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it's true: the u.s. harbors terrorists & performs rendition

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
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sanjuro

Tube Smuggler
Sep 13, 2004
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SF
We better hope we are never defeated in war, because Guantanamo is our concentration camps.
 

DaveW

Space Monkey
Jul 2, 2001
11,160
2,685
The bunker at parliament
You've seen the ovens?
A concentration camp does not have to be a death camp, although the two are thought of as being the same....They are not.

The term is used for facilities where inmates are selected according to some specific criteria, rather than individuals who are incarcerated after due process of law fairly applied by a judiciary.
Lame strawman attempt.:clapping:
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
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according to executive order signed a few days ago, obama's ok w/ rendition too:
Panetta had said Thursday the extraordinary renditions of the Bush administration would not be allowed under a new executive order: “No, we will not, because, under the executive order issued by the president, that kind of extraordinary rendition, where we send someone for the purposes of torture or for actions by another country that violate our human values, that has been forbidden by the executive order.”

But Panetta also said he had not been fully briefed, and based his remarks on press accounts.

After Panetta retracted his statement, Bond said, “In your position, you cannot be making assumptions or judgments based on rumor or news stories,” noting the intelligence failures of the past. He asked Panetta to affirm he would “not make rash judgment on hearsay.”

“You have my assurance,” Panetta said. “My approach is going to be to seek the truth” in all cases, he answered.

Panetta said the Obama administration would prohibit a form of rendition where terrorist suspects are transferred to “black sites.” But other kinds of rendition could be permitted.

“Using renditions, we may very well direct individuals to third countries,” he said. “I will seek the same kind of assurances that they will be not treated inhumanely. I intend to use the State Department to assure that those assurances are, in fact, implemented and stood by by those countries.”
source
 

Samirol

Turbo Monkey
Jun 23, 2008
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according to executive order signed a few days ago, obama's ok w/ rendition too:source
This is from Greg Miller to Glenn Greenwald, after Greenwald criticized Obama continuing rendition:

A little background on the renditions story.

The story made clear that Obama intends to administer the rendition program in a very different way. I quote an Obama administration official saying so, language from the executive order saying so, and a human rights advocate saying so. In the first paragraph, I point out that the secret prisons are gone, and torture is banned. This is not a story saying it's business as usual under Obama.

Nevertheless, the rendition program is controversial. Even if administered in the most enlightened manner, it is a program that involves the use of the CIA in secret abductions and prisoner transfers.

Perhaps Obama will decide that prisoners can only be rendered to U.S. courts. But the executive orders don't say that. If prisoners are taken to third countries -- as they were during the Clinton years, and are likely to be under Obama -- safeguarding their well-being is a serious challenge. If that were not the case, there would be no controversy. The CIA has always maintained that it obtains assurances that prisoners will not be tortured.

Obama's decisions to close Guantanamo Bay and the CIA's secret prisons were legitimate news stories. His decision to extend the renditions program is too.

The article came from reading Obama's executive orders and speaking with officials in the Obama administration and the U.S. intelligence community about what they mean.

Greg Miller
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
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i find it curious it took an EO to extend the program. any theories as to why this is? would this have been superseded by the closing of gitmo EO? either way, it seems he's walking the knife's edge between fighting the war formerly called the war on terror & "restoring" our rep (fwiw)
 

Samirol

Turbo Monkey
Jun 23, 2008
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This thread is somewhat Gitmo related

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/08/binyam-mohamed-torture-guantanamo-bay

Lieutenant-Colonel Yvonne Bradley, an American military lawyer, will step through the grand entrance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London tomorrow and demand the release of her client - a British resident who claims he was repeatedly tortured at the behest of US intelligence officials - from Guantánamo Bay. Bradley will also request the disclosure of 42 secret documents that allegedly chronicle not only how Binyam Mohamed was tortured, but may also corroborate claims that Britain was complicit in his treatment.

But first, Bradley, a US military attorney for 20 years, will reveal that Mohamed, 31, is dying in his Guantánamo cell and that conditions inside the Cuban prison camp have deteriorated badly since Barack Obama took office. Fifty of its 260 detainees are on hunger strike and, say witnesses, are being strapped to chairs and force-fed, with those who resist being beaten. At least 20 are described as being so unhealthy they are on a "critical list", according to Bradley.

