Transmediale Festival, Berlin; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; the 2008 Taipei Biennial; the Istanbul Biennial 2009, and has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Wired, Newsweek, Modern Painters, Aperture, and Art Forum.
Paglen has received grants and commissions from Rhizome.org, Art Matters, Artadia, and the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology.
Paglen is the author of three books. His first book, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights (co-authored with AC Thompson; Melville House, 2006) was the first book to systematically describe the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. His second book, I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me (Melville House, 2007) an examination of the visual culture of “black” military programs, was published in Spring 2008. His third book, Blank Spots on a Map, was published by Dutton/Penguin in early 2009. In spring 2010, Aperture will publish a book of his visual work.
Paglen holds a B.A. from UC Berkeley, an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Geography from UC Berkeley.
Paglen lives and works in Oakland, CA and New York City.
Paglen's visual work has been exhibited at Transmediale Festival, Berlin; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; the 2008 Taipei Biennial; the Istanbul Biennial 2009, and has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Wired, Newsweek, Modern Painters, Aperture, and Art Forum.
Paglen has received grants and commissions from Rhizome.org, Art Matters, Artadia, and the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology.
Paglen is the author of three books. His first book, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights (co-authored with AC Thompson; Melville House, 2006) was the first book to systematically describe the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. His second book, I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me (Melville House, 2007) an examination of the visual culture of “black” military programs, was published in Spring 2008. His third book, Blank Spots on a Map, was published by Dutton/Penguin in early 2009. In spring 2010, Aperture will publish a book of his visual work.
Paglen holds a B.A. from UC Berkeley, an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Geography from UC Berkeley.
Paglen lives and works in Oakland, CA and New York City.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
August 27, 2008
Oh silly me, here I was thinking "extraordinary rendition" just meant my karaoke performance of "Hungry Eyes!"
Boy, was I wrong.
If you ever wondered what happened to those sociopathic assholes you've met over the years, look no further: they're running the world!
I liked this book a lot (even though it had an alarming number of typos and conflated schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, which is one of my own huge pet peeves). In fact, I liked it so much that I believe every American who isn't already real hip to the CIA's extraordinary rendition program should be forced to read this book -- obstinate troublemakers who don't want to read it ought to be shanghaied to a CIA "black site" stat, and then briskly waterboarded until they comply.
Of course this book was horrific and depressing, but there is something deeply comforting to me about its topic, in that I really do appreciate the moral clarity of torture. Torture is just unequivocally wrong!! In a cynical age of moral relativism, I'm so delighted to have something this clear and simple that I can believe in. Governments should not torture people, under any circumstances, ever. See, I love that! Isn't it great!? It's so easy and clear! An idiot could understand that!! You really can't argue, and if you do, you're just WRONG!
Obviously, governments do torture people, under many circumstances, and in fact our own government has been enthusiastically engaging in this practice, especially over the past six or seven years. As we all know, that sneaky CIA of ours is no stranger to dirty tricks and illegal acts, and I'm sure this rendition program fits into a broad historical narrative of the CIA, with which the authors of this book are clearly familiar and I'm not, because I am an ignorant fool....
But anyway, I digress. In case someone forgot to tell you, let me explain briefly that "extraordinary rendition" is when the CIA kidnaps suspected terrorists in foreign countries -- with or without the cooperation of those countries' governments -- and spirits them away in private planes to a bunch of really scary places all over the world, where they then can engage in the kinds of practices that we, as reasonable, ethical citizens who uphold democratic and humane principles, abhor. A lot of these places where the CIA likes to ship its illegally kidnapped suspects are countries like Egypt and Syria: that is to say, extremely nasty countries where the governments engage in all sorts of ghastly, undemocratic things that we would absolutely never stand for here in the US of A, where we have all this great stuff like the Constitution and laws and a free press and things like that. In those evil, bad countries, the governments have taken away citizens' rights by declaring states of emergency -- like if there's a war, or terrorism or something -- and the people in charge just basically get to do whatever the fuck they want, without any checks and balances! Can you imagine!!!?? It's terrible even to think about! I can't believe we'd even acknowledge these bad countries on the street, let alone be friends with them, to say nothing of giving them all our terrorist suspects to torture!
"Now Jessica," you might be whining, "what gives you the right to call Egypt and Syria bad, nasty countries? Who are you to make all these value-laden judgment calls of these places you've never even been to? You jerk!" Well, see, here's the thing: I'm not actually calling those countries bad, I'm calling their governments bad. They're bad governments because they get to do whatever awful, secret things they feel like doing, things like locking people up in prisons without due process -- you don't even get a Legal Aid lawyer there! You don't even get a phone call! You probably don't even get charged with anything!! -- and then torture them or whatever, with impunity. Impunity! I don't want to live under a government that does things like that! With impunity??! Do you? Of course not!
What kind of horrifies me is that obviously a lot of people do. Another reason I was pretty happy while reading this was that I was thinking, "Well, even with the worst case scenario for our next president, at least the Republican's not into torture." But then someone told me McCain's actually switched his position on that, and now he is into torture, so I guess I'll have to look that up....
