AL QAIDA AND THE CIA

Al Qaida – the Taliban etc and the CIA

Let me at the outset state emphatically and unequivocally that I abhor the very idea of torture, regardless of who commits it and irrespective of the stated reasons for it.

We recently have read pages upon pages in the News Papers and listened hour after hour on Radio and Television about the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and its practice of eliciting information from captured members of the terror organisations „al-Qaida“ and the „Taliban“ through what euphemistically is referred to as „enhanced interrogation“ but is, in short, torture of individuals.

It is most interesting to note that this information was gathered over 5 years and published by the „U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence“, under the chair of Senator Dianne Feinstein.(D)

Its release was authorised by a vote of 9 to 6.

One must wonder in how many other countries such a report would not have been gathered in the first place, and if so, likely would have been swept under the proverbial rug.

It seems to me that, in all fairness, a few paragraphs of news space and a few minutes of air time could, should, have been given for the reason for this inexcusable behaviour on the part of the C.I.A.

Al Qaida as well as the Taliban have sworn to damage the USA along with the political „West block of Nations“ in any way and to any extent they can, with the USA being their arch enemy.

Let me enumerate just the major attacks, disregarding the hundreds of individual suicide attacks in shopping facilities and on crowded roads, killing mostly innocent native shoppers and bystanders.

December 1992: Bombs were placed in two hotels in Aden, Yemen. Explosions in the „Gold Mohur“ and the „Aden Mövenpick“ killed and maimed a large number of tourists. For this attack Osama bin Laden and Mohamud Khan admitted responsibility.

November 1995: Car bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killed 7 wounding 60

August 1998 : Attacks against US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killed over 200 and injured more than 5000 persons, mostly innocent natives.

January 2000: Al Qaida failed in their attempt to attack the USS Sullivan.

September 2001: Five commercial air liners were hijacked, two of them crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, a third crashed into the Pentagon, a fourth in a field after a struggle between the terrorists and passengers and crew of the plane. Over 3000 individuals were killed in the twin towers alone.

A fifth plane was prevented from taking off. Subsequent intelligence showed that it was scheduled for the Statue of Liberty.

March 2002: Attacks on the Oil tanker Limburg and subsequent bombings in Mombasa, Kenia.

May 2003: 39 killed and 160 wounded in attacks by Taliban in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

And so it goes on, year after year, attack after terrorist attack by Al Qaida and the Taliban as well as several other terrorist organisations.

Thousands of victims dead and tens of thousands injured.

Until the 9^th day of October 2012, when a young Pakistani girl, barely 15 years of age rode in a school bus on her way home. She was Malala Yousafzai. Malala had publicly protested against the Taliban's right to deny girls the basic right of education.

A man entered the bus and asked: „Who is Malala ?“ When other girls instinctively looked at her, the man pulled a gun and shot Malala in the head. Fortunately she survived this Taliban attempt to murder her and finally she received the 2014 Nobel Piece Prize.

Yes, so it went on and on. One killing after another in an attempt to gain power.

Who knows how many other terrorist attacks were prevented by the work of the CIA and many other security organisations world wide?

It is truly a shame that the practices of torture put a stain on the defence against multiple murder and individual executions.

Bertstravels.