PBS Frontline: Extraordinary Rendition
By Bill W. Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 6:15pm
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On Tuesday PBS Frontline: "Extraordinary Rendition" explored Bush's use of the CIA to kidnap persons from sovereign nations and fly them to secret locations at CIA Black Sites or to prisons in other countries to be tortured and held indefinitely in secret without charges. Although the practice of "extraordinary rendition" did not originate under Bush, after Sept 11 "the program expanded beyond recognition—becoming, according to a former C.I.A. official, "an abomination." What began as a program aimed at a small, discrete set of suspects—people against whom there were outstanding foreign arrest warrants—came to include a wide and ill-defined population that the Administration terms "illegal enemy combatants."
Ill defined doesn't really begin to cover it. In the two cases looked at in this clip, both men had actually previously been informants helping in the fight against terrorism prior to 9-11. Abu Omar had once been the "CIA's most productive source of information" on a group of Islamic fundamentalists living in Albania, and Bisher al-Rawi had been a source for the MI5, helping keep tabs on Muslim extremists in the UK. Evidence in Italy's case against 26 CIA operatives charged in Abu Omar's kidnapping shows "that the abduction was a bold attempt to turn him back into the informer he once was," not for his suspected ties to terrorism, and Al-Rawi believes he too was held "just on the hope he'd offer new intelligence."
Both men have since been released without ever having been charged with anything, as were most of the hundreds of so-called "enemy combatants" held without due process by the Bush administration that have been released thus far. And if just wanting someone to become a potential informant being enough to get someone kidnapped and tortured wasn't heinous enough for you, the documentary (which you can watch online) also tells the story of the US's involvement in the (outsourced?) rendition and detention of the "wife and three children of a senior al-Qaeda suspect" in Somalia. Was Mukasey ever asked his opinion about the legality of any of that?
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Pinochetification of the government on the march
Freedom first.
Bush Sr, former CIA head must be beaming with pride now that his policies are in full stride.
#1. Hey, if you give us a terrorist, we'll give you a million dollars.
#2. My wife's no good husband stole two goats from me. I'm sure he's a terrorist.
#3. Great! Here's your million dollars!
Truly, this is filthy.
Not only is the "ordinary" it's..."EXTRA-ordinary"!
welcome to new el salvador!
Reagan and Bush Sr used to do this kind of covert crap all the time.
Only during those twelve years there was no internet and everyone read the paper and watched the evening news so it was easy to hide it. Piece of Cake! God Bless America!
Now days the Cons don't even care if people know they are doing it.
The federal government is way way to powerful.
Americans talk about this kind of thing like it is happening somewhere else, to someone else. Consider Jose Padilla, an American citizen. Consider Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was what?, ...arrested? detained? processed? - how about kidnapped?! Yeah, kidnapped in New York City, from whence he was spirited away to Syria, kept in an underground cell barely bigger than a coffin for nearly a year, and beaten daily.
Don't think it couldn't happen to you.
Reich-wingers.....are your proud of yourselves?
frank @ 9:
Corporations are way way to powerful. Pay to play baby. Yes SIR Mr. Corporation. How may I help you today!
Us little people are disposable fodder.
L.A. Confidential @ 12:
Yes, corporations did all of this somehow, not the federal government.
frank @ 13:
They did it together. It's called 'Fascism.'
The PBS show was very enlightening and showed proof of how the White House has lied to Americans and the United Nations. Now we will pay for those crimes that Bush/Cheney have done. When these victims bring charges they file with the United Nations, Americans can look forward to paying the bill. Yes Bush/Cheney will be out of office but Daddy Bush will say the US should pay and Dick Cheney will have his money hidden and say he was doing the crime while VP and the money should come from the US not him. Yes we know the truth but much more will come out as countries turn on the US. When Bush/Cheney stop paying the countries to keep their mouths shut then you'll hear the full story and all the people will file complaints. Oh don't worry the Republicans will say Bill Clinton did it.
miss_kitty @ 14:
They did it together. It's called 'Fascism.'