In any case, I am definitely the kind of person who does not want to be blown up as she rides the subway to work, but I'm even more definitely the kind of person who is far more upset by the idea that her government breaks laws and tortures people, than she is by the thought that she might not make it into work one morning. But apparently not all Americans feel this way, which depresses me even more. As mentioned above, I really appreciate the simple moral clarity of this topic. We do not want our government doing these things, because morally nuanced as the world may be, it really is nice when there's good guys and bad guys, and it's nice to be a good guy, isn't it, and if we're doing the things that we're doing, then we're not the good guys, not at all, and that kind of sucks, then, doesn't it? I feel like Americans who feel okay about our government breaking laws and torturing people are really missing the point of the game. They're like little kids who cheer and want their baseball team to win, but they don't actually understand how the sport is played or what any of the the things that happen in a game mean. None of this is to say that I've ever suffered any illusions about the lilylike purity of my government. But still. There are really great things about this country, and inarguably good things about living here, for which I am permanently grateful (um, as long as they still exist, anyway).
What makes this country a good place to live is that Torture Taxi is published, and that we all get to check it out of the public library, and its authors are still out shambling around, investigating CIA front companies and leaving commas out of things, instead of being anally raped in some Algerian prison or lying facedown among radioactive tumbleweed out in the Utah desert. One of the most interesting things in this book is how the rendition program came to light: a worldwide network of obsessive airplane nerds who enjoy tracking flights and recording their findings online noticed strange planes and landings in what the book calls "lots of interesting places." These guys shared their information, the famed "free press" got involved, and a few sketchy facts about the extraordinary rendition program came to light, and became public knowledge. I actually teared up a little while reading about those earnest, dedicated, terminally geeked-out "planespotters" who identified the drops that hinted at the ocean of appalling illegality and shame of the extraordinary rendition program. To think I've wasted all this time on a book reviewing site, when I could have chosen an infinitely more useful internet hobby!!!
But as the authors make clear in the conclusion of their book, this lovely process alone is not cause for smug elation. Yeah, it's nice to live in a fairly free society where people are allowed to figure these things out and spread the word, but that's completely meaningless if we don't take the next step after we find out about this stuff, and are then able to do something to stop it from happening. Nonetheless, everyone should read this book, and books like it, and then refuse to let their political representatives sleep -- while, if possible, keeping them nude and in an impossibly uncomfortable position, preferably while blasting Slim Shady in their ears at all hours, for weeks -- until they put a permanent stop to this bullshit, and insist that our country finally begin conducting itself like a Good Guy for once, instead of a depraved, lawless shitbag. I mean, jeez.
All this is not to say that I don't totally love reading about depraved lawless shitbags! I've been so busy here ranting from up on my high horse, that I've forgotten to explain why this book is fun. Man, do I love the CIA! I've never really understood why people enjoy crime books so much -- you know, reading about serial killers and so forth. Individual bad acting doesn't interest me much, but there are few things so fascinating as immoral behavior and abuses of power at the highest levels of government. I'm not going to get into it -- read the book, dammit! -- but learning about the way the CIA operates is vastly entertaining (if at times a bit chilling). As a social worker, I do sometimes feel odd about spending taxpayers' money on various programs of dubious merit. Learning about what the CIA does with my withholdings clears that all that guilt right up for me! I'm definitely going to read more about this wonderful band of unchecked psychopaths, and their colorful history of undemocratic hijinks.
Boy, was I wrong.
If you ever wondered what happened to those sociopathic assholes you've met over the years, look no further: they're running the world!
I liked this book a lot (even though it had an alarming number of typos and conflated schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, which is one of my own huge pet peeves). In fact, I liked it so much that I believe every American who isn't already real hip to the CIA's extraordinary rendition program should be forced to read this book -- obstinate troublemakers who don't want to read it ought to be shanghaied to a CIA "black site" stat, and then briskly waterboarded until they comply.
Of course this book was horrific and depressing, but there is something deeply comforting to me about its topic, in that I really do appreciate the moral clarity of torture. Torture is just unequivocally wrong!! In a cynical age of moral relativism, I'm so delighted to have something this clear and simple that I can believe in. Governments should not torture people, under any circumstances, ever. See, I love that! Isn't it great!? It's so easy and clear! An idiot could understand that!! You really can't argue, and if you do, you're just WRONG!
Obviously, governments do torture people, under many circumstances, and in fact our own government has been enthusiastically engaging in this practice, especially over the past six or seven years. As we all know, that sneaky CIA of ours is no stranger to dirty tricks and illegal acts, and I'm sure this rendition program fits into a broad historical narrative of the CIA, with which the authors of this book are clearly familiar and I'm not, because I am an ignorant fool....
But anyway, I digress. In case someone forgot to tell you, let me explain briefly that "extraordinary rendition" is when the CIA kidnaps suspected terrorists in foreign countries -- with or without the cooperation of those countries' governments -- and spirits them away in private planes to a bunch of really scary places all over the world, where they then can engage in the kinds of practices that we, as reasonable, ethical citizens who uphold democratic and humane principles, abhor. A lot of these places where the CIA likes to ship its illegally kidnapped suspects are countries like Egypt and Syria: that is to say, extremely nasty countries where the governments engage in all sorts of ghastly, undemocratic things that we would absolutely never stand for here in the US of A, where we have all this great stuff like the Constitution and laws and a free press and things like that. In those evil, bad countries, the governments have taken away citizens' rights by declaring states of emergency -- like if there's a war, or terrorism or something -- and the people in charge just basically get to do whatever the fuck they want, without any checks and balances! Can you imagine!!!?? It's terrible even to think about! I can't believe we'd even acknowledge these bad countries on the street, let alone be friends with them, to say nothing of giving them all our terrorist suspects to torture!
