William Fisher: Remember Rendition?

27 February 2006

Remember Rendition? By William Fisher

A few months ago - particularly after The Washington Post broke the story ofsecret U.S. "black sites" in Eastern Europe - it wouldhave been difficult to pick up a newspaper or watchtelevision without hearing the words "extremerendition".

Then, almost as suddenly as the issueappeared, it vanished. The world's press stopped focusing onthe U.S. practice of sending detainees to countries wherethey would likely be tortured or abused.

Last week, therendition issue was back, but not in a way likely to pleaseits opponents.

Rendition returned when a U.S. federalcourt dismissed a lawsuit against the Bush administrationbrought by Ottawa engineer Maher Arar, a Syrian-bornCanadian citizen who was detained by U.S. authorities as asuspected terrorist during a stopover in New York as hereturned from a vacation in September 2002. He was heldvirtually incommunicado by U.S. officials, and then sent toSyria, where he said he was tortured and held in a tiny cellhe likened to a "grave" for nearly a year. He was nevercharged before Syria returned him to Canada.

BrooklynDistrict Court Judge David Trager cited the need fornational security and secrecy in making his decision, butalso raised the possibility of Canadian complicity in thedecision to send Arar to Syria.

As in other recent cases,the U.S. government asserted the "state secrets" privilege,arguing the lawsuit must be dismissed because allowing it toproceed would necessarily involve the disclosure ofsensitive information that would threaten national securityor diplomatic relations if made public.

"The need for muchsecrecy can hardly be doubted," Trager wrote in an 88-pagejudgment. "One need not have much imagination to contemplatethe negative effect on our relations with Canada ifdiscovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turnout that certain high Canadian officials had, despite publicdenials, acquiesced in Arar's removal to Syria."

Canadianofficials have always denied complicity in the decision tosend Arar to Syria after he was held in U.S. custody for 13days, but Arar said Justice Dennis O'Connor, who isexamining the role Canadian officials played in the affair,should make special note of the judge's comments.

Araralso vowed he would never give up his quest to reverse the"evil'' done against him. "If the courts will not stop thisevil act, who is going to stop this administration?Where do we go? The United Nations? We â€" me and otherswho have been subjected to this â€" are normal citizens whohave done no wrong."

He said, "They have destroyed mylife. They have destroyed other lives. But thecourt system does not listen to us. The court system is whatdistinguishes the West from the Third World. When a courtwill not act because of `national security,' there is nolonger any difference between the West and the Third World."His lawyers said they would continue the fight.

In Canada,Justice O'Connor is expected to issue an interim report nextmonth.

The Arar suit was the first court test of the Bushadministration policy of "extraordinary rendition," apractice often referred to as the outsourcing oftorture.

Critics of the practice said the U.S. court'sdecision gives Washington a green light to continue itspractice of sending terrorist suspects to third countrieswhere they could be tortured.

Arar's is just one of anumber of well-documented cases in which suspects have beenshipped to third countries with dubious human rights recordswhere interrogation methods outlawed in the U.S. can beused.

In his decision, Judge Trager acknowledged Arar'sfears of torture in Syria were real and cited the U.S. StateDepartment's own report on human rights abuses there.

Buthe said such decisions were beyond the realm of his court."A judge who declares on his or her own ... authority thatthe policy of extraordinary rendition is under allcircumstances unconstitutional must acknowledge that such aruling can have the most serious of consequences to ourforeign relations or national security or both," hewrote.

The U.S. and other countries that practice extremerendition often hide behind what critics call "the fig leafof diplomatic assurances". This means the renderinggovernment asks the receiving government to promise not totorture or abuse prisoners.

But, critics say, documentedevidence shows such assurances to be a sham. According toDr. Beau Grosscup, professor of international relations atCalifornia State University and an expert on terrorism,"Diplomatic assurances are trumped by the military, policeand intelligence 'counter-insurgency' programs that the twoCold War superpowers instituted and still run in many ofthese countries that train police and military personnel intorture." Grosscup says, "The real attitude driving the'rendition' efforts is: 'Having paid to train them intorture, why not get our monies worth'."

Ron Daniels,Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights(CCR), a legal advocacy group based in New York which ishelping in Arar's defense, told IPS, "Torture is against thelaw in the United States. The Bush administration should notbe attempting to avoid the laws of this country by sendingpeople to be tortured over seas where other countries willdo their dirty work out of the public eye. This is abarbaric practice with no place in the 21st Century."

AJustice Department official said the ruling pleased thegovernment.

At least one other rendition lawsuit has beenfiled in U.S. courts. Khaled Al-Masri, a German citizen bornin Lebanon, took a bus from Germany to Macedonia, whereMacedonian agents confiscated his passport and detained himfor 23 days, without access to anyone, including his wife.