It's called a corrupt government with too much power. Corporations wouldn't be able to do this if the government didn't have the authority to in the first place.
frank @ 16:
Don't be obtuse frank, it's called fascism and it is this way BECAUSE the corporation have taken control of the political machine.
That is why it is called fascism.
I think what we have here is a failure to communicate. What this stunning statement reveals is that doing it a little bit was considered NOT an 'abomination.' Wrong, nameless, faceless CIA spook. Any step toward this kind of practice is an 'abomination,' and has never been done in the 'best interests' of this country-I mean the people, not the fascists in charge. Anyone who did this, was party to this or presided over it should be charged with a crime, arrested and tried in a court of law.
Frightening, isn't it?! And blows that image of being good guys too, doesn't it?? American foreign policy is shit and abuse, and has been so for a very long time... as pointed out earlier re: Reagan and Bush Sr. doing so in their rule of the country.
And as already pointed out several times here, the government has too much power. Time to strip them of those overreaching abilities they've granted themselves.
"Torture in the name of the free...more misery for you and me...they ship 'em out so we can't see...the way they bring 'em to their knees..."
--Wackiavelli
HILARIOUS!!!
http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/78441/detail/
miss_kitty @ 18:
I think what we have here is a failure to communicate. What this stunning statement reveals is that doing it a little bit was considered NOT an 'abomination.' Wrong, nameless, faceless CIA spook. Any step toward this kind of practice is an 'abomination,' and has never been done in the 'best interests' of this country-I mean the people, not the fascists in charge. Anyone who did this, was party to this or presided over it should be charged with a crime, arrested and tried in a court of law.
You rock, Miss Kitty... and I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of this. Anyone who participated in this has perpetrated a crime and deserves the full extent of the law to see they're tried and charged.
LA Confidential@12 said: Us little people are disposable fodder.
I was somewhat amused to find that the anagram of Donald Rumsfeld is 'slumland fodder'...
miss_kitty @ 18:
I think what we have here is a failure to communicate. What this stunning statement reveals is that doing it a little bit was considered NOT an 'abomination.' Wrong, nameless, faceless CIA spook. Any step toward this kind of practice is an 'abomination,' and has never been done in the 'best interests' of this country-I mean the people, not the fascists in charge. Anyone who did this, was party to this or presided over it should be charged with a crime, arrested and tried in a court of law.
No, doing it to persons already wanted by law "people against whom there were outstanding foreign arrest warrants" (like the guys wanted for bombing the embassies in Africa) is one thing. Doing it to people arbitrarily declared enemy combatants (like informants and family members like wives and children) is another thing altogether.
Lynda from Australia @ 23:
LOL perfect
we need to turn bush and cheney over to germany for Extraordinary Rendition. it's time they pay for ALL their crimes against the USA AND HUMANITY....
L.A. Confidential @ 25:
Glad to see someone besides me are looking beyond the doors of perception for the deeper meaning of things and events.
And this post followed the post describing how Congress will NOT impeach the people responsible for these, and so many other, gross obscenities committed under the guise of "protecting" us.
Disgusting.
roooth @ 28:
Their on the Company "Dole"
Before 9-11, the few renditions ordered under Clinton were against persons already wanted by law for terrorist acts (like involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case and/or the Embassies in Africa) who had fled to sanctuary countries. there were only a few who were snatched up and taken to be tried. One of them, Talaat Fouad Qassem, one of Egypt’s most wanted terrorists for numerous crimes including the assassination of Sadat, was taken to Egypt and turned over where he had already been given a death sentence in absentia. He disappeared and was believed to have been killed. It's insinuated but not conclusive that Clinton cooled his heels on the program at least somewhat after that, at least as far as sending renditioned persons to foreign countries like Egypt where they faced charges. There has been no allegations that the US participated in torture as part of the rendition program under Clinton, and no one was picked up and held without charges. That's what Bush has done, and that is what is heinous about today's extraordinary rendition program.