"Now Jessica," you might be whining, "what gives you the right to call Egypt and Syria bad, nasty countries? Who are you to make all these value-laden judgment calls of these places you've never even been to? You jerk!" Well, see, here's the thing: I'm not actually calling those countries bad, I'm calling their governments bad. They're bad governments because they get to do whatever awful, secret things they feel like doing, things like locking people up in prisons without due process -- you don't even get a Legal Aid lawyer there! You don't even get a phone call! You probably don't even get charged with anything!! -- and then torture them or whatever, with impunity. Impunity! I don't want to live under a government that does things like that! With impunity??! Do you? Of course not!
What kind of horrifies me is that obviously a lot of people do. Another reason I was pretty happy while reading this was that I was thinking, "Well, even with the worst case scenario for our next president, at least the Republican's not into torture." But then someone told me McCain's actually switched his position on that, and now he is into torture, so I guess I'll have to look that up....
In any case, I am definitely the kind of person who does not want to be blown up as she rides the subway to work, but I'm even more definitely the kind of person who is far more upset by the idea that her government breaks laws and tortures people, than she is by the thought that she might not make it into work one morning. But apparently not all Americans feel this way, which depresses me even more. As mentioned above, I really appreciate the simple moral clarity of this topic. We do not want our government doing these things, because morally nuanced as the world may be, it really is nice when there's good guys and bad guys, and it's nice to be a good guy, isn't it, and if we're doing the things that we're doing, then we're not the good guys, not at all, and that kind of sucks, then, doesn't it? I feel like Americans who feel okay about our government breaking laws and torturing people are really missing the point of the game. They're like little kids who cheer and want their baseball team to win, but they don't actually understand how the sport is played or what any of the the things that happen in a game mean. None of this is to say that I've ever suffered any illusions about the lilylike purity of my government. But still. There are really great things about this country, and inarguably good things about living here, for which I am permanently grateful (um, as long as they still exist, anyway).
What makes this country a good place to live is that Torture Taxi is published, and that we all get to check it out of the public library, and its authors are still out shambling around, investigating CIA front companies and leaving commas out of things, instead of being anally raped in some Algerian prison or lying facedown among radioactive tumbleweed out in the Utah desert. One of the most interesting things in this book is how the rendition program came to light: a worldwide network of obsessive airplane nerds who enjoy tracking flights and recording their findings online noticed strange planes and landings in what the book calls "lots of interesting places." These guys shared their information, the famed "free press" got involved, and a few sketchy facts about the extraordinary rendition program came to light, and became public knowledge. I actually teared up a little while reading about those earnest, dedicated, terminally geeked-out "planespotters" who identified the drops that hinted at the ocean of appalling illegality and shame of the extraordinary rendition program. To think I've wasted all this time on a book reviewing site, when I could have chosen an infinitely more useful internet hobby!!!
But as the authors make clear in the conclusion of their book, this lovely process alone is not cause for smug elation. Yeah, it's nice to live in a fairly free society where people are allowed to figure these things out and spread the word, but that's completely meaningless if we don't take the next step after we find out about this stuff, and are then able to do something to stop it from happening. Nonetheless, everyone should read this book, and books like it, and then refuse to let their political representatives sleep -- while, if possible, keeping them nude and in an impossibly uncomfortable position, preferably while blasting Slim Shady in their ears at all hours, for weeks -- until they put a permanent stop to this bullshit, and insist that our country finally begin conducting itself like a Good Guy for once, instead of a depraved, lawless shitbag. I mean, jeez.
All this is not to say that I don't totally love reading about depraved lawless shitbags! I've been so busy here ranting from up on my high horse, that I've forgotten to explain why this book is fun. Man, do I love the CIA! I've never really understood why people enjoy crime books so much -- you know, reading about serial killers and so forth. Individual bad acting doesn't interest me much, but there are few things so fascinating as immoral behavior and abuses of power at the highest levels of government. I'm not going to get into it -- read the book, dammit! -- but learning about the way the CIA operates is vastly entertaining (if at times a bit chilling). As a social worker, I do sometimes feel odd about spending taxpayers' money on various programs of dubious merit. Learning about what the CIA does with my withholdings clears that all that guilt right up for me! I'm definitely going to read more about this wonderful band of unchecked psychopaths, and their colorful history of undemocratic hijinks.
January 25, 2019
When a given space-- such as a country, or a legal regime-- is evacuated of law and standards so that anything can occur, does it not ensure that anything WILL occur? Paglen's research demonstrates as such, and how the CIA torture program operates within the legal and social confines of police society, intersecting with it at odd angles, and distorting our own legal and social fabric. There's lots to ponder here, well beyond the implications of being a country that facilitates and practices torture.
April 20, 2008
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/05...
Torture Taxi
by Ben Terrall / May 3rd, 2007
Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights (Melville House; 208 pages), by Trevor Paglen and A.C. Thompson, is an investigation of the infamous “extraordinary rendition” program used by the CIA to carry detainees to countries where torture sessions are a standard part of state “security.” Paglen, a UC Berkeley expert on clandestine military operations, and Thompson, a George Polk Award-winning San Francisco journalist, began their immersion in this most disturbing of homeland security programs through contacts with “planespotting” hobbyists who noticed a series of unusual flight patterns in the western United States.
