Our Friends, the Torturers
In extraordinary rendition there are no rules. The person seized, presumably a terror suspect, is thrust into a highly secret zone of utter lawlessness, with no rights whatever. The entire point of this atrocious exercise is to transfer the suspect to a regime skilled in the art of torture. It’s as if a cop picked up a suspect on the street and handed him over to the Mafia to extract a confession. One’s guilt or innocence is not relevant. No legal defense is permitted. If a mistake is made, too bad.
U.S. officials knew what they were doing when they gave the signal to ship Mr. Arar to Syria. As far back as 1996, the State Department had this to say in a report about human rights in Syria:
“Former prisoners and detainees have reported that torture methods include electrical shocks; pulling out fingernails; the forced insertion of objects into the rectum; beatings, sometimes while the victim is suspended from the ceiling; hyperextension of the spine; and the use of a chair that bends backwards to asphyxiate the victim or fracture the spine.”
According to the State Department, torture was most likely to occur at one of the many detention centers run by the Syrian security forces, “particularly while the authorities are trying to extract a confession or information about an alleged crime or alleged accomplices.”
Extraordinary rendition is antithetical to everything Americans are supposed to believe in. It violates American law. It violates international law. And it is a profound violation of our own most fundamental moral imperative - that there are limits to the way we treat other human beings, even in a time of war and great fear.
Bob Herbert, NYTimes ( more. . .)