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Extraordinary Rendition · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Winter Insurance. I'm true, I'm a Chestutsurance get actual. Thanks.
0:31
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm your host.
0:36
Speaker 2: Adam Todd Brown joining me is co host this week.
0:39
Speaker 2: Connor mcspadin's here. How's it going man? Also joining us,
0:44
Speaker 2: Corey Robinson is here. Hello, everybody, how's it going? How
0:48
Speaker 2: is everyone doing?
0:50
Speaker 1: That's a loaded question these days, but let's go with fine.
0:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sure is.
0:54
Speaker 3: I'm going to throw in on a very perfunctory, empty
0:58
Speaker 3: false fine for how I'm doing. Just fine.
1:02
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the most dangerous series we've ever done
1:06
Speaker 2: on this network. We did a couple episodes about Guantanamo
1:11
Speaker 2: last week, the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Center and the Guantanamo
1:17
Speaker 2: detention camp. And when I paid Connor for the Guantanamo episode,
1:23
Speaker 2: I put the word Guantanamo in the memo of the
1:28
Speaker 2: Zell payment, and Bank of America fucking flagged that Zell
1:33
Speaker 2: payment made me call them and literally interrogated me about
1:38
Speaker 2: what cts Guantanamo meant in the It's amazing of the
1:44
Speaker 2: Zell transfer.
1:46
Speaker 3: So a man can't even fucking categorize his own Zell
1:50
Speaker 3: payments for tax purposes in this country. Anymore.
1:53
Speaker 1: Yep.
1:54
Speaker 2: Now it's just got to be podcast appearance followed by
1:57
Speaker 2: a date. That's all the information anyone's anymore.
2:01
Speaker 3: You could maybe see if they if they flagg gitmo
2:04
Speaker 3: and you just call it gitmo.
2:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't catch g mock. They didn't get Sam
2:08
Speaker 2: Sweet's transfer. Hers went through. Fine, they probably will now
2:12
Speaker 2: they're probably listening to this, but it's fine.
2:15
Speaker 3: Every time you call it. This is the joke for
2:17
Speaker 3: three people. Every time you call it g mock. There's
2:18
Speaker 3: a bunch of Yu gi oh players that are like, wait,
2:20
Speaker 3: is he just was he just talking about the dark
2:22
Speaker 3: Magician of Chaos? What does he have to do with
2:24
Speaker 3: Gwatanamo Bay? Because there's a card called dark Magicians. Okay,
2:27
Speaker 3: we call hi d mock.
2:27
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, there is a small handful of people
2:30
Speaker 2: losing their shit right now.
2:31
Speaker 3: So you know you're welcome, Spurgs. So on this.
2:37
Speaker 2: Episode, we are reflecting on the battle days when the
2:42
Speaker 2: United States was snatching enemy combatants up off the street
2:47
Speaker 2: and sending them to foreign prisons without due process, a
2:51
Speaker 2: shocking moment in history we will certainly never see again
2:54
Speaker 2: in our lifetime, that's for sure.
2:58
Speaker 3: And it was all done forever.
3:02
Speaker 1: I was like the battle days, you mean like yesterday?
3:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, pretty much.
3:06
Speaker 3: We Hey, Corey, we understood the satire. Fuck yeah, reading
3:11
Speaker 3: comprehension has not yet been destroyed by Chad GBT over here.
3:15
Speaker 1: I understood the reference.
3:18
Speaker 2: We're talking about something called extraordinary rendition.
3:23
Speaker 3: It should be the best funk band of the seventies,
3:26
Speaker 3: is what it should be, like, you know, a Charlie
3:28
Speaker 3: Wilson side project.
3:30
Speaker 2: It's when you perform the best version of something. Unfortunately,
3:33
Speaker 2: in this case, it is the CIA performing the best
3:36
Speaker 2: version of seizing and transferring a person suspected of involvement
3:42
Speaker 2: with a terrorist group to another country. FOREI igmprisonment and
3:45
Speaker 2: interrogation without legal process.
3:47
Speaker 3: Well, I would say that that act is like this
3:49
Speaker 3: perfecting that process to the CIA. That's like a martial
3:53
Speaker 3: arts master's kata that he does to you know, cleanse
3:56
Speaker 3: his soul and achieve perfection with this routine he does
3:59
Speaker 3: every every day. This is there. This is what they
4:01
Speaker 3: get out of bed in the morning for is sending
4:03
Speaker 3: people to weird foreign black sites and electrocuting their testicles.
4:07
Speaker 3: You know, it's like, what do you think the whole
4:08
Speaker 3: thing runs on? Baby?
4:09
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think there's teams of CIA agents that wake
4:12
Speaker 1: up every like they have to get up every morning
4:14
Speaker 1: and get into an unmarked van and then do a
4:16
Speaker 1: bunch of like bag ups, Like.
4:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, they probably they probably have like a UFC training
4:21
Speaker 3: dummy that they like. Okay to bag and bag and tag,
4:24
Speaker 3: bag and tag folks. Come on, let's go one, two, three,
4:26
Speaker 3: bag overhead into the van, close the door, bag fan close, Remember.
4:32
Speaker 1: That do process zero.
4:34
Speaker 3: Well done, guys, BBC bagvan close, CrossFit, the CrossFit gym training.
4:42
Speaker 3: A bunch of CIA van black baggers would be a
4:46
Speaker 3: pretty good TikTok sketch. That would be somebody would have
4:49
Speaker 3: to the shadow ban that like.
4:51
Speaker 1: To call yourself a patriot? Do you believe in health
4:54
Speaker 1: and fitness? Well, do we have the fitness program for you?
4:58
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie. I would check it out one.
5:00
Speaker 2: I would just pretend it was like not immigrants or anything,
5:04
Speaker 2: I was black bagging black site.
5:07
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, it wouldn't be the stupidest workout I
5:10
Speaker 3: every did.
5:11
Speaker 1: No, No, it definitely beats box jumps.
5:14
Speaker 2: So Miriam Webster defines extraordinary rendition, Like I just said,
5:19
Speaker 2: the seizure and transfer of a person suspected of involvement
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Speaker 2: with a terrorist group to another country, or imprisonment and
5:26
Speaker 2: interrogation without legal process, which is literally a thing we're
5:31
Speaker 2: seeing today. The only difference is we as a country
5:37
Speaker 2: are done being secretive about it. Now we're just doing
5:41
Speaker 2: it and being like, but what, we can't do anything,
5:44
Speaker 2: We can't bring them back. Not magicians, Yeah, we're we're
5:48
Speaker 2: not extraordinary magicians.
5:51
Speaker 1: What's difficult as a comedian is it's our job to
5:54
Speaker 1: make fun of like the stuff that happens in real life.
5:57
Speaker 1: But like the dictionary definition you just read is the
6:00
Speaker 1: actual plot to severally amnissan movies. Yeah, yeah, right, and
6:05
Speaker 1: that's what we're living through right now.
6:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, just living through the threat of it happening to anyone.
6:11
Speaker 3: We're in the beginning of Like you know how every
6:13
Speaker 3: eighties movie is a not you distant future, We're right
6:15
Speaker 3: in the beginning of it getting fucked up. We're just
6:18
Speaker 3: we're just getting to the part where Taco Bell becomes
6:20
Speaker 3: the only restaurant.
6:23
Speaker 1: The not too distant future in the eighties is twenty
6:25
Speaker 1: twenty five, irn.
6:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, usually yeah, something like that.
6:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, on last weeks, you don't even like this show.
6:30
Speaker 2: We talked to a guy who's been a listener of
6:34
Speaker 2: the pod for a long time. He defends people in
6:37
Speaker 2: immigration cases in court. Born in the United States, born
6:41
Speaker 2: in San Diego County. Just got a letter from the
6:46
Speaker 2: Department of Homeland Security saying he has to self support.