The “rendition” program began under President Clinton, but has roots in covert air operations begun by the CIA after WWll (carried out most famously via “Air America” during the Vietnam War). But, recalling Vietnam historian Marilyn Young’s description of the Iraq war as “Vietnam on crack,” the Bush Administration’s “war on terror” has increased the use of these flights dramatically.
In order to uncover the truth about these planes, Thompson later explained, “we were researching this as people who didn’t have intelligence sources, as people who didn’t have sources deep in the aviation business. We were trying to reverse engineer the program … so we gathered up all the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records and corporate paperwork that we could. Then we also networked with the planespotters — the sort of nerdy hobbyists who spend their time obsessing over the minutia and esoterica of aviation.”
Thompson and Paglen eventually also found a former pilot with a CIA-controlled aircraft company called Aero Contractors, based in Smithfield, North Carolina, who was willing to talk to them. The pilot, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained, “Ninety-nine percent of the flying was just hauling people around. It was pretty mundane stuff … mainly in Central Asia and South America.”
But the “mundane” hauling was part of an overall program of torture which would have been used to justify airstrikes if carried out on U.S. soldiers. One especially chilling example discussed in Torture Taxi is the nightmarish ordeal of Binyam Mohammed. Mohammed, arrested for using a false passport, wound up interrogated by an American who told him, “There are no lawyers. You can co-operate with us the easy way, or the hard way. If you don’t talk to us, you’re going to Jordan… The Arabs will deal with you.” Once transferred to Morocco, Mohammed was systematically tortured by men who cut his chest and penis with a scalpel.
The majority of Smithfield, North Carolina residents with whom Paglen and Thompson spoke, having grown accustomed to the intelligence presence in their town, did not support protestors who came to the community following public revelations of the CIA flights. But Paglen and Thompson did meet several devout Christians in the area who felt they could not in good conscience stay silent about local connections to torture overseas. These local citizens stood up to the disapproval of their neighbors and joined anti-torture protestors.
A.C. Thompson told me he hoped Torture Taxi would contribute to an increase in grassroots activism pressuring U.S. elected representatives to end “extraordinary renditions.” Thompson notes that Democrats did not make torture an issue in the last election, and Congress is currently doing little to curb the egregious violations of basic human rights at the core of the Bush regime’s “gloves off” intelligence operations.
Though Democrats now control Congress, the dominant center to right spectrum of the party has effectively stymied its more progressive colleagues, who no longer call for George W. Bush’s impeachment, have been effectively deterred from halting funding for the Iraq war and have not been able to keep Democratic leadership from echoing Bush’s bellicose saber-rattling toward Iran. On torture, as cable TV personality Bill Maher recently commented, Bush “made a cynical bet: That we wouldn’t care if we became a Big Brother country, that has now tortured a lot of random people.” But, Maher went on, “they say evil happens when good men do nothing … well, the Democrats prove that it also happens when mediocre people do nothing.”
Jesuit priest and anti-war activist Steve Kelly is one of the U.S. activists committed to doing something about our government’s widescale use of torture. Before the 2006 mid-term elections, Fr. Kelly told me, “my work will continue no matter who gets elected.” In an interview earlier this month, he said that it is essential for more faith-based communities to take stands against torture. “Pew Catholics slowly turned against the death penalty after the Pope came out against it, but now some Catholics are talking about supporting torture. But to not speak out against it is not acceptable: silence in this case is not only deafening, it’s complicity.”
In terms of U.S. government use of “coercion,” Fr. Kelly told me, “They figure people will tolerate torture, the same way they did with nuclear weapons… this idea that if North Korea has nuclear weapons, they are evil, but if the U.S. has them they are virtuous, is nonsense. The ends do not justify the means.”
As part of the Ploughshares movement begun in 1980 by radical priest Dan Berrigan and others, Fr. Kelly served time in federal prison for the nonviolent disarmament of nuclear weapon delivery systems. In December 2005, Fr. Kelly served as chaplain for Witness to Torture, a delegation of U.S. activists who defied the U.S. travel ban on Cuba with a peaceful march to the gates of the Guantanamo Bay naval base and prison camp.
On November 19, 2006 Fr. Kelly was arrested outside Fort Huachuca, in Sierra Vista, Arizona, where he was taking part in a peaceful protest against torture interrogation tactics taught at Fort Huachuca by U.S. military intelligence. Fr. Kelly told me, “The camp is filled with 18, 19, and 20 year olds being turned into torturers. It’s just like corporate America, they get them young and indoctrinate them into their ideology.”
An Army field manual on interrogation, the “Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual,” was written at Fort Huachuca, and officers and soldiers responsible for human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib have worked at or were trained at the Fort’s Headquarters for Army Intelligence Training.
Fr. Kelly said he thought the reason that he is being prosecuted along with activist priest Fr. Luis Vitale is that “they want to keep others from doing what we did … they want to shut down protest.” But Fr. Kelly points out that at the “School of Americas,” the Georgia military training facility where human rights abusing officers from throughout the Americas received U.S. training in counter-insurgency, such a heavy hand has backfired. “The authorities gave the maximum — 6 months — to SOA protestors, but though the protests started out with a handful of people, there are now upwards of 20,000 people a year at the annual protests there.”