Outsourcing Torture
The secret history of America’s “extraordinary rendition” program.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6
It's a good article.
these are crimes against humanity. Everybody involved, from George W. Bush to the thugs doing the torturing need to be punished as war criminals.
justabill @ 24:
No, doing it to persons already wanted by law "people against whom there were outstanding foreign arrest warrants" (like the guys wanted for bombing the embassies in Africa) is one thing. Doing it to people arbitrarily declared enemy combatants (like informants and family members like wives and children) is another thing altogether.
I respectfully disagree.
"...use of the CIA to kidnap persons from sovereign nations and fly them to secret locations at CIA Black Sites or to prisons in other countries to be tortured and held indefinitely in secret without charges."
It's extralegal and we have no business in partaking in barbaric criminal activities.
Legal extradition? Hell yeah. Do the paperwork and send them home to trial, openly.
And foreign arrest warrants don't=guilty. Even if they did, where on earth is 'secret torture' part of a prison sentence? I mean openly. ("Sentence is 10 years in prison and some secret torture")
We don't get to take guys with arrest warrants, say for serial killing, off the street and just 'disappear' them. Then torture them for a confession, or because they piss us off. If that did happen here in the usual court system and was found out, all sorts of legal remedies would start taking place-for the benefit of the alleged criminal-or suspect, if you will.
Usually, a breach of civil and human rights would result in a dismissal of charges, criminal charges against the enforcement agency and officers being laid, and a big fat settlement check for our now free hypothetical alleged serial killer.
We can't draw a line and say it's ok for any reason. It's simply not respectful of every person's human rights.
It's the thin end of the wedge, my friend. If we do it to A, then why not B? Torture of anyone, for any reason, is recognised as a felony, internationally.
Lynda from Australia @ 5:
Truly, this is american.
Paul @ 31:
Those that elected him, those who pay the taxes to support and those who sit by and do nothing .......
What happens if an American citizen sends $1 to Ahmadinijad?
In fact under Clinton :
I'll agree it was still ugly, and its a world we'll never know with certainty what all went on, and it's not like Clinton was an angel because he wasn't, but the idea that someone that was not only a wanted terrorist but who had actually already been convicted and was on the loose being grabbed from a country like Somalia that would not apprehend them isn't even close to the same thing Bush has been doing. I'd hope that any President would, with the appropriate safeguards against grabbing innocent people, with due process and no torture, would do the same to get the really bad guys off the street wherever they are. If they are that bad, they can get a lawyer and be tried and convicted in court, and if not, we have no business touching them.
miss_kitty @ 32:
Um, Clinton never did that, That was not part of the Extraordinary Rendition program under Clinton. No one was held indefinitely without charges (they were all already found guilty) and none were tortured. There were no CIA black sites. All that happened under Bush.
"In the two cases looked at in this clip, both men had actually previously been informants helping in the fight against terrorism prior
to 9-11."
Kind of like Saddam Hussein...
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
What turns my stomach about all this is the confluence of the torture with the utter lack of due process. But it's all part of the War on Terror (tm) smoke and mirrors. Torture is wrong under any circumstance, but even so, in the case of McCain, it was quite apparent when he was captured that he was a member of the US military. It didn't make his treatment any more justified, but there was no doubt who he was working for, and in what capacity. So for the Neo-Kooks to feel it's OK to torture someone who is NOT in a uniform, is NOT using military equipment, and at the very same time afford him absolutely NO due process is doubly bad, if that's even possible regarding torture.
I've heard Neo-Kooks talk about the "medieval" mindset of the Islamic extremists. But with their evisceration of the nearly millennia-old bedrock principle of Habeas, and advocating Inquisition style torture techniques, we ought to call them the Neo-Medieval Cons.
here is our song Extraordinary Rendition - it starts with a clip from The Battle of Algiers - Images put to the music by ThinkingBlue - We must stop this un-American inhuman practice. When this story broke in the Boston Globe, my 12 year old daughter said - "Are we torturing people now Daddy?" We decided then that we must speak out and stop this or we are as responsible as those who give the orders and those who carry them out. Here are the lyrics
Extraordinary Rendition
We write a new rendition everyday
By what we do not what we say
What are you doing in our name?
Kidnap and tortures all the same
Extraordinary Rendition
When Freedom’s price is Freedom
We have no rights when we most need them
We are becoming what we fight
We kidnap, torture, kill for right
Extraordinary Rendition
Do you believe their rendition of the truth?
whatcha gonna do when them come for you?
Do you believe their rendition of the truth?
whatcha gonna do when them come for you?
We write a new rendition everyday
By what we do not what we say
We ought to stand for what is right
But our greatest weakness is our might
Extraordinary Rendition
Tim Ed Anshabby @ 39:
Could not agree more.
Devolution at top speed.
justabill @ 37:
Well then, I'm confused by the phrasing in the story. That's probably my fault though-the old bean hasn't been super clear on this and that since I had chemo a few years back...
But I do not think we should be kidnapping people-The French taking Carlos the Jackel out of the Sudan was a violation of sovereign statehood. It's the same when the US does it. And we'd bomb the Christ out of mofos who'd dare do it to us.
SadButTrue @ 10:
...Legally. Well, unless one believes that the constitution trumps the success Bush has had in undermining it.
Was Mukasey ever asked about the illegality of the CIA Rendition program as it stands today?
I don't want to quote the whole argument going back and forth between Miss Kitty and justabill, but Miss Kitty is the winner IMO. Clinton planted the seeds upon which Cheney/Bush have expanded. justabill is an apologist for Bill Clinton, but I have never heard either of the Clintons regretting his initiation of rendition nor of the Clintons criticizing Bush for the way things have developed. It's more like they have slipped away and are hoping no one notices. "Cooling his heels" does not impress me.
What? The CIA had no black sites under Clinton? You should check out The History of the CIA. Very well written and is remarkable due to how many current and former CIA operatives were willing to go on record to confirm claims made by the author. Black sites and secret prisons have decades of history in America.
naschkatze @ 45:
That's really rediculous. without rendition, you are saying that if bin Laden was in Somalia today where they will not recognize him as a wanted man, we should just honor their sovereignty and leave him be? All rendition was under Clinton was a program to get already convicted terrorists (not "enemy combatants") like bin Laden in countries that would not arrest or detain them. No one was renditioned from an allied country with an extradition treaty under Clinton. No one was tortured or held without charges under Clinton. Bush would assassinate him with a predator drone only to find out it wasn't him but a car full of women and kids later.
Going into a country that will not honor warrants for convicted terrorists and grabbing them is a good program as long as it doesn't pick up innocent people, torture and hold them without charges, which is exactly what the rendition program was before Bush took it over. If you have a link to a story about a single innocent person picked up or anyone tortured under the US's rendition program under Clinton I'd like to see it. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I've read A LOT about it. I did a LOT of research for this post, and I've not seen any evidence of that until after Bush.
When I started 'Redemption', extraordinary rendition was just breaking news and no one had any clear idea of just how extensive or pervasive it was (not that anyone still has any clear idea now). Please allow me to baldly quote from my own novel:
'Certain elements in our government have been taking anyone they feel like into custody under the counterterrorist special interest pretext for years. But then you end up holding a few thousand enemy combatants in custody in Guantanamo and Diego Garcia and Abu Ghraib and Bagram - there are records and photographs, people know their names, they've got families and lawyers. You can't prosecute the guilty because you've tortured them, and you can't release the innocent because they'll kick up a hell of a fuss. The real bad guys are too valuable to kill; the rest became too big a liability... A lot of evidence got shredded and buried, literally...'
