It comes as no surprise that reporters have discovered new evidence that the US is using Ethiopia's secret torture prisons to interrogate African terrorist suspects. The AP reported this week that "CIA and FBI agents hunting for al-Qaeda militants in the Horn of Africa have been
interrogating terrorism suspects from nineteen countries held at secret prisons in Ethiopia, which is notorious for torture and abuse, according to an investigation by The Associated Press.

"Human rights groups, lawyers ,and several Western diplomats assert hundreds of prisoners, who include women and children, have been transferred secretly and illegally in recent months from Kenya and Somalia to Ethiopia, where they are kept without charge or access to lawyers and families. The detainees include at least one U.S. citizen, and some are from Canada, Sweden, and France, according to a list compiled by a Kenyan Muslim rights group and flight manifests obtained by AP."

The US has made a "deal with the devil" in dealing with Ethiopia. Not only is Ethiopia supplying the new mercenary force being used by the US to terrorize Somalia, but Ethiopia refuses to rein in the rampant corruption that prevails in Ethiopia--the world's capitol of identity theft. The US hired Ethiopia to drive out the popular Muslim Islamic Courts and their militias from Somalia, and now we have another civil war on our hands. The Islamic Courts fighters are retaking ground in Mogadishu and other Somali cities as the Ethiopians find little support for their US-backed intervention. Fighting is more fierce each day.

"Some were swept up by Ethiopian troops that drove a radical Islamist government out of neighboring Somalia late last year. Others have been deported from Kenya, where many Somalis have fled the continuing violence in their homeland. Ethiopia, which denies holding secret prisoners, is a country with a long history of human rights abuses."

The US always claims its cooperation with Ethiopia is justified because it is a "key U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaeda." How many times have we heard this tired refrain. The US even shields Russia and China as "allies in the War on Terror." In reality, the US is using Ethiopia to do its dirty work of creating more conflict and anti-American feeling within the Muslim world.

Moreover, what this amounts to is an "outsourced Guantanamo." "Some U.S. allies have expressed consternation at the transfers to the prisons. One Western diplomat in Nairobi, who agreed to speak to the AP only if not quoted to avoid angering U.S. officials, said he sees the United States as playing a guiding role in the operation. John Sifton, a Human Rights Watch
expert on counter-terrorism, went further. He said in an e-mail that the United States has acted as 'ringleader' in what he labeled a 'decentralized, outsourced Guantanamo.'" Yes. The US is the mastermind.