When Fr. Kelly and Fr. Vitale were arrested in November, they were attempting to deliver a letter to Fort Huachuca’s director, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, former head of Abu Ghraib prison. In it, the two priests wrote, “We come here to speak with enlisted personnel about the illegality and immorality of torture according to international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions. We condemn torture as a dehumanization of both prisoners and interrogators, resulting in humiliation, disability and even death. We are convinced that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is unconstitutional. We totally reject its conclusions. Torture is a useless and unreliable tool that leads to an accepted practice of terrorization and the rationalization of wrongdoing. We are here to repent and, because of our sense of moral and human decency, we condemn torture.”
Ben Terrall is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Counterpunch, Lip Magazine, and other publications. He can be reached at: bterrall@igc.org. Read other articles by Ben.
Torture Taxi
by Ben Terrall / May 3rd, 2007
Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights (Melville House; 208 pages), by Trevor Paglen and A.C. Thompson, is an investigation of the infamous “extraordinary rendition” program used by the CIA to carry detainees to countries where torture sessions are a standard part of state “security.” Paglen, a UC Berkeley expert on clandestine military operations, and Thompson, a George Polk Award-winning San Francisco journalist, began their immersion in this most disturbing of homeland security programs through contacts with “planespotting” hobbyists who noticed a series of unusual flight patterns in the western United States.
The “rendition” program began under President Clinton, but has roots in covert air operations begun by the CIA after WWll (carried out most famously via “Air America” during the Vietnam War). But, recalling Vietnam historian Marilyn Young’s description of the Iraq war as “Vietnam on crack,” the Bush Administration’s “war on terror” has increased the use of these flights dramatically.
In order to uncover the truth about these planes, Thompson later explained, “we were researching this as people who didn’t have intelligence sources, as people who didn’t have sources deep in the aviation business. We were trying to reverse engineer the program … so we gathered up all the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records and corporate paperwork that we could. Then we also networked with the planespotters — the sort of nerdy hobbyists who spend their time obsessing over the minutia and esoterica of aviation.”
Thompson and Paglen eventually also found a former pilot with a CIA-controlled aircraft company called Aero Contractors, based in Smithfield, North Carolina, who was willing to talk to them. The pilot, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained, “Ninety-nine percent of the flying was just hauling people around. It was pretty mundane stuff … mainly in Central Asia and South America.”
But the “mundane” hauling was part of an overall program of torture which would have been used to justify airstrikes if carried out on U.S. soldiers. One especially chilling example discussed in Torture Taxi is the nightmarish ordeal of Binyam Mohammed. Mohammed, arrested for using a false passport, wound up interrogated by an American who told him, “There are no lawyers. You can co-operate with us the easy way, or the hard way. If you don’t talk to us, you’re going to Jordan… The Arabs will deal with you.” Once transferred to Morocco, Mohammed was systematically tortured by men who cut his chest and penis with a scalpel.
The majority of Smithfield, North Carolina residents with whom Paglen and Thompson spoke, having grown accustomed to the intelligence presence in their town, did not support protestors who came to the community following public revelations of the CIA flights. But Paglen and Thompson did meet several devout Christians in the area who felt they could not in good conscience stay silent about local connections to torture overseas. These local citizens stood up to the disapproval of their neighbors and joined anti-torture protestors.
A.C. Thompson told me he hoped Torture Taxi would contribute to an increase in grassroots activism pressuring U.S. elected representatives to end “extraordinary renditions.” Thompson notes that Democrats did not make torture an issue in the last election, and Congress is currently doing little to curb the egregious violations of basic human rights at the core of the Bush regime’s “gloves off” intelligence operations.
Though Democrats now control Congress, the dominant center to right spectrum of the party has effectively stymied its more progressive colleagues, who no longer call for George W. Bush’s impeachment, have been effectively deterred from halting funding for the Iraq war and have not been able to keep Democratic leadership from echoing Bush’s bellicose saber-rattling toward Iran. On torture, as cable TV personality Bill Maher recently commented, Bush “made a cynical bet: That we wouldn’t care if we became a Big Brother country, that has now tortured a lot of random people.” But, Maher went on, “they say evil happens when good men do nothing … well, the Democrats prove that it also happens when mediocre people do nothing.”
Jesuit priest and anti-war activist Steve Kelly is one of the U.S. activists committed to doing something about our government’s widescale use of torture. Before the 2006 mid-term elections, Fr. Kelly told me, “my work will continue no matter who gets elected.” In an interview earlier this month, he said that it is essential for more faith-based communities to take stands against torture. “Pew Catholics slowly turned against the death penalty after the Pope came out against it, but now some Catholics are talking about supporting torture. But to not speak out against it is not acceptable: silence in this case is not only deafening, it’s complicity.”
In terms of U.S. government use of “coercion,” Fr. Kelly told me, “They figure people will tolerate torture, the same way they did with nuclear weapons… this idea that if North Korea has nuclear weapons, they are evil, but if the U.S. has them they are virtuous, is nonsense. The ends do not justify the means.”
As part of the Ploughshares movement begun in 1980 by radical priest Dan Berrigan and others, Fr. Kelly served time in federal prison for the nonviolent disarmament of nuclear weapon delivery systems. In December 2005, Fr. Kelly served as chaplain for Witness to Torture, a delegation of U.S. activists who defied the U.S. travel ban on Cuba with a peaceful march to the gates of the Guantanamo Bay naval base and prison camp.