So if this administration will stoop so low as to abduct the wives and innocent children of people they don't like, then I would suggest it doesn't take a huge leap in imagination or logic to suspect that it won't be all that long in the future before someone finds evidence of 'housecleaning' - in the form of mass graves. So while we're arguing about the hair-splitting definitions of torture, let's also wonder about how this administration defines justifiable murder. (Lee Jackson)
justabill @ 44:
Good question. Wasn't mentioned in the letter.
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/11/05/urgent-letter-from-intelligence-...
Jump to the Left @ 49:
Yeah I googled it to death and didn't find any mention of Mukasey being asked about the extraordinary rendition program. I want to say I find that so hard to believe, but sadly, I don't.
In the program but not in the clip posted (at the end of the summary page online) it says:
I didn't manage to find a link to that either.
nonny mouse @ 48:
I'm definitely getting your book nonny, er Lee. ;)
This is what my countrymen see when they look at Americans.
At least the Nazi's killed and tortured people themselves, and not wuss out and get other countries to do it for you.
Americans are a blight on the world. Former beacon of democracy and hope. Now Imperialsm and despotism.
justabill @ 47:
Ah but there's the rub. With this bullshit going on-innocent people DO get picked up. It's especially easy to do so, if you're running around an uncooperative country playing secret squirrel games.
When CheneyBushCo grabbed up Maher Arar on our own soil, they made a mistake. According to Senator Leahy, his case "stands as a sad example of how we have been too willing to sacrifice our core principles to overarching government power in the name of security, when doing so only undermines the principles we stand for and makes us less safe." As does the case of Khaled el-Masri, kidnapped in Germany and held at the behest of the US govt. And "[t]he former director of the CIA, George Tenet, told the US 9/11 Commission last year that even before September 11 the US had abducted more than 70 foreigners it considered terrorists - a process Washington has declared legal under the label "extraordinary rendition"." http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1390257,00.html
And if we want to have people honour our sovereignty, we must honour theirs, full stop.
miss_kitty @ 53:
I don't believe that for a second. If a country wants to harbor Osama or Zawahiri (or anyone associated with any terrorist attack on the US or its allies, no way do I support just saying OK. If Somalia or Pakistan or any country says they don't have a problem with convicted terrorists in their country then I hope to hell whoever is President sends in somebody, some special forces team or something to grab them. I don't support the use of a predator drone to assassinate them and anyone else who happens to be nearby, and I sure don't support torturing or detaining anyone without charging them and giving them a fair trial, but to just honor another country's sovereignty to the extent that they would be able to harbor al Qaeda is crazy. I doubt 5% of the public would support that. I sure don't.
Greatest country in the world?
Hmmm.
justabill @ 54:
Might does not make right. We'd not even be discussing bullshit like this if we'd honoured the borders of others. Central, South America, SE Asia, the Middle East...we've got only ourselves to blame, and we want to torture and detain others for it.
Just. Plain. Wrong. And imperial minded. You know, I have a friend who works for an ambassador in a western European country and guess what? The STAFF (my friend included) need Secret Service protection when they leave the embassy. Unprecedented. That's what kind of stead this extreme rendition and its companion behaviours has put us in.
And if 95% of the country agreed with you-it would still be wrong.
What's to keep another country from declaring our leaders as terrorists? Maybe Bush and Cheney will have too much protection for someone to grab them after they leave office, but what about others? Will every senator or representative have body guards? It is public record who voted to invade Middle Eastern countries.
Do you actually think our borders are safe and secure? Do you think these people will easily forget the suffering we have caused them? Like many things this is a double edged sword. Sure we feel safe now, but at the rate we are creating enemies, we may not be for long. What happens when Americans, prominent or not, men or women, or children start to disappear never to be heard from again except for rumors?
Won't the kidnappers feel every bit as justified as some Americans do now? What kind of world are we, the strongest nation in the world, creating? Revenge can become a never ending road.
quick! someone get schumer and feinstein to ok all of this rendition biz!
justabill @ 54:
So basically "sovereignty" of other countries depends upon the result of popularity contest among the US citizenry at that given time. Right?