He says he was then put in a diaper, a belt with chainsto his wrists and ankles, earmuffs, eye pads, a blindfoldand a hood. He was put into a plane, his legs and armsspread-eagled and secured to the floor. He was drugged andflown to Afghanistan, where he was held in solitaryconfinement for five months before being dropped off in aremote rural section of Albania. He claims it was aCIA-leased aircraft that flew him to Afghanistan, and CIAagents who were responsible for his rendition toAfghanistan.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hasdefended the practice of rendition, saying it was a vitaltool in the war on terror. But Ms. Rice said the U.S. doesnot "send anyone to a country to be tortured."

"TheUnited States has not transported anyone, and will nottransport anyone, to a country when we believe he will betortured," she said. "Where appropriate, the United Statesseeks assurances that transferred persons will not betortured."

However, on a trip to Europe shortly aftermaking these comments, Secretary Rice admitted to GermanChancellor Angela Merkel that the rendition of Al-Masri was"a mistake".

But does that mean renditions will nowcease?

I wouldn't count onit!

*************

Please click on the link below.

THE WORLDACCORDING TO BILL FISHER -http://billfisher.blogspot.com/

THIS ISSUE Lead NZ News NZ Politics World News FeaturesComment & Opinion Paul Buchanan on Cold War Communism and World Peace - In 1990, somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon, someone in the Joint Chiefs of Staff is reputed to have said that the United States would rue the day that the Berlin Wall fell. At least the Communists running the Soviet Union and its allies shared the logics of conventional and nuclear deterrence that preserved the relative peace of the 45-year-old Cold War. See... Paul Buchanan: When Communists Look Good

Motornet Takes Directions From A Beamer - 'Please take the next exit on your left. Then, turn right in 200 metres, says the modulated voice of BMW s satellite navigation system. Failing to follow instructions does nothing to raise a non-automated response. Even a complete 360 will see the GPS based system pause for the briefest of seconds before re-plotting the correct course, and re-issuing instructions. It s really quite frustrating There s an unflappable quality in many German cars and the new BMW 330i is no exception. See... MOTORNET: On Your Command - The BMW 330i

Suzan Mazur: Spinning the Returned Euphronios - The battle for ownership of the Euphronios vase illustrates perfectly how the New York Times publishing family fools only itself. Sales of the newspaper deservedly continue to decline as the people responsible for putting the Times out think they can get away with hoodwinking the public. See... Suzan Mazur: The Italy-Met Euphronios Accord?

David Slack compares broadband deals and oranges - Business New Zealand waded into the Broadband debate yesterday. Quoting from the release: "Business NZ has called for a more factually based argument over broadband access." ... Coverage, so far, of their contribution has been a little short on an actual comparison of the oranges, apples and lemons in question, which of course is what you want in a more factually based argument, so I asked Business NZ for a copy of the data. See... Public Address 23/02/06 - All you can eat, assuming you're not very hungry

MORE COMMENTARY:UQ Wire: The Secret History Of Mohamed Atta Public Address 24/02/06 - Totally Hot Mary Pitt: Walkin' Up On A Jackass Martin LeFevre: The 'Riddle of Man Norma Sherry: The Big "A" - As in Alzheimer's Swanson: Sweat Shop Workers Tour US Colleges Marc My Words -- Against Section 59 Propaganda "Democracy" To Justify Invasion And Mass Murder Russ Wellen: The Bourse Conspiracy John Bishop: TV Debases The Viewers Dubai and The Bush Dynasty Deal with the Devil A New Era Of Surveillance & Military Police In Oz John Bishop's Communications Line - 23 Feb 2006 Ernest Partridge: Perception is Reality Green Left Weekly: Latin America Revolts Against The Empire G C Fraser: Israeli Defense Minister -Palestine "Axis of Evil" Evelyn Pringle: Psych Drugs - Doctors Serve As Middle-Man Pushers Rodríguez Santos: The Indocumentados Of Today Province of Michigan: A Modest Proposal,

CLICK HERE FOR MORE RECENT COMMENTARYJOBS: The best are @ SEEKTarget 110 000 ConsumersNZ REAL ESTATE OnlineTRAVEL: Packages & Deals!Book Cheap FLIGHTS OnlineRETIREMENT CalculatorMORTGAGE Calculators #this_text { text-align: left; vertical-align: middle;}#this_text a { font-family: "Verdana", sans-serif; font-size: 80%; color: #943517; text-decoration: underline;}#this_text a:hover { font-family: "Verdana", sans-serif; font-size: 80%; color: blue; text-decoration: underline;}The best JOBS are @ SEEK THE WIRES Scoops Parliament Politics World Business Sci-Tech Culture Education Regional Health SEARCH _m1svt='');

Source: scoop

All trademarks and copyrighted information contained herein are the property of their respective owners.