On November 19, 2006 Fr. Kelly was arrested outside Fort Huachuca, in Sierra Vista, Arizona, where he was taking part in a peaceful protest against torture interrogation tactics taught at Fort Huachuca by U.S. military intelligence. Fr. Kelly told me, “The camp is filled with 18, 19, and 20 year olds being turned into torturers. It’s just like corporate America, they get them young and indoctrinate them into their ideology.”
An Army field manual on interrogation, the “Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual,” was written at Fort Huachuca, and officers and soldiers responsible for human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib have worked at or were trained at the Fort’s Headquarters for Army Intelligence Training.
Fr. Kelly said he thought the reason that he is being prosecuted along with activist priest Fr. Luis Vitale is that “they want to keep others from doing what we did … they want to shut down protest.” But Fr. Kelly points out that at the “School of Americas,” the Georgia military training facility where human rights abusing officers from throughout the Americas received U.S. training in counter-insurgency, such a heavy hand has backfired. “The authorities gave the maximum — 6 months — to SOA protestors, but though the protests started out with a handful of people, there are now upwards of 20,000 people a year at the annual protests there.”
When Fr. Kelly and Fr. Vitale were arrested in November, they were attempting to deliver a letter to Fort Huachuca’s director, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, former head of Abu Ghraib prison. In it, the two priests wrote, “We come here to speak with enlisted personnel about the illegality and immorality of torture according to international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions. We condemn torture as a dehumanization of both prisoners and interrogators, resulting in humiliation, disability and even death. We are convinced that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is unconstitutional. We totally reject its conclusions. Torture is a useless and unreliable tool that leads to an accepted practice of terrorization and the rationalization of wrongdoing. We are here to repent and, because of our sense of moral and human decency, we condemn torture.”
Ben Terrall is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Counterpunch, Lip Magazine, and other publications. He can be reached at: bterrall@igc.org. Read other articles by Ben.
October 21, 2010
Overall, a haunting, nuanced, and gripping account of the CIA's rendition program. Dr. Trevor Paglen is a geographer who turned to investigative journalism due to his ongoing interest in military "black" projects and the secret landscapes where such take place. He is also an artist who has considered things like the iconography of patches from secret military, NSA, and NRO projects from an arts historical viewpoint. Paglen's overall motif throughout all his work seems to be one of exploring the visual identities of black projects and how they fit into our extended political discourse. With this book however, he seems more in the position of a conventional investigative journalist.
Unlike some (perhaps most?) readers of Paglen's work, I do not fully deplore the use of rendition tactics to capture terrorism suspects, with the criteria that such tactics are only used when other, more traditional and mainstream legal methods have failed. In fact, my interest in reading this book wasn't so much to examine the rendition program as a moral, ethical, or legal argument but due to my fascination with military and associated aviation.
Paglen gets into the physical aspects of rendition in a way no other author does, writing of how people who are "plane spotters" as a hobby were the first to take note of rendition flights and the aircraft used and later, armed with the data these plane spotters jotted down, investigative journalists have been able to discern where CIA front companies actually own aircraft and work for the CIA on these missions. Sometimes the details of these front companies are nearly comical, such as when Paglen compares signatures on various pieces of FAA paperwork supposedly made by one woman who is the vice president of an air charter company and notes that not one time were the signatures actually the same! This is because the woman in question doesn't really exist. She is part of an elaborate web designed to disguise the CIA's rendition program and the ownership and operation of its secret aircraft. As Paglen has an artist's (and a geographer's) eye for details, he has caught on to aspects of rendition which may have escaped other researchers.
As I stated before though, my own main interest in this book was for the aviation side of things and not the sociopolitical arguments. Paglen brings up the fact that aircraft connected to the CIA via front companies have landed at a variety of obscure airstrips in Nevada, such as Desert Rock Airstrip and Base Camp: two DOE facilities. These are points of data that most writers on the rendition program wouldn't care about but are fascinating to aviation buffs and I also like how Paglen is not afraid to share these findings without being able to say for sure their meaning—as such a meaning probably cannot be fully discerned anyways.
All in all, this is a very engaging book. I would recommend it as much to those who are interested in military history as those who are looking for more evidence of supposed abuses of power under the guise of the War on Terror.
Unlike some (perhaps most?) readers of Paglen's work, I do not fully deplore the use of rendition tactics to capture terrorism suspects, with the criteria that such tactics are only used when other, more traditional and mainstream legal methods have failed. In fact, my interest in reading this book wasn't so much to examine the rendition program as a moral, ethical, or legal argument but due to my fascination with military and associated aviation.
Paglen gets into the physical aspects of rendition in a way no other author does, writing of how people who are "plane spotters" as a hobby were the first to take note of rendition flights and the aircraft used and later, armed with the data these plane spotters jotted down, investigative journalists have been able to discern where CIA front companies actually own aircraft and work for the CIA on these missions. Sometimes the details of these front companies are nearly comical, such as when Paglen compares signatures on various pieces of FAA paperwork supposedly made by one woman who is the vice president of an air charter company and notes that not one time were the signatures actually the same! This is because the woman in question doesn't really exist. She is part of an elaborate web designed to disguise the CIA's rendition program and the ownership and operation of its secret aircraft. As Paglen has an artist's (and a geographer's) eye for details, he has caught on to aspects of rendition which may have escaped other researchers.