If I see one credible story that anyone under the rendition program under Clinton was innocent, tortured, or held without due process then I'll be critical of it, but after the first world trade center bombing and the subsequent bombings of the embassies in Tanzinia and Kenya I'm all for Clinton actually going after the terrorists who had been tried and convicted for doing so wherever they were hiding. From every article I've read yet Clinton put the rule of law first, didn't suspend habeas corpus, didn't have a network of secret prisons, made sure they all had their day in court first in the country of their crimes before he went after them, didn't torture them, grabbed them up from sanctuary countries and sent them back to the countries where they had been convicted. That's how it ought to be done, imho. For all the bashing from the right that Clinton was soft on terror it sure sounds like he wasn't at all.
The rendition program under Clinton and what Bush did with it sound like night and day. If Clinton did order torture or detention without due process to any innocent person(s) then it seems odd the program he started in 95 hasn't had one person to come forward to say so, unlike the multitudes that have since 9-11 under Bush.
skyreader7 @ 57:
What do you think that 9/11 was? Americans sure can dish it... but take it? You'll see them reduced to tears, with a president running around like a pussy, and with people asking naively "why do they hate us? What have we done?"
The naive act only works for so long... though.
The saddest part, is that if something or someone was to attack us, a lot of my foreign acquittances would not shear a single tear. I know people who waited for ours to leave a flower or to lit a candle in front of the US embassy in their countries right after 9/11... who are now telling me in no quaint terms that if they had known better they would have not wasted their time or tears on 9/12.
Like the old adagio goes, you reap what you sew. Are we ready to deal with the clusterfuck that these assholes are leaving around in our name?
Welcome to Friendly Fascism. Enjoy.
First off the frank that posted here is not this frank.
Will the people now see the government for what they are?
Will the people also claim to not have known... even if it old took a little bit of wanting to find it out?
Will the people claim they were just following orders?
Will we see a Nuremberg for BushCo?
I'm just glad PBS has this episode available online. Frontline is one of those shows that is set up to Always Record, so when I saw the program description as "Sex Slaves," I thought it was a mistake by PBS--we've had descriptions for other PBS programs that describe the previous week or even the next week's show. But nope. It was "Sex Slaves" from 2006.
GPTV chose not to show the "Extraordinary Rendition" episode of Frontline. At least not on their Channel 8 station. I have not, of course, heard back from them yet for an explanation. I'm not sure what next week's episode is supposed to be, but they are showing another rerun. They did show the one about Cheney, and Iran. I'd not seen them show a rerun instead of the scheduled new episode before, so I was pretty surprised by it.
Dr. Who @ 61:
It does not matter if we are ready or not, this is something that we, our children, and our grandchildren will be dealing with...America is a Rogue Nation now...if BushCo does suspend elections in '08...don't be surprised when we're invaded by other countries...
-:|:- illegal enemy combatant -:|:-
A Human psyche
smashed stressed and rendered useless
in nine syllables
Its called Bush is a criminal and needs to be impeached and imprisoned.
Mark @ 67:
Yes, but only after cheney's been impeached and imprisoned...
God help me, but I enjoy watching Islamic terrorists get tortured.
What many americans may not know is that the Ethiopian president has decided to become bush's lapdog and ethiopian troops are now mired in a deadly civil war in somalia. They went there on bush's urging to purge islamic terrorists.
Kenya, the other african country mentioned has one million somali refugee's living in it's midst. they need to be careful about following u.s. directives.
makes ya proud to be an American,,dont it...not to get too off subject..a 'freind' of mine(he seems to getting batshit crazy as the years go by) forwarded me an email..something along the lines of..the USPS issued a new stamp honoring(gasp!) MUSLIMS...DAMN THEM!! Its not like the USPS is a rogue entity unto inself.
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