2008 Woodie Awards
Rendition is new Guantanamo Bay
Charles Baran
Issue date: 3/22/05 Section: Forum
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After September 11th, our country has been fighting for freedom, both in America and abroad. We?ve toppled the Taliban, whose country had training grounds for al Qaeda, and who had privately offered to give us Osama Bin Laden, a horrible brutalizer of human rights. On at least two occasions, according to ABC news and the London Daily Telegraph.
We?ve brought elections to Iraq, a country that, although they posed no immediate threat to us, was nefarious for its abuses of human rights, routinely abducting normal citizens without evidence of wrongdoing, holding them for indefinite periods and torturing them both physically and mentally through prolonged isolation, branding and sexual assault. According to George Tenet and the CIA in an Oct. 2002 report, Iraq would have become a threat if it would be able to acquire fissionable materials.
So, despite a few mistakes, we could reasonably conclude that we?ve done a great deal of good in the world. After all, the promotion of liberty, freedom and democracy, as well as the spread of our American values and respect for human life can only be a good thing, right?
Obviously, with a setup like that, one would expect a punch line, and there?s a big one. The thing is, most people haven?t heard of it. It?s called Extraordinary Rendition, and it?s an extension of a 1990sera program called Rendition.
According to the online encyclopedia Wikkipedia and the April 24, 2004 report to the 9/11 commission, the program was originally meant as an emergency means of handling certain notorious international criminals and terrorists who couldn?t be put into the U.S. court system for various reasons. Each use of Rendition had to be directly approved by the director of the CIA, and it was used very infrequently. They tried to use it against Osama Bin Laden in 1996, but he evaded capture.
But what exactly is Rendition, you ask? Here?s the punch line you?ve been waiting for: Rendition is a program where we sent terrorists to Egypt to be tortured by their security forces since our legal system frowns on such things. The concept is similar to the idea of shipping them off to Guantanamo Bay. Egypt, rather like Saddam Hussein, is known to use various interrogation methods such as sustained electric shock to the genitals, exposure to acid, fire, or cold water among others, all of which are horrific enough that you can?t reasonably print them in public media.
We?ve brought elections to Iraq, a country that, although they posed no immediate threat to us, was nefarious for its abuses of human rights, routinely abducting normal citizens without evidence of wrongdoing, holding them for indefinite periods and torturing them both physically and mentally through prolonged isolation, branding and sexual assault. According to George Tenet and the CIA in an Oct. 2002 report, Iraq would have become a threat if it would be able to acquire fissionable materials.
So, despite a few mistakes, we could reasonably conclude that we?ve done a great deal of good in the world. After all, the promotion of liberty, freedom and democracy, as well as the spread of our American values and respect for human life can only be a good thing, right?
Obviously, with a setup like that, one would expect a punch line, and there?s a big one. The thing is, most people haven?t heard of it. It?s called Extraordinary Rendition, and it?s an extension of a 1990sera program called Rendition.
According to the online encyclopedia Wikkipedia and the April 24, 2004 report to the 9/11 commission, the program was originally meant as an emergency means of handling certain notorious international criminals and terrorists who couldn?t be put into the U.S. court system for various reasons. Each use of Rendition had to be directly approved by the director of the CIA, and it was used very infrequently. They tried to use it against Osama Bin Laden in 1996, but he evaded capture.
But what exactly is Rendition, you ask? Here?s the punch line you?ve been waiting for: Rendition is a program where we sent terrorists to Egypt to be tortured by their security forces since our legal system frowns on such things. The concept is similar to the idea of shipping them off to Guantanamo Bay. Egypt, rather like Saddam Hussein, is known to use various interrogation methods such as sustained electric shock to the genitals, exposure to acid, fire, or cold water among others, all of which are horrific enough that you can?t reasonably print them in public media.
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