As I stated before though, my own main interest in this book was for the aviation side of things and not the sociopolitical arguments. Paglen brings up the fact that aircraft connected to the CIA via front companies have landed at a variety of obscure airstrips in Nevada, such as Desert Rock Airstrip and Base Camp: two DOE facilities. These are points of data that most writers on the rendition program wouldn't care about but are fascinating to aviation buffs and I also like how Paglen is not afraid to share these findings without being able to say for sure their meaning—as such a meaning probably cannot be fully discerned anyways.
All in all, this is a very engaging book. I would recommend it as much to those who are interested in military history as those who are looking for more evidence of supposed abuses of power under the guise of the War on Terror.
August 19, 2008
Trevor Paglen and A. C. Thompson, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights (Melville House, 2006)
I can't remember the last time I read a general nonfiction book in the space of twenty-four hours; I'm not sure it's ever happened before. But I did it with this one (while at the same time blazing through a novel that was almost as good). And it's not because I know (if tangentially) one of the authors; it doesn't matter if you're my mom, if your book's unreadable, I'm not going to be able to read it. It's because Torture Taxi is a fast-paced, exceptionally well-written book.
I'm something of an egalitarian when it comes to reading; I can read about subjects that I know nothing or care nothing about-- or even actively dislike (cf. review of Richard Bak's Yankees Baseball, a sport I loathe)-- as long as the information is presented in an interesting way. I knew Paglen was capable of this long before he put pen to paper, as I was a big fan of his musical project Noisegate back in the day. One often wonders whether artists are capable of crossing media. In this case, it worked like a charm.
Torture Taxi, as the subtitle tells you, is a book about the CIA's Extraordinary Rendition program, a previously-secret initiative that was brought out into the open by regular folks around the globe who started wondering about the odd flight patterns of a certain group of planes. Using these, they tracked down ghost corporations, secret prisons, survivors of the program, and a host of scary, scary documents. This book, to be blunt, is a conspiracy theorist's most beautiful dream. I've never been a conspiracy theorist, but I've got to say that Paglen and his co-author, investigative journalist A. C. Thompson, make a very compelling-- and damning-- case that Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are only the tip of this polluted iceberg. They interview the survivors. They visit the sites. They quote, and sometimes show pictures of, the documents. The picture that emerges is not pretty.
This is a book that seems to have gotten very little notice. (Noisegate's music didn't, either, and that's equally criminal.) I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this, but I'm now going to attempt to change that, Torture Taxi is going to be one of the books I start recommending to everyone within earshot. Will likely find its way onto my ten best reads of the year list. **** ½
I can't remember the last time I read a general nonfiction book in the space of twenty-four hours; I'm not sure it's ever happened before. But I did it with this one (while at the same time blazing through a novel that was almost as good). And it's not because I know (if tangentially) one of the authors; it doesn't matter if you're my mom, if your book's unreadable, I'm not going to be able to read it. It's because Torture Taxi is a fast-paced, exceptionally well-written book.
I'm something of an egalitarian when it comes to reading; I can read about subjects that I know nothing or care nothing about-- or even actively dislike (cf. review of Richard Bak's Yankees Baseball, a sport I loathe)-- as long as the information is presented in an interesting way. I knew Paglen was capable of this long before he put pen to paper, as I was a big fan of his musical project Noisegate back in the day. One often wonders whether artists are capable of crossing media. In this case, it worked like a charm.
Torture Taxi, as the subtitle tells you, is a book about the CIA's Extraordinary Rendition program, a previously-secret initiative that was brought out into the open by regular folks around the globe who started wondering about the odd flight patterns of a certain group of planes. Using these, they tracked down ghost corporations, secret prisons, survivors of the program, and a host of scary, scary documents. This book, to be blunt, is a conspiracy theorist's most beautiful dream. I've never been a conspiracy theorist, but I've got to say that Paglen and his co-author, investigative journalist A. C. Thompson, make a very compelling-- and damning-- case that Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are only the tip of this polluted iceberg. They interview the survivors. They visit the sites. They quote, and sometimes show pictures of, the documents. The picture that emerges is not pretty.
This is a book that seems to have gotten very little notice. (Noisegate's music didn't, either, and that's equally criminal.) I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this, but I'm now going to attempt to change that, Torture Taxi is going to be one of the books I start recommending to everyone within earshot. Will likely find its way onto my ten best reads of the year list. **** ½
November 10, 2010
I worked with AC Thompson, co-author, while I was at ProPublica. He's an amazing reporter and this book is the result of some excellent investigative reporting into one of the most controversial aspects of the Bush administration's war on terror.
July 31, 2017
Torture Taxi goes in as many circles as the CIA planes that plane-spotters track. By the nature of the business, we all know that their are inevitable cover-ups at the CIA. Torture Taxi, unfortunately, just didn't give much information that really made the book worthwhile. Albeit, the authors did track down the location of some CIA shell companies, airports used for clandestine CIA activity, and several supposed "black site" prisons, I felt that it fell short of putting it together in a meaningful context. The overall premise of the book seems to be, these exist and there is nothing you can do about it.
The saving grace for Torture Taxi (for me personally), was the in-depth information about how flight tracking and digital airport information works.
I would recommend this book as "bathroom read" I suppose, but just didn't do it for me.
The saving grace for Torture Taxi (for me personally), was the in-depth information about how flight tracking and digital airport information works.
I would recommend this book as "bathroom read" I suppose, but just didn't do it for me.