6:50
Speaker 2: And what's so scary about that is it's obviously a
6:54
Speaker 2: mistake because he's a citizen, he was born here. But
6:58
Speaker 2: if ICE snatches him up, are they going to take
7:00
Speaker 2: that into account or are they just going to deport
7:03
Speaker 2: him and let him fight it out in court, which
7:06
Speaker 2: we know isn't even going to be a thing. There
7:08
Speaker 2: is no court in this process.
7:10
Speaker 3: In bag van close class. I don't think there's a
7:13
Speaker 3: unit on Like but wait, you don't understand. Yeah, I
7:17
Speaker 3: don't think they have like a social work, you know,
7:20
Speaker 3: framework within this. I think it's much more back van
7:23
Speaker 3: closed than it is like, Okay, so what so you
7:26
Speaker 3: are a citizen, you were born here, We'll show me.
7:30
Speaker 3: Let's go get the papers, you know, Like I bet
7:31
Speaker 3: they never said that.
7:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's literally no room in the van for a lawyer. Yeah,
7:36
Speaker 1: not even checkgun. That's the sad thing about this, Like
7:40
Speaker 1: the what's it's the scariest part is like it's we
7:44
Speaker 1: were joking that it's going towards fascism, but like there
7:47
Speaker 1: there's no due process, Like that's the one thing we're
7:49
Speaker 1: supposed to all have.
7:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they say, like, what's the difference between like
7:52
Speaker 3: a cut that out? Sorry?
7:56
Speaker 2: Two, Well, I mean, speaking of differences, the difference between
7:59
Speaker 2: a prison and in a concentration camp is there's a
8:02
Speaker 2: judicial process attached to a prison.
8:05
Speaker 3: And yeah, that's what I was trying to stupidly say.
8:09
Speaker 1: I figure, yeah, but I just want to have this
8:11
Speaker 1: one caveat as a black person. This is Tuesday. You know,
8:15
Speaker 1: like like du process has always been sketchy at best
8:19
Speaker 1: with us, It's performative if anything.
8:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, did just did anyone see Stephen Miller, the gargoyle
8:26
Speaker 2: that is overseeing Trump's immigration stuff, posted a thing on
8:30
Speaker 2: Twitter about how well where was due process for the
8:33
Speaker 2: January sixth protesters. It's like, motherfucker, they all had trials. Yeah,
8:38
Speaker 2: every single one of them had a trial. Definition of
8:41
Speaker 2: due process.
8:42
Speaker 3: Stephen Miller's like, what's that? Motherfucker? That's not Dracula, But
8:45
Speaker 3: he like stands Dracula, like he's like he's Dracula's like
8:49
Speaker 3: fucking Renfield Renfield. Stephen Miller has fucking hardcore Sikaphant Machiavelli,
8:56
Speaker 3: Renfield kiss ass to power vibes, like every time he
8:59
Speaker 3: gon on screen there should be like a b.
9:04
Speaker 1: I would just love for it. At one point him
9:06
Speaker 1: like something happened to him, and then the Wilhelm screen
9:10
Speaker 1: happens off camera.
9:12
Speaker 2: Like so many other truly awful tactics that we generally
9:17
Speaker 2: associate with Republicans. Case in point, listened to last week's
9:21
Speaker 2: episode about the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Center. Joe Biden is
9:25
Speaker 2: the one who doled out the contract to expand that
9:29
Speaker 2: place to hold thousands of migrants. It wasn't Trump. Trump
9:32
Speaker 2: is acting on a plan Joe Biden started while he
9:36
Speaker 2: was in office, but after he'd dropped out of the race.
9:38
Speaker 2: Pretty sneaky cysts.
9:40
Speaker 3: And even this goes way back to even the Trail
9:42
Speaker 3: of tears was done by a Democrat if you think
9:44
Speaker 3: about it.
9:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a thing that started under Democrats,
9:49
Speaker 2: in this case Bill Clinton, because you see those no
9:53
Speaker 2: good piece knicks at the UN had this Convention against
9:57
Speaker 2: Torture that went into effect in the UN in October
10:01
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, and it said among other things, that
10:04
Speaker 2: you can't just ship someone back to their home country
10:08
Speaker 2: if there is substantial reason to believe they'll be tortured
10:11
Speaker 2: when they get there. And apparently Clinton was like, yeah,
10:14
Speaker 2: but I want to do that. That's exactly what I
10:17
Speaker 2: want to do. You understand, Sneaky presidents, you know.
10:20
Speaker 1: The sad thing about the politics is like you got
10:24
Speaker 1: one side that's like absolutely evil, just like how far
10:27
Speaker 1: can we take this? Then you got the other side
10:29
Speaker 1: that's either completely feckless or in on it, and several
10:33
Speaker 1: instances of in on it, And here we are just like, ugh,
10:37
Speaker 1: like I hope I get a fair trial.
10:40
Speaker 3: There's a Simpsons joke I love that encapsulates that perfectly.
10:43
Speaker 3: It's like it cuts between like the Republican National Convention
10:46
Speaker 3: and the Democrat National Convention, and the Republican nature and
10:49
Speaker 3: National Convention is like there's a big banner hung up
10:51
Speaker 3: in front of the stage. It says we're pure evil,
10:54
Speaker 3: you know, like weird, awful, we hate you know, And
10:58
Speaker 3: then the Democrat still conventions there's a big banner and
11:01
Speaker 3: it says we hate life in ourselves, we can't govern.
11:06
Speaker 3: So it's like it's we're pure evil or we can't govern.
11:09
Speaker 2: You know.
11:10
Speaker 3: That was why that showed House of Cards was so
11:12
Speaker 3: popular with Kevin Spacey, because it was like a Democrat
11:15
Speaker 3: actually getting stuff done. Yeah, you know, like shit, this
11:19
Speaker 3: guy'ss doing a couple of backroom deals.
11:21
Speaker 2: You know.
11:21
Speaker 3: It's like we all wanted Barack Obama to smoke a
11:24
Speaker 3: few more cigarettes and get us a couple more years
11:26
Speaker 3: of free health care. But he just didn't.
11:28
Speaker 2: You know, you sure did not. So this Convention against Torture,
11:34
Speaker 2: it again said you can't ship someone back to their
11:36
Speaker 2: home country. And so in August nineteen ninety five, under Clinton,
11:41
Speaker 2: the CIA started a covert extraordinary rendition program, even though
11:46
Speaker 2: it was never explicitly called that. Egypt was the first
11:50
Speaker 2: country to sign on as a partner in letting US
11:53
Speaker 2: send terror suspects to foreign lands to be dealt with.
11:56
Speaker 2: And it would be one thing if they're just flying
11:58
Speaker 2: you to Egypt, driving you from the airport, pushing you
12:02
Speaker 2: out of a car, and you're like, oh shit, the Pyramids.
12:05
Speaker 2: I guess I'm a tourist.
12:06
Speaker 3: Now.
12:06
Speaker 2: No, they're taking you to Egypt because that's where people
12:09
Speaker 2: want you killed. And it's just easier at this point
12:13
Speaker 2: in history for the CIA to deal with it that way,
12:17
Speaker 2: instead of us being the ones to do the torture,
12:19
Speaker 2: we're just literally outsourcing torture here.
12:23
Speaker 1: We got them that lazy, like the CIA used to
12:25
Speaker 1: at least be good at that.
12:26
Speaker 2: Oh, they come around eventually.
12:28
Speaker 1: In this story, we spent like five minutes joking about
12:31
Speaker 1: the exercises they did just to trap them. You think
12:33
Speaker 1: they haven't like worked on their waterboarding, Like that's good
12:36
Speaker 1: for the obliques.
12:37
Speaker 2: Oh, they start doing their own stunts for sure.
12:39
Speaker 3: I have a feeling that, like China, they've built this
12:42
Speaker 3: robust manufacturing base over generations that they're very proud of.
12:46
Speaker 3: I have a feeling that they're doing their own torture too,
12:48
Speaker 3: totally kicking our ass on that like homegrown fucking shit
12:51
Speaker 3: that we haven't even thought of yet.
12:52
Speaker 1: Absolutely, like Thata is like capitalist. It's a it's a
12:56
Speaker 1: more advanced capitalist fascism than we have. Like you can't
12:58
Speaker 1: say shit on the internet, but you can absolutely buy
13:00
Speaker 1: and sell everything, including people.
13:02
Speaker 3: And there's a somewhat it seems it seems to be
13:04
Speaker 3: there's a somewhat coherent governing body that's relative, you know,
13:08
Speaker 3: that that can like make these decisions that only like
13:11
Speaker 3: fascism could do so quickly, you know, like if we
13:14
Speaker 3: if they have the change course, if they have to
13:16
Speaker 3: make big moves, they can make big moves. They don't
13:17
Speaker 3: have to go through a whole fucking convoluted system of
13:20
Speaker 3: arguing that amounts to nothing. But like you know, the
13:22
Speaker 3: political pandering and campaign contributions like we have in our country.
13:27
Speaker 1: China is good at like the what do you call it,
13:29
Speaker 1: the bag the BBZ, the bag ban clothes, the bagman clothes,
13:33
Speaker 1: the BBC. They do that to billionaires like we I've
13:37
Speaker 1: been trying to figure out how figure out the premise
13:40
Speaker 1: of how much money it takes to get away with
13:42
Speaker 1: what crime in America, Like when you get like twenty
13:45
Speaker 1: five million, you can beat your wife, Like.
13:47
Speaker 3: When you get like fifty you can beat and hit her.
13:50
Speaker 1: No, you cannot, like that was already covered in the
13:52
Speaker 1: twenty five but like once you get to like hundred million,
13:54
Speaker 1: you can like kill her and get away with it,
13:56
Speaker 1: because I think that's around what OJ had. And then
13:59
Speaker 1: like once you're billionaire, like you can literally commit like
14:02
Speaker 1: war crimes. And we're just like this or Betty at
14:06
Speaker 1: thirty four cases of fraud and your only punishment is
14:11
Speaker 1: we acknowledged that you did fraud.
14:13
Speaker 3: We haven't found a number of dollars high enough where
14:15
Speaker 3: you can openly be a rapper Nazi yet though unfortunately
14:21
Speaker 3: there's not a number howe that we we don't know
14:23
Speaker 3: what the number is yet. If you had maybe if
14:26
Speaker 3: you had two Billy.
14:27
Speaker 2: There was a big scandal out there where I believe
14:31
Speaker 2: it was the country of Malaysia. There they had this
14:33
Speaker 2: sovereign wealth fund that just got fucking rated by rich people, billionaires,
14:40
Speaker 2: and all of these really high level powerful people were involved,
14:44
Speaker 2: and the including like Leonardo DiCaprio for example, and I
14:49
Speaker 2: mentioned him only because out of all of these like
14:53
Speaker 2: powerful like members of the Chinese Communist Party, all of
14:57
Speaker 2: these huge global money launderers, the only person who got
15:01
Speaker 2: arrested was Praz from the Fujis for setting up a
15:08
Speaker 2: photo op with Obama for twelve million dollars. And meanwhile,
15:12
Speaker 2: the guy that was like financing it, when they went
15:15
Speaker 2: to arrest him, his fucking apartment exploded and he was gone.
15:20
Speaker 2: It was like wired to explode as it rated his place.
15:24
Speaker 2: And now Praz is going to be in prison for
15:26
Speaker 2: a lot. He's literally facing I think twenty three years
15:29
Speaker 2: in prison, and he is the only one who got arrested.
15:33
Speaker 2: But I could I imagine. I feel like Trump might
15:36
Speaker 2: pardon him because he.
15:39
Speaker 3: Really liked the Fuji's early stuff.
15:41
Speaker 2: He was, well, I mean for starters, is there any
15:44
Speaker 2: other kind of Fuji stuff? They only got two albums.
15:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, you saying praz from the Fujis was the most
15:53
Speaker 1: category answer that you could have possibly put to that setup.
15:57
Speaker 1: I totally forgot about that.
15:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's an article out there. It's fascinating. Like the
16:01
Speaker 2: story starts with him going to I believe it's a
16:05
Speaker 2: four Seasons in Manhattan, and they're like, all right, go
16:09
Speaker 2: up to the concierge and say the word banana, and
16:13
Speaker 2: he's like all right, And he did that, and the
16:16
Speaker 2: concierge gives him an envelope and is like, go outside
16:19
Speaker 2: and open this. The envelope says, walk around the block
16:22
Speaker 2: twice and come back in. He walks around the block twice,
16:25
Speaker 2: comes back in, gets like damn near black, bagged to
16:29
Speaker 2: a fucking elevator that he's never seen before, and is
16:32
Speaker 2: taken directly to a penthouse suite where he meets with
16:36
Speaker 2: a high ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party absolute
16:40
Speaker 2: fucking movie shit. It is so crazy. I think Idris
16:46
Speaker 2: Elba bought the rights to make that story into a movie,
16:50
Speaker 2: or is like signed on to play Proz one of
16:53
Speaker 2: the other one of the two sold Yeah.
16:57
Speaker 3: Is sitting there in prison like I could play Proze.
17:02
Speaker 2: I know this roll backwards, and I just hope you
17:05
Speaker 2: get another like a two K twenty five ghetto superstar
17:09
Speaker 2: out of it. If they turn that into a movie,
17:11
Speaker 2: let's remake that well.
17:13
Speaker 1: Just as a hip hop fan, I can assure you
17:15
Speaker 1: that albums recorded through the jail house phone never have
17:18
Speaker 1: the best quality.
17:19
Speaker 2: That's true.
17:21
Speaker 3: I mean if he gets out, but they have that
17:23
Speaker 3: crackly charm.
17:24
Speaker 1: You know, I have to X rated.
17:28
Speaker 2: So back to Extraordinary Rendition. The first documented case, according
17:33
Speaker 2: to author Stephen Gray, who wrote a book about the
17:37
Speaker 2: Extraordinary Rendition program called ghost Plane, happened on September twenty second,
17:41
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five. In that case, we captured a suspected
17:45
Speaker 2: terrorist named Abu Tilal al Kassimi in Croatia and immediately
17:50
Speaker 2: returned him to Egypt, his home country, which he'd fled,
17:53
Speaker 2: where he was eventually executed. Ironically enough, the US passed
17:59
Speaker 2: the War Crimes Act in August nineteen ninety six, which,
18:03
Speaker 2: among other things, forbids unlawful deportation or transfer. So bookending
18:09
Speaker 2: the creation of the Extraordinary Rendition Program. Is the US
18:13
Speaker 2: passing two different laws that were meant to prevent this
18:18
Speaker 2: exact kind of thing. That is American as fuck right there?
18:23
Speaker 1: When are we not what law? What law applies the
18:27
Speaker 1: same to every American? Like I think I think that's
18:30
Speaker 1: what's so crazy about the current administration is because like
18:33
Speaker 1: they're just seeing, like who's gonna stop us? Like even
18:36
Speaker 1: if it's wrong, and even if we're dead to rights,
18:38
Speaker 1: like who what jury? Like what jury would convict us?
18:42
Speaker 1: Who has the authority to punish us?
18:44
Speaker 3: There's a great uh steal and that actually I don't
18:46
Speaker 3: know if for sure, I don't know if I call
18:47
Speaker 3: it great. There's a steel There's a Steve Bannon quote
18:51
Speaker 3: I heard where he was like all we gotta do
18:54
Speaker 3: is for like the first like six months, like we
18:56
Speaker 3: just like don't fucking just keep going bang bang bang
18:59
Speaker 3: like over them, Like just do a bunch of crazy
19:02
Speaker 3: shit and just by sheer brute force, you'll get away
19:05
Speaker 3: with some of it, you know, or a lot of it.
19:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what scares me about them buddying up with
19:10
Speaker 2: the president of El Salvador because he did all of
19:12
Speaker 2: that shit. You're not supposed to be able to run
19:15
Speaker 2: for two terms in El Salvador. And he went to
19:19
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court and was like, but come on, let
19:21
Speaker 2: me and they were like, no, it's against the constitution.
19:25
Speaker 2: And he fucking fired the Supreme Court and replaced them
19:28
Speaker 2: with people who would let him. And when he fired him,
19:31
Speaker 2: they like filed a lawsuit and were like, you can't
19:33
Speaker 2: fire us, and he was like, what are you gonna do?
19:36
Speaker 2: Kick my ass fucking fire And that guy, he's forty three,
19:41
Speaker 2: I think like he's going to be president of El
19:43
Speaker 2: Salvador for like fifty fucking years.
19:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:46
Speaker 2: Crazy.
19:47
Speaker 1: He saw what Trump wanted to do and he was like,
19:50
Speaker 1: it was like when Frank Lucas met that Asian dude
19:53
Speaker 1: in American gangsters, like, I think we can do a
19:55
Speaker 1: lot of business to get Yeah, exactly, You'll say you'll
19:59
Speaker 1: have people you want to get rid of.
20:01
Speaker 2: I have a place, yeah that is terrifying, And he
20:07
Speaker 2: wants to build more of those places.
20:08
Speaker 3: Do you think they have travel brochures for all the
20:10
Speaker 3: black sites at like the CIA head office, like, this
20:13
Speaker 3: is Guntanamo, this is gi MOK. This is some stuff
20:17
Speaker 3: we're have in South Pacific. This is Salvador. That's new,
20:20
Speaker 3: this is.
20:20
Speaker 1: Sitting away for a long time. Check out our new
20:23
Speaker 1: black site vacation rental spots.
20:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if they do, I bet they would just
20:29
Speaker 2: send them to you. The CIA after a while just
20:31
Speaker 2: gets proud of the shift they did. They know they're
20:34
Speaker 2: not going to get brought to justice. There's that Wormwood
20:38
Speaker 2: documentary about the guy that they dosed with acid until
20:43
Speaker 2: he jumped out a window. Like the twist in that
20:46
Speaker 2: documentary is the CIA probably threw him out a window.
20:49
Speaker 2: And at one point in that documentary, the filmmaker is
20:53
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how he can get his hands
20:56
Speaker 2: on like some assassination manuals from back in the day
20:59
Speaker 2: to see if you know anything in there matches up
21:03
Speaker 2: what happened to this Frank Olsen guy, and he just
21:06
Speaker 2: calls the CIA up and they're like, fuck yeah, dude,
21:08
Speaker 2: we'll send them all. And they just send him a
21:11
Speaker 2: stack of assassination manuals from the fifties and what he's
21:14
Speaker 2: looking for is in there.
21:15
Speaker 3: They're like, we we finally get to brag about it
21:17
Speaker 3: to somebody, Yeah, what's he.
21:19
Speaker 2: Gonna do fucking get the CIA shut down?
21:22
Speaker 3: No, well, what are you gonna prove?
21:23
Speaker 2: Hope?
21:24
Speaker 3: We're really good at disassinating people.
21:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think they fucking care when shit like
21:30
Speaker 2: this comes out. They're like, for the CIA, we will
21:34
Speaker 2: fucking ruin your country.
21:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're probably like high fiving over a coup that
21:38
Speaker 3: we don't even know has happened yet. Like, you know,
21:41
Speaker 3: I bet those are some fire parties the CIA when
21:43
Speaker 3: they like when when they relate to when they topple
21:45
Speaker 3: the government, they're like, all right, let's let's get the
21:47
Speaker 3: pizzas in here. We're gonna be here for a while,
21:49
Speaker 3: but that's gonna be fun.
21:50
Speaker 2: I'm sure.
21:51
Speaker 1: I think they call those parties a snowfall for the
21:55
Speaker 1: pilot episode like this is it's a it's American as
22:01
Speaker 1: apple pie. We've been knowing that, we've got it so long.
22:03
Speaker 1: It's finally declassified, and they're like, there's some clerk in
22:08
Speaker 1: the CI files like filing Senate. It's like, oh, finally
22:11
Speaker 1: I could send these out, you know. Yeah, it's I
22:14
Speaker 1: can make so much room.
22:16
Speaker 2: So I don't know if anyone remembers nine to eleven.
22:19
Speaker 3: Not me. I'm young, I'm very young. I don't even
22:21
Speaker 3: I've barely even heard of it.
22:23
Speaker 2: After nine to eleven, Obviously, things changed a lot when
22:28
Speaker 2: it came to United States policy on fighting terrorism. Almost
22:32
Speaker 2: immediately after it happened, George W. Bush gave the CIA
22:35
Speaker 2: just carte blanche to do whatever they wanted in terms
22:39
Speaker 2: of detaining or killing terrorists. By October we had rushed
22:44
Speaker 2: the Patriot Act through. We were at war with Afghanistan
22:48
Speaker 2: already for some reason, and it didn't take long for
22:52
Speaker 2: news of extraordinary renditions to start seeing the light of
22:57
Speaker 2: day after nine to eleven. In Decem two thousand and one,
23:01
Speaker 2: two Egyptian men, Muhammad al Zeri and Ahmed a Giza,
23:06
Speaker 2: sought asylum in Sweden. Not only was their request denied,
23:11
Speaker 2: Sweden just handed them over to a ski mask wearing
23:15
Speaker 2: group of CIA operatives who flew them right back to Egypt.
23:20
Speaker 3: We do chocolate and watches, my friend, this is way
23:23
Speaker 3: above our pay grade.
23:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, you always think of Sweden like not being the
23:28
Speaker 2: kind of country that would do that, but especially that
23:31
Speaker 2: close to nine to eleven, I can't imagine there was
23:34
Speaker 2: any country that was gonna tempt fate by taking terrorists in.
23:39
Speaker 3: Well, especially if it was like if it was like
23:41
Speaker 3: however many Saudi guys it was. It actually did the
23:44
Speaker 3: fucking thing. And then we go into Afghanistan and Iraq,
23:46
Speaker 3: which still to this day makes no sense to anybody.
23:49
Speaker 3: How we really did that. Yeah, so yeah, Sweden's I'm
23:53
Speaker 3: sure Sweden is like, you know, we could yeah, fuck it,
23:54
Speaker 3: we could be next thing. They may want to chocolate
23:56
Speaker 3: and watch this.
23:57
Speaker 2: So a Swedish TV show ends up looking into this
24:02
Speaker 2: case where these two men are black bagged basically and
24:06
Speaker 2: flown out of the country, and in their investigation they
24:09
Speaker 2: found the tail number of the plane that they were
24:14
Speaker 2: flown away in, and that is the first piece of
24:16
Speaker 2: information investigative journalist Stephen Gray used to launch his investigation
24:22
Speaker 2: that eventually uncovered the scope of the extraordinary rendition operation. Basically,
24:28
Speaker 2: the CIA was teaming up with other countries to have
24:31
Speaker 2: those countries do the torturing and interrogating for them, like.
24:35
Speaker 3: A ghost kitchen for human suffering. It's exactly like that,
24:39
Speaker 3: serving your community more conveniently with ghost torture torture dash
24:46
Speaker 3: door dash.
24:48
Speaker 2: They arrested a man named Binyam Mohammad in Pakistan in
24:51
Speaker 2: two thousand and two. He was accused of planning an
24:54
Speaker 2: attack in the US and eventually arrested at the Karachi airport,
24:59
Speaker 2: and after his arrest, the CIA shipped him off to
25:02
Speaker 2: a prison in Morocco, where he says he was tortured
25:05
Speaker 2: for the next eighteen months by Moroccan intelligence agents. After that,
25:11
Speaker 2: he was taken to a CIA dark prison in Afghanistan
25:15
Speaker 2: that we later learned was terrifyingly named the Salt.
25:19
Speaker 3: Pit, birthplace of Bain, ancient foe of Batman.
25:23
Speaker 1: You really adapted to torture, I was borned It border.
25:32
Speaker 3: Ruined the podcast. Doing a twenty twelve Ash movie reference.
25:36
Speaker 3: For the rest of the show, Adam Todd Brown continued
25:41
Speaker 3: with you.
25:42
Speaker 1: That sounds like sech Connery.
25:44
Speaker 3: N Your yours is better than mine.
25:46
Speaker 2: I like your Sorry, so the Salt Pit sounds fucking terrifying.
25:52
Speaker 2: It was dark at all times, windows were painted, curtains,
25:57
Speaker 2: blinds always shut, so total darkness, loud music playing constantly.
26:03
Speaker 2: Prisoners were kept in darkness and isolation with just a
26:07
Speaker 2: bucket for human waste, no protection against winter weather, and
26:12
Speaker 2: detainees were reportedly hosed down with water while shackled, naked
26:17
Speaker 2: and placed in cold cells, subjected to sleep deprivation, often
26:21
Speaker 2: by way of having their hands shackled to bars above
26:25
Speaker 2: their heads. One CIA interrogator said his team found a
26:28
Speaker 2: detainee who'd been chained in a standing position for seventeen days. Wow,
26:35
Speaker 2: did someone just forget? Was there a competition with the
26:38
Speaker 2: other torture camp across the lake. Probably we're gonna get
26:43
Speaker 2: those guys in the massade not this summer.
26:46
Speaker 1: What information were they trying to extract or was it
26:49
Speaker 1: just for fun?
26:50
Speaker 3: Some of this had to just be for fun, right,
26:53
Speaker 3: I don't see how it couldn't be. I mean, it's
26:56
Speaker 3: like you, you'd have to be a statist by definition
26:58
Speaker 3: to do it.
26:59
Speaker 2: And you mentioned the war in Iraq earlier. This is
27:03
Speaker 2: how we got the bullshit information about Iraq training al
27:09
Speaker 2: Qaeda on weapons of mass destruction that was elicited through
27:14
Speaker 2: torture as part of the extraordinary rendition program. So this
27:18
Speaker 2: is why we invaded Iraq because we tortured someone into
27:22
Speaker 2: lying about it.
27:24
Speaker 3: It was just would say anything like fucking nineteen eighty four,
27:28
Speaker 3: do it to Julia style?
27:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I've watched so many different bullshit movies
27:33
Speaker 1: and like seeing so much bullshit news, I've never actually
27:37
Speaker 1: gotten a straight answer for why we went to Iraq.
27:40
Speaker 2: No one knows.
27:41
Speaker 1: No, It's like Afghanistan hit us for nine to eleven
27:44
Speaker 1: and then it's like, we've got attack Iraq.
27:46
Speaker 2: And I was like looking at the map, like that
27:49
Speaker 2: is my favorite question to hit someone with. When they're
27:52
Speaker 2: like I don't believe conspiracy theories, It's like none, No,
27:56
Speaker 2: I don't believe conspiracy theories. All right, do you believe
27:58
Speaker 2: Iraq had weapons mass destruction? If the answer is no,
28:03
Speaker 2: then there's your conspiracy theory. There's your first conspiracy theory.
28:07
Speaker 2: Enjoy it.
28:08
Speaker 1: Yep.
28:08
Speaker 2: So what is especially shocking about the Salt Pit and
28:14
Speaker 2: what ended up being a whole network of CIA secret
28:18
Speaker 2: prisons around the world is that everyone who was sent
28:23
Speaker 2: there things started improving for them once they went to
28:26
Speaker 2: Guantanamo Bay. So these prisons they were in before that
28:31
Speaker 2: were so fucking harsh and so brutal that they get
28:35
Speaker 2: to Guantanamo and they're like, all right, finally some humanity
28:39
Speaker 2: for a change.
28:40
Speaker 3: They're not blasting baby shark over here, torture your criminals
28:45
Speaker 3: in a tropical paradise.
28:48
Speaker 2: That is the thing argue with that weather, you know, if.
28:50
Speaker 3: You like being your coladas and shock and some guy's.
28:54
Speaker 1: Balls water boarded in pain.
29:00
Speaker 3: Like drawn blooded midnight.
29:03
Speaker 2: So in the case of ben Yam Mohammed, he was
29:07
Speaker 2: finally able to secure a lawyer after being transferred to Guantanamo,
29:12
Speaker 2: and that was after eighteen fucking months of being detained
29:16
Speaker 2: other places. So Guantanamo is where we sent people when
29:20
Speaker 2: we started being nice, which is a terrifying thought. That
29:24
Speaker 2: is terrifying.
29:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's the good behavior wing.
29:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, which wow. And then as we know, within Guantanamo
29:32
Speaker 2: there are good wings and bad wings and fucking wings
29:36
Speaker 2: named after Beatles songs. Multiple parts of Guantanamo named after
29:41
Speaker 2: Beatles songs. Which it's like, come on, boomers exactly, Like
29:46
Speaker 2: even then, you don't want to go like Radiohead or something.
29:49
Speaker 2: It's two thousand, you're young, you're in the military.
29:52
Speaker 3: You guys don't like rap music. You don't have that,
29:54
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, but it's it's just a little
29:56
Speaker 3: it's kind of cornball, you know. Yeah, I mean I
29:59
Speaker 3: love the Beatle, but like naming a torture wing after him, like,
30:02
Speaker 3: although I guess maybe it's the CIA's wave of kind
30:05
Speaker 3: of like appropriating the Charles Manson Steeves. Yeah, yeah, like
30:08
Speaker 3: we could be poetic and dark. Dude, I'm fucking all
30:11
Speaker 3: about helter skelter. I get it.
30:13
Speaker 2: Maybe they were just trying to like stick it to
30:15
Speaker 2: John Lennon. They're like, we won gild you twice.
30:19
Speaker 1: It's a low thought that Gipmo is like our version
30:23
Speaker 1: of the prison they sent Henry Hill to and Goodfellas.
30:27
Speaker 1: It's like the cooking they're enjoying, Like the sleeping good
30:33
Speaker 1: guys getting dropped in the background.
30:35
Speaker 3: Cutting really thin pieces of garlic with a razor blade.
30:38
Speaker 1: You only need one, like one on you. What's going on?
30:42
Speaker 2: So, another case of extraordinary rendition that made a lot
30:46
Speaker 2: of headlines involved the Canadian citizen named mahar Rah. He
30:51
Speaker 2: was detained at JFK Airport by US officials.
30:54
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I understand why they detained him initially,
30:57
Speaker 3: because that is one of the most made up sounding
30:59
Speaker 3: names I've ever heard in my life. Yeah, there are
31:02
Speaker 3: no hard continents in the names, Like if my name
31:05
Speaker 3: was a chewaboo.
31:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, a rhyming name is always gonna raise people's alarms
31:12
Speaker 2: for sure.
31:13
Speaker 3: I like Benya, I never heard the name Benyam before
31:15
Speaker 3: I was thinking about a guy named been there, done
31:17
Speaker 3: that first? Who has been there and his last name
31:19
Speaker 3: has done that?
31:23
Speaker 1: Yeah? Lahar, yeah he he sounds drunk to say.
31:30
Speaker 2: This guy with the wacky sound in Rhyman name was
31:33
Speaker 2: held for seven days before being shipped to a notorious
31:36
Speaker 2: prison in Syria called Palestine branch.
31:40
Speaker 3: Now I feel bad about doing this thing with his name.
31:42
Speaker 2: Goodness past branching out though that was after being interrogated
31:47
Speaker 2: about links to al Qaeda, ends up being shipped to
31:51
Speaker 2: this prison in Syria. Sues the US government after he
31:54
Speaker 2: was finally released after a year in that Syrian prison
31:58
Speaker 2: with no charges, but the case was thrown out on
32:01
Speaker 2: the grounds that letting it go forward would reveal US
32:04
Speaker 2: state secrets and that will not be the last time
32:07
Speaker 2: you hear that. But he did have his name cleared
32:11
Speaker 2: of any connection to terrorism by a Canadian investigation and
32:16
Speaker 2: former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is in every way
32:20
Speaker 2: the George W. Bush of Canada apologized and ordered Arrar
32:25
Speaker 2: to be paid nine point seven million dollars in compensation.
32:30
Speaker 2: That's a difference between Canada and the United States. I guess, oh,
32:34
Speaker 2: who's laughing at mahar Or Rare. Now, yeah right, it's
32:37
Speaker 2: got enough money to start a media empire, buy us
32:41
Speaker 2: out in this podcast.
32:43
Speaker 1: It's good to come from a country where you still
32:46
Speaker 1: some still appear to have rights. I guess America's just
32:49
Speaker 1: not even tried anymore.
32:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm interested on what the ETA is where Canada
32:56
Speaker 2: shuts down their borders to US. I feel like that's
32:59
Speaker 2: got to become and three years yeah probably, yeah, the
33:04
Speaker 2: Trump term.
33:05
Speaker 1: Definitely before they lived though, like before the like, assuming
33:09
Speaker 1: he seats power to someone else before that scheduled date
33:12
Speaker 1: before January twentieth, at the end of his term, I
33:15
Speaker 1: bet you that would happen. That's the under so.
33:18
Speaker 2: Arguably the most famous case of extraordinary rendition involved a
33:23
Speaker 2: man named Khaled al Masri. He was a German national
33:27
Speaker 2: of Lebanese origin. Took a brief vacation to Macedonia by bus,
33:32
Speaker 2: got stopped at the border crossing between Serbia and Macedonia,
33:36
Speaker 2: you know the one, and is accused there of being
33:40
Speaker 2: a terrorist. He was held for three weeks in a
33:42
Speaker 2: hotel room, where he says he was interrogated and beaten.
33:46
Speaker 2: After that, he was transferred to the salt pit where
33:49
Speaker 2: he spent four months in solitary confinement before then CIA
33:53
Speaker 2: director George Tennant ordered him to be released. CIA never
33:57
Speaker 2: said it publicly, but it was eventually confirmed that whoops,
34:02
Speaker 2: this was a case of mistaken identity and they grabbed
34:06
Speaker 2: the wrong guy. The ACLU later filed a lawsuit on
34:10
Speaker 2: his behalf against the CIA and George Tenant, but the
34:14
Speaker 2: case was thrown out on the grounds that letting it
34:16
Speaker 2: proceed would reveal state secrets and that guy did not
34:20
Speaker 2: get nine point seven million dollars from the king.
34:22
Speaker 3: No, it was a home. He can't even get a
34:24
Speaker 3: couple million bucks. Like, what the fuck?
34:27
Speaker 1: Ye clear?
34:28
Speaker 2: It was confirmed that they got the wrong guy, so
34:31
Speaker 2: there was like nothing to clear his name of.
34:34
Speaker 1: Basically, I love that special wording that absolves any said
34:40
Speaker 1: government of any said responsibility or accountability. It's just like
34:45
Speaker 1: it was proven that he was the wrong guy. It's
34:48
Speaker 1: never that we got the wrong guy. It was like
34:50
Speaker 1: it had there's evidence that like they may have obtained
34:53
Speaker 1: the wrong person, instead of like we fucked up and
34:56
Speaker 1: we should pay restitution.
34:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least they let him go.
34:59
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, imagine how much fucking therapy you need
35:02
Speaker 3: after a week in the salt pit. I mean, that's
35:05
Speaker 3: probably that's that's that's twenty grand worth of complaining to
35:07
Speaker 3: a guy on a couch at least.
35:09
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's whole entire books out there from Guantanamo
35:13
Speaker 2: Bay survivors that are just harrowing accounts of months and
35:17
Speaker 2: months and months of torture. Like that's what all of
35:20
Speaker 2: these episodes could be, is just like getting really into
35:23
Speaker 2: the weeds when it comes to the kind of torture
35:26
Speaker 2: shit they were doing.
35:27
Speaker 3: It is fucking brutal. Didn't they make them sit on
35:30
Speaker 3: a big ass pyramid.
35:31
Speaker 2: Sitting on pyramids? They made one guy lay on an
35:34
Speaker 2: electrified like that box spring like.
35:38
Speaker 3: Look for a bid.
35:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, just all kinds of shit. And so one of
35:44
Speaker 2: the really underrated aspects of American intelligence and the shit
35:50
Speaker 2: we get up to on the world stage. It's something
35:52
Speaker 2: people who just kind of recoil at the idea that
35:55
Speaker 2: the US ever does bad on the world stage should
35:59
Speaker 2: look into more is shell companies. The CIA is goddamn everywhere.
36:04
Speaker 3: These motherfuckers got more shells and Mario Kark goddamn and.
36:08
Speaker 2: A shell company. What that is is basically, the CIA
36:12
Speaker 2: starts a company has no employees. There's no real presence.
36:17
Speaker 2: It just sort of exists on paper, so they can
36:19
Speaker 2: do everything through that and make it look like it's
36:23
Speaker 2: not the CIA doing shit. And in the case of
36:27
Speaker 2: extraordinary rendition, we know of at least twelve shell companies
36:31
Speaker 2: that were involved aviation specialties Baired, Foreign Marketing, Pro Aviation Technologies,
36:36
Speaker 2: Devin Holding and Leasing, Keeler and Tape Management, Half Corporation.
36:41
Speaker 2: The list goes on and on and on. So you
36:42
Speaker 2: wouldn't like immediately see those names and be like, oh,
36:46
Speaker 2: that's the CIA.
36:47
Speaker 3: I mean Premier Executive Transport Services. The acronym is PETS.
36:51
Speaker 3: That's way too cute to be an evil shell company.
36:54
Speaker 2: It sure is. Yeah, that's adorable. But then Rapid Air
36:57
Speaker 2: Transport Rat that's see for sure, that is of their
37:00
Speaker 2: fucking rats, dude. And these were all businesses created to
37:05
Speaker 2: hide the true owner of the planes used in all
37:08
Speaker 2: of this, And there were a lot of planes and
37:11
Speaker 2: a lot of times they were like Gulf Stream jets
37:14
Speaker 2: and just like private planes. They weren't like throwing people
37:17
Speaker 2: on delta flights and shit like that.
37:20
Speaker 1: At least if you're getting black bagged, you're flying private.
37:22
Speaker 2: That is true. I wonder if you got like champagne
37:25
Speaker 2: and all that, Like, once you're up in the air,
37:27
Speaker 2: you might as well.
37:28
Speaker 1: Put a little hole in the bed.
37:30
Speaker 3: Come on, it'll be funny.
37:33
Speaker 1: The last is basically a cigarette with the blindfold.
37:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:37
Speaker 1: Also, real quick, do you have a stat on like
37:40
Speaker 1: what happens if they just say if they just like,
37:44
Speaker 1: what's the what's the turnover rate for torture? Like do
37:48
Speaker 1: we get the information it's useful to how many people rat? Like,
37:52
Speaker 1: what's the point is? What is the point of this
37:54
Speaker 1: besides sadism?
37:55
Speaker 2: I sometimes feel like the sadism is the point because
37:58
Speaker 2: you see all of these accounts, like the FBI and
38:02
Speaker 2: the CIA in a lot of ways during the War
38:06
Speaker 2: on Terror sort of hated each other and had kind
38:09
Speaker 2: of an adversarial relationship.
38:11
Speaker 3: Which is how you want your government to work. You
38:13
Speaker 3: want it to be at odds with itself so that
38:16
Speaker 3: they're not sharing information, so that there are kind of
38:19
Speaker 3: like two baseball players running towards the same ball and
38:21
Speaker 3: knocking heads. Yeah, that's what you want.
38:24
Speaker 2: Didn't contribute to nine to eleven at all, not even slightly.
38:27
Speaker 1: We've been running like clockwork for decades.
38:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty four years of weaponized incompetence.
38:33
Speaker 2: One of the things you see if you read up
38:36
Speaker 2: on this, especially with the War on Terror in the
38:39
Speaker 2: early days, there was this kind of jockeying for position
38:44
Speaker 2: between the FBI and the CIA, and the FBI's whole
38:49
Speaker 2: thing was, well, let's just interrogate them like normal, you know,
38:53
Speaker 2: just like you would interrogate someone who had rights, and will,
38:58
Speaker 2: you know, try and build rapport and get things done
39:01
Speaker 2: that way. And there's one detainee in particular, I remember
39:06
Speaker 2: reading about where the FBI interrogator was like I was
39:10
Speaker 2: making some progress and getting some information out of him
39:13
Speaker 2: by you know, talking and building report and one day
39:17
Speaker 2: the CIA just showed up and started waterboarding him and
39:21
Speaker 2: he never talked again. And there's the example I mentioned
39:25
Speaker 2: earlier where they got falty intelligence that now that I
39:29
Speaker 2: say it, that was probably the point to get the
39:32
Speaker 2: faulty intelligence required to allow us to invade Iraq, right,
39:38
Speaker 2: Probably what they wanted was to beat someone into submission
39:42
Speaker 2: enough that they'd be like, fucking yeah, who's Saddam Hussein?
39:47
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, that guy's super religious, fuck yeah, very very
39:51
Speaker 2: al Qaeda. Of course, that was probably the point, and
39:54
Speaker 2: we got it, and we were able to invade Iraq
39:56
Speaker 2: over it.
39:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, some guy probably like shocked some dude's balls until
39:59
Speaker 3: he said that there was like a bunch of the
40:02
Speaker 3: hairyer jets buried underneath his ex wife's house, you know,
40:05
Speaker 3: like just so they could blow it up. Like you
40:08
Speaker 3: could be your own personal wish list of like foreign invasions,
40:11
Speaker 3: like you could you could literally just torture people until
40:15
Speaker 3: they say anything.
40:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is kind of my point in my asking.
40:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that kind of had to be the point.
40:20
Speaker 2: I think they knew they weren't going to get justification
40:24
Speaker 2: for invading Iraq out of any of this, but if
40:28
Speaker 2: they do it this way, they could get it. Which, God,
40:30
Speaker 2: that's grim, that is grim to fucking think about.
40:33
Speaker 1: I just saw one of the names on here, presidential
40:35
Speaker 1: aviation is just the best kind of ironic.
40:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, really good boy.
40:42
Speaker 3: We need another Mahara Rara in here lighting things up.
40:46
Speaker 2: Well, here's a name you'll know. Those shell companies were
40:49
Speaker 2: one thing. There's an even longer list of real companies
40:53
Speaker 2: that helped out with extraordinary rendition as operating companies, and
40:58
Speaker 2: those are companies that maintain private aircraft on behalf of
41:02
Speaker 2: the owners in this case, the CIA much longer list
41:05
Speaker 2: that of course includes Blackwater at one point, but a
41:09
Speaker 2: way more interesting name near the bottom of the list
41:12
Speaker 2: Wells Fargo Bank.
41:14
Speaker 1: Also Wells Fargo anything right?
41:18
Speaker 2: Crazy that the same outfit that for years was just
41:21
Speaker 2: opening credit cards and checking accounts in people's names without
41:25
Speaker 2: telling them was also aokay with helping fly people out
41:30
Speaker 2: of the country so they could be tortured.
41:32
Speaker 1: Apparently, Wells Fargo is the bank for bank robbers. Literally, yeah,
41:38
Speaker 1: like they robbed. They're bank that robs itself and they
41:42
Speaker 1: use the money to fund torture planes. Like that sounds
41:45
Speaker 1: totally on brand when you really think about it, and
41:48
Speaker 1: I'm so, I'm so glad I still owe them money.
41:52
Speaker 3: Well, you know a bank that still uses the horse
41:54
Speaker 3: and buggy in the year twenty twenty five is their
41:57
Speaker 3: symbol has embraced dinity and efficiency and all respects.
42:03
Speaker 2: It's gonna be funny when Corey gets black bagged in
42:05
Speaker 2: extraordinary rendition to a Wells Fargo branch in Los Angeles.
42:10
Speaker 2: It's like, we heard what you said about the money.
42:14
Speaker 3: I was.
42:14
Speaker 1: I was joking with my buddy the other day, like
42:16
Speaker 1: where would they where would they deport me to like
42:20
Speaker 1: just because I'm in New York, I feel like it
42:21
Speaker 1: would be the dr but like other than that, like
42:23
Speaker 1: I like I'm from like I'm black, I'm from here,
42:28
Speaker 1: Like I'm your mistake.
42:29
Speaker 3: Come on, yeah, you brought me here, Okay, you deal
42:32
Speaker 3: with it.
42:33
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:33
Speaker 2: So there were also trip planners. The operators would sometimes
42:38
Speaker 2: subcontract logistical stuff like flight planning to other companies called
42:42
Speaker 2: trip planners. There are at least four trip planners tied
42:45
Speaker 2: to Extraordinary Rendition, but the most important of them being
42:48
Speaker 2: Jefpison Data Plan. For one thing, they are a subsidiary
42:52
Speaker 2: of Boeing, So there's another corporate name you know and
42:55
Speaker 2: don't trust, rearing its ugly head in the story.
42:58
Speaker 1: I trust Boeing. The chilly in the air definitely, Like
43:01
Speaker 1: any any plane involved with the death, I trust going
43:03
Speaker 1: to be involved.
43:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. That is so alarming when you take it into
43:09
Speaker 2: context with Trump wanting to roll back so many regulations
43:13
Speaker 2: and whatnot on businesses, Like that's not gonna get better
43:19
Speaker 2: once we roll all that shit back, Like it's just
43:22
Speaker 2: gonna be more people dying in plane crashes. But America
43:26
Speaker 2: can't keep everyone in the sky, you know, did you
43:29
Speaker 2: hear that quote from Trump, America can't give everyone trials,
43:36
Speaker 2: old fucking brand, dude.
43:37
Speaker 3: We're so cooked. That was you're right, man, that was
43:41
Speaker 3: the brand for a long time. Was like, at least
43:43
Speaker 3: you get a trial, might be fucked up, might be unfair,
43:45
Speaker 3: but you get a shot. Well, listen, here's the thing.
43:48
Speaker 2: After we're done with all of the torture Camp coverage,
43:51
Speaker 2: we're gonna start talking about the much less publicized but
43:56
Speaker 2: way more interesting r f K assassination which were also
44:01
Speaker 2: just recently released. Ooh, and there are so many parts
44:06
Speaker 2: in there where be it the public writing letters or
44:11
Speaker 2: other government officials sending memos, at so many points they're like,
44:16
Speaker 2: all right, but this guy's gonna get due process, right,
44:19
Speaker 2: we're gonna treat him fairly, I mean, just because he
44:21
Speaker 2: shot RFK. Like we're gonna make sure this guy gets
44:24
Speaker 2: to a trial and doesn't get shot in the stomach
44:26
Speaker 2: like Jack Ruby. Like people were legitimately concerned about their
44:31
Speaker 2: not being the appearance even that this guy was being
44:34
Speaker 2: treated badly. Can you imagine how that would go? Now,
44:38
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon would beat that guy to death on TV
44:41
Speaker 2: or something. That's how that trial would work.
44:44
Speaker 1: Crazy Steve Bannon would beat that guy to for about
44:47
Speaker 1: forty for about fourteen seconds before he like keeled over
44:51
Speaker 1: and threw up from exhaustion.
44:52
Speaker 3: Probably, yeah, yeah, the smoker's fatigue.
44:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
44:56
Speaker 3: I don't know if he smokes, but he's got big
44:58
Speaker 3: smokes energy.
44:59
Speaker 2: He's got big drinks energy for sure. He's got that
45:02
Speaker 2: rosy drinker.
45:03
Speaker 3: Face, irish face. Yep. Yeah.
45:06
Speaker 2: So the other thing about Jefferson Data Plan, they were
45:10
Speaker 2: the subject of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on
45:13
Speaker 2: behalf of five men who were subjected to extraordinary rendition,
45:16
Speaker 2: with one of them being the aforementioned ben Jam Mohammad.
45:20
Speaker 2: Suit claimed that Jefferson Data Plan provided support for at
45:23
Speaker 2: least seventy extraordinary rendition flights where prisoners were transported to
45:28
Speaker 2: other countries and subjected torture. Case was eventually thrown out
45:32
Speaker 2: on the grounds that letting it go forward would reveal
45:35
Speaker 2: state secrets. God, that's a convenient get out a jail
45:39
Speaker 2: free card for the government.
45:41
Speaker 3: Did you just keep that in your control, see when
45:43
Speaker 3: you're writing these notes, so you could just control the
45:45
Speaker 3: whenever you needed.
45:47
Speaker 2: That is so crazy that they can just do that,
45:49
Speaker 2: And in this case it was close it was like
45:52
Speaker 2: a six to five vote that got this case thrown out.
45:57
Speaker 2: So let's go through a few facts out extraordinary rendition
46:01
Speaker 2: before we get out of here. In all, at least
46:04
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty six individuals were reportedly subjected to
46:08
Speaker 2: extraordinary rendition or secretly detained by the CIA. At least
46:13
Speaker 2: fifty four governments participated in the program. CIA's Office of
46:17
Speaker 2: Inspector General has reportedly investigated a number of erroneous renditions.
46:23
Speaker 3: Another great name for a really funk cactacular band from
46:27
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies, erroneous Renditions, or at least an album, Yeah,
46:32
Speaker 3: like a Colonious Monk record or something. Yeah, that'd be great.
46:35
Speaker 2: In November two thousand and two, a man named Gul
46:39
Speaker 2: Rahman froze to death in the salt pit after a
46:43
Speaker 2: CIA case officer ordered him to be strip naked and
46:46
Speaker 2: chained to the floor in a cell overnight.
46:49
Speaker 3: I'm really glad I didn't make the fallout joke I
46:51
Speaker 3: was going to make about a guy named Ghoul.
46:54
Speaker 2: A woman named Fatima Bouschar was abused by the CIA
46:59
Speaker 2: and people believed to be Thai authorities at the Bangkok
47:03
Speaker 2: Airport after being accused of being a terrorist. Claimed she
47:07
Speaker 2: was chained to a wall and not fed for five days.
47:11
Speaker 2: Left out an important detail she was four and a
47:13
Speaker 2: half months pregnant at the time.
47:15
Speaker 1: Oh oh my god. What the fuck?
47:18
Speaker 2: And Italian court at one point convicted twenty two CIA
47:22
Speaker 2: agents and an Air Force pilot in absentia for their
47:26
Speaker 2: roles in the case of Abu Omar, who was snatched
47:29
Speaker 2: off the street in Italy, shipped to Egypt, and attained
47:33
Speaker 2: and tortured for fourteen months. But good news, everybody. President
47:37
Speaker 2: Obama issued an executive order in two thousand and nine
47:41
Speaker 2: that repudiated the use of torture by American intelligence agencies. Yay,
47:48
Speaker 2: but it was specifically written in a way that preserved
47:51
Speaker 2: the CIA's authority to use extraordinary rendition tactics.
47:56
Speaker 1: Nay.
47:58
Speaker 3: So he scolded them but did nothing.
48:01
Speaker 2: It was kind of like he was saying, like, don't
48:04
Speaker 2: do it in my face.
48:05
Speaker 3: So, yeah, like the fucking if you're gonna drink, be
48:09
Speaker 3: chill about it, like handle your shit.
48:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, we don't torture here, right, I've never seen it. Anyway,
48:16
Speaker 2: I better not see it. It does seem like that
48:20
Speaker 2: was kind of the thing. He was like, No, we
48:23
Speaker 2: don't do it, but just because I told him not
48:25
Speaker 2: to tell me anymore.
48:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.
48:27
Speaker 2: So, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee eventually completed a six
48:32
Speaker 2: thousand page report.
48:34
Speaker 3: It's called Barack Obama and the Winds of Winter.
48:38
Speaker 2: That report obviously had way more details about the CIA's
48:41
Speaker 2: Extraordinary rendition program, but it has never been fully released.
48:46
Speaker 2: In December twenty fourteen, a five hundred and twenty five
48:50
Speaker 2: page portion of the report was published, but the rest
48:54
Speaker 2: of the report remains classified.
48:57
Speaker 3: Dropped the fifty five hundred pages fuckers.
49:00
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's extraordinary rendition. Thankfully, that dark chapter in
49:05
Speaker 2: American history is over, and we're not snatching people up
49:07
Speaker 2: off the streets and flying them strange prisons and other
49:09
Speaker 2: lands anymore, right Trump.
49:14
Speaker 3: Well, we're actually we did start doing that again with
49:16
Speaker 3: all the money we saved on not having trials.
49:18
Speaker 1: Oh that's true.
49:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Now you can just get snatched
49:22
Speaker 2: up off the street and taken de El Salvador for
49:24
Speaker 2: vacation the fly you back. It's great, called a doze trip.
49:28
Speaker 3: I'm reminded by the immortal words of an early Internet celebrity,
49:32
Speaker 3: hide your kids, hide your wife. I mean, snatching everybody
49:37
Speaker 3: out here, so I.
49:40
Speaker 2: Think that is our episode. Connor, Corey, thank you both
49:45
Speaker 2: for doing the pod. What do we have to plug?
49:48
Speaker 2: Before we get out of here? I would like everyone
49:49
Speaker 2: to follow me on Blue Sky Adam Todd Brown Dot
49:52
Speaker 2: bsky dot social that's Todd with one D and that's
49:56
Speaker 2: all I got for right now. But there will be
49:57
Speaker 2: some new podcasts and things soon that I'll be announcing. Corey,
50:02
Speaker 2: what do you want to plug?
50:03
Speaker 1: I had to look up my blue Sky. Just look
50:06
Speaker 1: up Corey Showtime a Blue Sky, so that way I
50:09
Speaker 1: have an excuse to use yet another social media platform.
50:13
Speaker 1: I'm also going to be doing a bunch of shows
50:15
Speaker 1: in the in the Midwest on the Jokers and Jester
50:20
Speaker 1: Comedy Tour. Look that up. I can't tell you where
50:22
Speaker 1: I'm going to be. It's surprised being black bagged in
50:24
Speaker 1: the comedy and yeah, I'll be at the Houston Let's see,
50:29
Speaker 1: I'll be at the I'll be at the Sacramento Punchline
50:32
Speaker 1: May fifteenth through seventeenth, I'll be at the Houston Punchline
50:35
Speaker 1: June twelfth through the fourteenth, and I will be at
50:38
Speaker 1: the Philly Punchline on Junie Baye.
50:42
Speaker 2: Thanks Connor, what do you want to play?
50:43
Speaker 3: Check out my comedy special on YouTube, very Funny, and
50:48
Speaker 3: listen to the me Voys podcast The Cavalcadive Comedy fun.
50:51
Speaker 2: And I think that's it. Let's get the fuck out
50:53
Speaker 2: of here. Corey say goodbye, peace Outchell, good luck, Connor
50:57
Speaker 2: say goodbye
50:58
Speaker 3: Bag Van close, goodbye everybody, We love you.