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| |  | Children | Home » » » Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program | | | | | | | Description: | | For the first time, Stephen Grey tells the inside story of international prisons sanctioned by the U.S. Government and used by the CIA to hold and torture people suspected of terrorism. Using contacts deep inside the U.S. Government, Grey reveals how deeply the Bush administration is involved in the program and questions the truth of statements made by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. He also shines a spotlight on the heads of European nations who turned a blind eye to the program when it showed up in their back yards. Grey takes an unflinching look at a horrendous practice that scorns Geneva Convention rules and is powered by corruption at the highest levels of governments worldwide. Through his unprecedented access to CIA flight records and dozens of sources at the senior levels of the current administration, Grey has produced a story of flight plans, extreme torture, and the clash of religions and governmental posturing that goes on today. Ghost Plane tells the stories of individuals abducted at airports around the world and transported for interrogation and torture on a fleet of leased planes manned by CIA operatives. Grey paints a disburing ethical picture of the war on terror and lays the responsibility for abduction and torutre at the doorstep of Washington, D.C.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Stephen Grey | | Hardcover:
| 384 pages | | Publisher:
| St. Martin's Press | | Publication Date:
| October 17, 2006 | | Package Length:
| 9.3 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.1 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.4 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.5 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 11 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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Nothing to be Proud Of; But Required ReadingJan 17, 2009
An important book in the quest to better understand the war on terror and the actions taken by the United States and others. In this writing, the actions taken are not consistent with civil and democratic society. While readers may have alternative views and/or sentiments as they read this book, most will find it worth the read. It is a powerful and appropriate indictment of America's "extraordinary rendition" program.
The book recounts the secret prison and torture program sponsored (at least in this argument) by the CIA. Books like Grey's are required reading in any democratic society. The informed citizen will assure that we remain a democracy and, in this case, that we clean up our mess.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
I have just one problem with this bookJan 31, 2008
I have just finished reading Ghost Plane -- and I have just one problem with it's contents. Grey makes numerous references to the capture, detention, and confessions of the alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed; and yet Grey fails to mention Khalid's reported death on September 16th 2002 in Pakistan at the hands of Pakistani security forces, months before he was officially captured by the FBI and Pakistani joint operation in March 2003.
It would seem most unfortunate to be killed and then resurrected only to have the misfortune to be captured. It would seem possible, that the FBI and CIA needed to have a high value prisoner -- who would sing like a canary after a few session on the water-board, and implicate many other detained suspects in complicity in his crimes. We will never know, but the chances are that whomever is being duffed up in the name of American liberty down in Cuba is nothing more than a stooge, who will say anything to spot the beatings and who also (quite conveniently) confessed to killing Daniel Pearle, allowing the actual murder and Pakistani ISI agent - Omar Saeed - to be freed soon enough. It is also worth mentioning, that Omar Saeed is the man who wired Mohammed Atta the $100k at the bequest of the head of Pakistani's ISI, not Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as many believe.
More on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed;
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayksmcapture
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
 The best account of a counter-productive and immoral policyApr 26, 2007
Stephen Grey, a former editor of the Sunday Times’ Insight investigation team, broke many of the news stories about the CIA’s programme of secret renditions. In this extremely useful book, he gives us the fullest account yet of this programme. He exposes the CIA’s covert aircraft fleet, Aero Contractors, and also describes how CIA planes operated illegally in Venezuela to support the attempted coup against President Chavez in 2002.
The CIA runs a system of clandestine prisons holding thousands of kidnapped prisoners, taken from Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Germany, Italy, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Zambia, Gambia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia to be tortured in Afghanistan, Jordan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Syria, Egypt and Morocco. Grey writes, “the foreign torture cells of Cairo and Damascus and the US jails at Guantanamo and Bagram were part of one interconnected gulag in which prisoners were swapped both between countries but also between the CIA and the US military.”
Grey asked Edward Walker, US Ambassador to Egypt, “When Condoleezza Rice and the president now stand in front of people and say we don’t send people to countries where they torture, are they telling the truth?” Walker replied, “No, they’re not telling the truth.” A CIA official said, “nothing was done without approval from the White House – from Condoleezza Rice herself.”
The Bush and Blair governments talk democracy but support dictatorship. For example, in 2002, the State Department said Uzbekistan ‘routinely’ tortured prisoners, then gave it an extra $180 million aid. Grey points out that the Blair government connived in the renditions and in the use of torture, by using the ‘information’ gained from torturing prisoners. Nor has the Blair government defended British citizens from CIA rendition.
Grey also notes that the illegal war on Iraq is a counter-productive diversion from the struggle against Al-Qaeda. As Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee said in April 2005, “We judge that the conflict in Iraq has exacerbated the threat from international terrorism and will continue to have an impact in the long term. It has reinforced the determination of terrorists who were already committed to attacking the West and motivated others who were not.” The JIC said that the war ‘provided an additional motivation for attacks’ on Britain and was ‘increasing Al Qaeda’s potential’.
Similarly, the US government’s appalling treatment of prisoners has worsened the threat from Al-Qaeda. Grey concludes, “America’s programme of extraordinary rendition and its harsh treatment of prisoners have not, when considered strategically, been successful weapons against terrorism.”
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Extraordinary Prose on "Extraordinary Rendition"Apr 19, 2007
Grey's book is thoroughly researched and he documents very well the careless "trail" that the CIA left behind.
The first half of the book can be a bit difficult to follow at times, as they are "case-studies" on individual prisoners. I found it a bit challenging to keep all the key players in context.
However, with that said, Grey includes all the detail to set the stage for proving that these renditions had taken place, and that the Executive Branch had knowingly "out-sourced" enemy combatants to organizations that carried-out the tortures, on behalf of the US.
Three of the key points that I took away from this book were: a sense of disappointment and disgust with the US approach. Sen. John McCain, who himself was tortured as a POW (Read his book "Faith of Our Fathers"), vehemently opposes torture. He continues to state that the biggest thing that kept him and his fellow POWs steadfast, was that they stalwartly believed that their government was "above" this type of treatment, and humanity and justice by the US makes them different than their captors.
The second point is that torture is counter-productive to achieving peace and diplomacy. Grey does a nice job of laying-out how these actions only serve to fuel and further incite the animosity that hostile organizations feel for the US.
The final point, that defense cuts and disregard for the value of human intelligence, by past presidential administrations, really fostered the environment for the Bush aministration to play "catch-up"...although it doesn't exonerate the Administration from the actions.
I'll leave the rest to you to uncover how Bush, Condi Rice, the CIA, looked the other way as this all went down...
1 of 48 found the following review helpful:
 The real torture is reading this bookMar 07, 2007
If the US wants to torture prisoners they should force them to read this poorly written book. Very unimpressive writing that makes the book hard to follow.
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