"Torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture."
-George Bush, Jan. 27
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has exposed Bush's best-kept secret: extraordinary rendition. The Justice Department, with Bush's blessing, outsources torture by exporting suspected terrorists to countries like Syria and Egypt, where torture is routinely and expertly executed.
Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer, was apprehended by American officials at John F. Kennedy Airport in September 2002 and was questioned about possible links to a suspected terrorist. Arar, without being formerly charged or informed of his rights, was fettered in handcuffs and leg irons, then transferred to an executive jet that flew from Washington, D.C., to Amman, Jordan.
Arar was then transported to Syria, where interrogators "whipped his hands repeatedly with two-inch-thick electrical cables and kept him in a windowless underground cell that he likened to a grave," Mayer reports. A year later, officials finally released him without pressing any charges.
Arar is suing the U.S. government for his "mistreatment" -- and that is an understatement. Yet, the Justice Department wants the lawsuit dismissed because, if brought to court, trying the case would risk the "intelligence, foreign policy and national security interests of the United States."
Astonishingly, a woman who spills hot coffee on her lap can reap $1 million, but a Canadian citizen who was illegally extradited to a foreign country by a U.S. "Special Removal Unit" and whipped with electrical cables is denied a trial?
Former Justice Department officials, some of the most ardent detractors, have justifiably questioned the efficacy or rendition. Bush had good intentions: to extract information quickly from individuals in order to avert another Sept. 11. However, evidence suggests that rendition -- and torture overall -- is fruitless, even detrimental.
That is, what would you do if interrogators hooked electrodes to your genitals or threatened you would be anally raped by specially trained dogs? You would do almost anything to escape such sadism, even fabricate stories -- as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi did when he fed interrogators a spurious Iraq-Al Qaeda connection (which Colin Powell erroneously offered as evidence to the United Nations in February 2003 to vindicate pre-emptive war against Iraq).
Dan Coleman, an ex-FBI agent, maintains that "forging relationships with detainees" (i.e., gaining their trust) emerges as the most effective way to interrogate suspects. His methodology has yielded major success, like obtaining the confessions and convictions of four Al Qaeda operatives responsible for the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 2001. As Mayer further recounts, the trial "created an invaluable public record about Al Qaeda."
Rendition fails to achieve any public criminal convictions or harvest legitimate information, and it often ensnares innocent people.
In October 2001, Hadj Boudella, a Muslim living in Bosnia, was incarcerated after U.S. officials informed the Bosnian government of his supposed terrorist links. Yet, after six months, the Bosnian Supreme Court ordered his release. As Boudella left prison a free man, covert agents handcuffed and hooded him, shoving him into a car.
Boudella is currently sitting in Guantanamo Bay, denied release because his military tribunal was "unable to locate" a copy of the Bosnian Supreme Court decision that exonerated him. His wife soberly wrote, "I can't believe these things can happen, that they can come and take your husband away, overnight and without reason."
I am awestruck, too.
Write to Russ at
rjwebster@bsu.edu
Visit
http://rjwebster.iweb.bsu.edu/index.htm
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