January 10, 2020
A great deep dive into the extraordinary rendition program and how it was unravelled. A truly impressive piece of journalism that must have been a real challenge to navigate whilst investigating.
Suggested by El and read on the sofa.
Suggested by El and read on the sofa.
February 13, 2019
Great read.
August 18, 2024
OK EVERYBODY GOOGLE "RED SOX PLANE CIA TORTURE" YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED
February 12, 2008
SEPTEMBER 6, 2006—In a surprise admission, President Bush today confirmed widespread suspicion that the U.S. has maintained a network of secret prisons since 9/11—the first time the administration has acknowledged a secret CIA program despite worldwide criticism for the treatment of detainees, including accusations of torture and international kidnapping.
The announcement confirms charges made in a new book, TORTURE TAXI: ON THE TRAIL OF THE CIA’S RENDITION FLIGHTS, the first book on the secret U.S. program.
The “extraordinary rendition” program the president spoke of is part of what has become the largest single U.S. clandestine operation since the end of the Cold War. However, the President said that he would not divulge specifics of the CIA program, because “Doing so would provide our enemies with information they could use to take retribution against our allies and harm our country.”
But investigative journalist A.C. Thompson—winner of a 2005 Polk Award for investigative reporting—and “military geographer” Trevor Paglen have systematically investigated the CIA program for more than two years, learning much about the specifics of the CIA’s operations. In a series of journeys investigating the agency, they have uncovered all of the major elements of the CIA’s rendition and detention operations.
The announcement confirms charges made in a new book, TORTURE TAXI: ON THE TRAIL OF THE CIA’S RENDITION FLIGHTS, the first book on the secret U.S. program.
The “extraordinary rendition” program the president spoke of is part of what has become the largest single U.S. clandestine operation since the end of the Cold War. However, the President said that he would not divulge specifics of the CIA program, because “Doing so would provide our enemies with information they could use to take retribution against our allies and harm our country.”
But investigative journalist A.C. Thompson—winner of a 2005 Polk Award for investigative reporting—and “military geographer” Trevor Paglen have systematically investigated the CIA program for more than two years, learning much about the specifics of the CIA’s operations. In a series of journeys investigating the agency, they have uncovered all of the major elements of the CIA’s rendition and detention operations.
June 22, 2010
I picked this up on a whim, uncertain of what journey it would take me on. I was aware, as most vaguely informed people are, of the fact that the CIA were kidnapping people and hauling them off to places like Guantanamo Bay.
I wasn't as a aware of the international complicity surrounding this. In that respect the book was interesting. However it's written in a very dry manner, and with constant flitting backwards and forwards to details of the same cases. I realise that little detail is known, but it felt at times that the authors were stretching cases to fit their exposition.
Having said that, it's a book that needed to be written, and there is some interesting revelations about the use of front companies and ghost directors.
I wasn't as a aware of the international complicity surrounding this. In that respect the book was interesting. However it's written in a very dry manner, and with constant flitting backwards and forwards to details of the same cases. I realise that little detail is known, but it felt at times that the authors were stretching cases to fit their exposition.
Having said that, it's a book that needed to be written, and there is some interesting revelations about the use of front companies and ghost directors.
July 25, 2007
Bad times; democracy eroding. Under 'extraordinary rendition', CIA kidnapping suspected terrorist-citizens of other countries using charter jets, taking to secret 'black site' prisons, torturing, holding without trial. The book obviously put together quickly in order to address the topic, but its a quick and informative read, too.
March 30, 2010
like his other book, it raises a ton of questions and reveals quite a bit of information about cia's tactics of hiding in plain sight. didn't think it was quite as engrossing as blank spots and it's a bit more depressing and apalling in terms of what we do to suspected terrorists. maybe don't read it before bed.
August 6, 2015
This is a book about secret flights carrying captured prisoners (and sometimes innocents) from places like Afghanistan etc and taken to "Dark Prisons", that is, prisons that are non-mainstream.
The book delves into domestic & private airlines who run the planes as opposed to the CIA.
It's quite interesting, there's not much to it though and quite a quick read.
The book delves into domestic & private airlines who run the planes as opposed to the CIA.
It's quite interesting, there's not much to it though and quite a quick read.
February 15, 2010
The first book I read on rendition. I was prompted by a news story in the Boston Globe about a private plane that had been owned by a co-owner of the Red Sox being identified as one used in rendition. That led to an address in Dedham, MA a Boston suburb.
January 8, 2013
An fascinating primer on the CIA's use of "ghost planes" for extraordinary rendition of people to secret prisons. I'd definitely like to read something more in depth, if possible, but given the nature and near impossible task of the subject matter I wonder how much more can be revealed.
April 16, 2015
its scary to find out what happened to these men in this book. i doubt all were guilty. these are the first moves that will eventually lead to citizens, jounalists, anybody that angered our government.
April 14, 2008
Good no-frills investigative journalism. Tears off a small corner of the "extraordinary rendition" puzzle - the planespotting part - and explores it to chilling effect.
April 29, 2008
Good brief introduction to extraordinary rendition and the CIA's private airforce.
July 11, 2009
ok, so i'm a bit biased. my friend wrote this book but if you want the skinny on "extraordinary rendition" you gotta read this. its fuckin off the hook.
January 7, 2011
Made me ashamed of the way the US government usurps laws that were created to protect people.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews