How far should a government go in order to safeguard its citizens?
Two stories have emerged concurrently that cast the question into new light. While most citizens tend to be happy with the theoretical notion of covert defence, security agencies usually try to keep the visceral practicalities of that defence obscured, as support for their methods often vanishes like spit on a hot rock when exposed to the full scrutiny of public opinion.
Yesterday, I discussed the story of Shahram Amiri the Iranian who was kidnapped by / defected to the CIA in 2009. To my chagrin, the post was overtaken by events almost as soon as it was posted; Amiri was flown back to Iran and has started to talk about the events that led to his disappearance:
Speaking to Al Jazeera during a transit stop in Qatar, Shahram Amiri said he was interrogated for 14 months by US agents who refused to allow him contact with his family, but that he “never cracked” and had not revealed any secret information about Iran’s nuclear programme.
Washington has denied the claims, saying Amiri had lived freely in the US, had himself reached out to US officials, and was free to come and go.
[..]
“They gave me a shot which made me unconscious and then transferred me to the US onboard a military plane,” Amiri said in Tehran, before making allegations that he was tortured during interrogations in the US.
“Within the first two months, I was subjected to fierce mental and psychological torture by agents and interrogators from the US Central Intelligence Agency.”
Speaking to Al Jazeera during his journey back to Iran, Amiri said he had been forced by US authorities to say in a video released on the internet that he was enjoying life in the state of Arizona.
Although it seems unlikely that the US will receive the censure it deserves for this, it is still unquestionably a scandal of severe proportions. The US government kidnapped a man on a religious pilgrimage, held him against his will for over a year and subjected him to torture and coercion. The man in question was not a military target, nor even a political one. Both the US and Iran deny that he was involved in the country’s nuclear programme, so whatever paltry justification the CIA may have had has become noticeably thinner.
Meanwhile, this morning the Guardian is reporting that the UK has also been complicit in kidnapping and torture, this time of its own citizens. The Guardian has helpfully highlighted many of the key passages, but the entire document is worth reading.
A few thoughts emerge from this. Firstly, dragging these revelations into the light of day is hard and the organisations that have done so deserve to be praised. Iran will probably not receive any credit for this in the wider world, but by doggedly and tenaciously pursuing the fate of its citizen it exposed a cruel double-standard at the heart of America’s security apparatus. Here in the UK, civil liberties organisations such as Liberty and, in particular, Reprieve deserve a tremendous amount of credit for their lobbying and legal action in exposing the worst excesses of the government in the early days of the Global War on Terror. These organisations should be celebrated for their achievements and offered every support.
Secondly, citizens should not be content to give abstract permissions to government in any situation, let alone one as broad-ranging as security and defense. We have an obligation to understand exactly what is being done in our name, and if we don’t ensure that the government is acting in accordance with our wishes then we are complicit in whatever acts they undertake.
Third, it is distressing that this is so unsurprising.
Aosher,
There are 2 possibilities here. One is that Amiri was kidnapped by the CIA as you describe.
The other is that Amiri decided to return to Iran because the Iranian government was threatening his family, and that to safeguard his family he had to speak out the way he did, but it was all a fabrication to suit the Iranians.
So the question is why do you believe the former and not the latter? If the US was treating this guy in the way you describe there is no way they would allow him the freedom to return to Iran and give their government the propaganda victory they are now enjoying. If the US authorities had the power to do all this, they would have kept him in prison instead.
So what I am saying is that your version of events doesn’t make any sense.
Hi Geoffrey,
Thanks for the comment.
It’s fairly natural that both Iran and the US are going to draw some reflexive support over this. Neither has a particularly happy record to draw on; Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib all demonstrated that the US intelligence agencies have a flagrant lack of respect for the citizens of other countries, while Iran’s actions over the last thirty years – including their response to the post-electoral discontent last year – show that Iran is unafraid to abuse its own populace. Worst-case scenarios for both parties have to be recognised as being plausible.
However, there are several factors that suggest to me that the US is more likely to be culpable than Iran. Firstly, there are a few things we know for a fact. Amiri was a guest of the CIA; that much is clear. He was dropped off at the Iranian section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington by a CIA car (as reported by Al Jazeera), and the Washington Post today states that the video of him that popped up on the internet last month was produced by a CIA film unit (more info here). One way or another, the CIA allowed him to return to Iran. How you chose to interpret that is another question, but I’ll get to that.
Furthermore, we know that Amiri had no contact with his wife while he was in America. She started to campaign for his freedom a long way before the Iranian government caught on.
We know that Iran claims to have proof that the CIA abducted Amiri, and have shown it to the Swiss consulate in Tehran. Coincidentally, Amiri’s release occurred within days of Tehran announcing that they had this proof.
So those are the things we know. On top of that we have interpretation and supposition. The timing of Iran’s declaration of proof and the CIA’s abrupt release of Amiri suggests that the CIA didn’t want that proof in the public domain; more likely than not, because it would compromise ongoing intelligence efforts. Further, while it’s fairly clear that Amiri was neither “imprisoned” (in the dramatic, shackles-and-legirons sense) nor extensively tortured (although some measure of harsh interrogation seems likely), the fact that he has had no contact with his family in Iran does strongly suggest that his silence was coerced. Finally, the fact that he has been a guest of the CIA at all strongly suggests that they are not giving him up willingly.
Finally, you suggest that it’s possible that Iran was using Amiri’s family as a way of extorting compliance from him. Sadly, this is unlikely. Defectors tend not to return to Iran because the government in Tehran has a miserable record when it comes to keeping its promises. As a defector returning to Iran, he would be delivering his family and himself to a far worse fate than if he simply stayed away. He would know that, his family would know it, and the CIA would certainly know it.
So, yes; there’s a bit of thumb-sucking and a very liberal application of occam’s razor to my reasoning. I do feel that the evidence points towards CIA culpability more than Iranian, however.