Mohamed, who is suffering dramatic weight loss after a month-long hunger strike, has told Bradley, 45, that he is "very scared" of being attacked by guards, after witnessing a savage beating for a detainee who refused to be strapped down and have a feeding tube forced into his mouth. It is the first account Bradley has personally received of a detainee being physically assaulted in Guantánamo.

Bradley recently met Mohamed in Camp Delta's sparse visiting room and was shaken by his account of the state of affairs inside the notorious prison.

She said: "At least 50 people are on hunger strike, with 20 on the critical list, according to Binyam. The JTF [the Joint Task Force running Guantánamo] are not commenting because they do not want the public to know what is going on.

"Binyam has witnessed people being forcibly extracted from their cell. Swat teams in police gear come in and take the person out; if they resist, they are force-fed and then beaten. Binyam has seen this and has not witnessed this before. Guantánamo Bay is in the grip of a mass hunger strike and the numbers are growing; things are worsening.

"It is so bad that there are not enough chairs to strap them down and force-feed them for a two- or three-hour period to digest food through a feeding tube. Because there are not enough chairs the guards are having to force-feed them in shifts. After Binyam saw a nearby inmate being beaten it scared him and he decided he was not going to resist. He thought, 'I don't want to be beat, injured or killed.' Given his health situation, one good blow could be fatal," said Bradley.

"Binyam is continuing to lose weight and he is going to get worse. He has been told he is about to be released, but psychologically and physically he is declining."

It is conceivable that Mohamed himself may shortly return to London, heralding yet another political embarrassment for Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who already faces a tumultuous week over claims that he was keen to suppress evidence of torture.

On Tuesday, the unprecedented dispute between Miliband and the judiciary is set to reignite when High Court judges Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones decide whether to reopen the case which Mohamed believes substantiates his torture claims.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a little-publicised court case into the treatment of Mohamed will open. American civil liberties lawyers are hoping to shine a light on the defence firm that allegedly carried out the practice of "rendition" on behalf of the CIA. Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary, helped to arrange rendition flights for several terror suspects, including Mohamed, to nations where they claim they were tortured.

The case was originally dismissed after the Bush administration asserted "state secrets privilege", indicating that it would endanger national security - the same argument used by Miliband. However, Obama has repeatedly stressed his willingness to be less secretive than his predecessor and a similar decision would lead to claims that the current administration is bent on suppressing evidence of torture.

Closer to home, the Observer has found evidence suggesting a broader unwillingness by Britain to confront the US over its war on terror programme. The Attorney General says it is "actively considering" possible criminal wrongdoings against MI5 and the CIA, but sources claim the government's senior lawyer has failed, after almost four months of looking into the issue, to request material from the US that may substantiate allegations of MI5 complicity in Mohamed's torture.

Suspicion is also growing that some sections of the US intelligence community would prefer Binyam did die inside Guantánamo. Silenced forever, only the sparse language of his diary would be left to recount his torture claims and interviewees with an MI5 officer, known only as Witness B. Such a scenario would also deny Mohamed the chance to personally sue the US, and possibly British authorities, over his treatment.

But if Mohamed survives to come back to London, his experiences of the past six years promise a harrowing journey through the dark underbelly of the war on terror. For Miliband, the questions concerning Britain's role may have only just begun.
 

MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,669
1,713
chez moi
"Rendition" has become a somewhat abused term since the exposure of the program by the CIA known as "extraordinary rendition."

Rendition is not necessarily a sinister thing; it's simply the involuntary removal of a person from one place to another jurisdiction, normally for legal proceedings to begin. This is contrasted to extradition or removal. The 'extraordinary' part of extraordinary rendition is the process of the US rendering to a third nation, presumably one where our prohibitions don't apply, rather than to itself; it represents a moral and legal snag for the US.

"Involuntary" is not necessarily or even in the large part wrong--people arrested justly are 99.9% arrested involuntarily...just because a bad person doesn't want to face the music doesn't mean the process is flawed or immoral, and if the bad person is protected by a state power, rendition may be the only way to get the person into the US legal system. It may or may not happen with the approval (or public approval) of the country in which the process begins, and it dispenses with the formalities of the extradition process. This could be used for a just purpose or a morally bankrupt one.

In the case of the US specifically- sometimes, a country cooperating with the US wants a dangerous person (say, Ramzi Yusef) out of its borders ASAP and just turns the person in custody over to the US, who transports the person to the US for trial. In some cases, an unwitting or unwilling subject is tricked or forced to come within US jurisdiction so he can be arrested.

Edit: Example, hypothetical--person indicted for crimes is hiding out in a third country which protects him from extradition or any other legal proceedings by the US. A US undercover law enforcement officer or a local acting as US agent befriends this individual and gets him to come on a boat ride with him. Once on the boat, they cross into international waters where a crew from a US warship (or sub, if you wanna get all James Bond with it) boards the boat and snatches our subject, tossing him into the ship's brig and bringing him into the US for prosecution. In this example, the US-flag craft is an area of US extraterritorial jurisdiction, and all Constitutional protections are afforded to this guy once he's in custody. [end edit]

If you're not a US citizen and not located within US jurisdiction, you have no expectation of Constitutional rights, so the rules search and seizure don't apply to you until you cross the border, at which point they must be scrupulously observed.

Rendition in general can be kidnapping (but doesn't have to be) by the law of the country in which it begins, but that generally has no bearing on the legal process in the country unto which the person is rendered.

Anyhow, point is, it's a legal term which has become wrapped up in a specific, non-standard usage associated with a particular and questionable program/practice by the US intelligence community.
 
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$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
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apart from the fact that it occurs with both the knowledge & consent of the host country, yes
 

MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,669
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chez moi
So in short it is a form of contempt for the territorial rights of sovereign nations and the rule of law/due process.
No...you just didn't read (or believe?) what I wrote.

#1, it can happen with the full knowledge, consent, and support of the sovereignty of the country from which the subject is rendered.

#2, it can happen in response to a "sovereign" country flouting international convention and harboring criminals who have fled righteous prosecution, without offering the offended nation otherwise-legal recourse to address their grievance.

It can also, of course, be a form of contempt for the territorial rights of sovereign nations and the rule of law/due process. [ed: that said, the 'rule of law and due process' vis-a-vis international relations is itself an extremely nebulous and moving target in both theory and practice; it's not like there's a "right/wrong" test of any kind...] My point is that "rendition" as a term is inherently not the boogeyman [-word] it has become in common parlance.
 
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Samirol

Turbo Monkey
Jun 23, 2008
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Cool, so China can rendition Henry Kissinger and all the other criminals that the US harbors, I'm down with that
 

MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,669
1,713
chez moi
They can sure try, although I don't see how China would want him more than a few choice South American countries...

(Looks like someone has been reading Hitchens' 'Trial of Henry Kissinger...?' Good book.)

Edit: The verb form is "render," btw.
 

DaveW

Space Monkey
Jul 2, 2001
11,160
2,685
The bunker at parliament
apart from the fact that it occurs with both the knowledge & consent of the host country, yes


and if the person is protected by a state power, rendition may be the only way to get the person into the US legal system. It may or may not happen with the approval (or public approval) of the country in which the process begins, and it dispenses with the formalities of the extradition process. This could be used for a just purpose or a morally bankrupt one.
Example, hypothetical--person indicted for crimes is hiding out in a third country which protects him from extradition or any other legal proceedings by the US. A US undercover law enforcement officer or a local acting as US agent befriends this individual and gets him to come on a boat ride with him. Once on the boat, they cross into international waters where a crew from a US warship (or sub, if you wanna get all James Bond with it) boards the boat and snatches our subject, tossing him into the ship's brig and bringing him into the US for prosecution.
Gee that sure sounds like knowledge and consent from the host country

If you're not a US citizen and not located within US jurisdiction, you have no expectation of Constitutional rights, so the rules search and seizure don't apply to you until you cross the border, at which point they must be scrupulously observed.
yep the host country's rule of law/human rights don't apply..... Silly me :nopity:

Rendition in general can be kidnapping (but doesn't have to be) by the law of the country in which it begins, but that generally has no bearing on the legal process in the country unto which the person is rendered.
Again sounds like flouting that country's laws.
 

Defenestrated

Turbo Monkey
Mar 28, 2007
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I have always read the Constitution as a idealistic document that advocated the principle of natural rights. I think that if you truly wanted to honor the spirit of the Constitution you would support due process for every human being.
 

1453

Monkey
He's not Japanese and your logic makes no sense.
if he's not, and if he is of an ethnic group that 731 did experiments on, one would assume that he would be a little more careful with throwing words like "concentration camp" around.

kinda like how native Americans don't use the world "extermination" around too often when describing current events.
 
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