Congress dozes while detainees are sent to other countries to be tortured

[G_j]

http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/show_print.php?id=61345&page=hentoff&issue=0508&printcde=MzMyNzY2NzA0MQ==&refpage=L25ld3MvaW5kZXgucGhwP2lzc3VlPTA1MDgmcGFnZT1oZW50b2ZmJmlkPTYxMzQ1

War Crimes
Congress dozes while detainees are sent to other countries to be tortured

by Nat Hentoff
February 22nd, 2005 2:28 PM --------------------------

It shall be the policy of the United States not to expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture . . .Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, a U.S. statute implementing Article 3, International Convention Against Torture, which this country has signed


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For three years, there have been sporadic reports in some of the media, including this column, of the CIA's sending detainees (prisoners without charges or lawyers) to countries (among them are Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, Jordan, Morocco, and Uzbekistan) where the CIA knows they will be tortured to extract information the CIA can't dig out of them.

The Washington Post has done the most revealing investigative reporting, along with furious editorials, on this brutal form of kidnapping. And in these columns, I have tried to add to the story from other sources: human rights organizations and reporters around the world. In the February 11 New York Times, Bob Herbert put these actions by our government—in flagrant violation of American and international law—plainly:

<snip>
Now, in the February 14 New Yorker, there is a long, detailed, clearly documented story, "Outsourcing Torture"—the most important piece run by The New Yorker since John Hersey's internationally resounding essay on what we did to Hiroshima in Japan with the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare.

This report by Jane Mayer should be read by every member of Congress, which has yet to conduct a substantive investigation—with subpoena powers—into these horrific practices. There's talk of only a cursory "review." Much more is needed. The extraditions are so secret that even the 9-11 Commission members were not allowed to ask questions about these "extraordinary renditions," as the CIA bureaucratically calls them.
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New Yorker article:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6

OUTSOURCING TORTURE
by JANE MAYER

The secret history of America’s “extraordinary rendition” program.

Issue of 2005-02-14
Posted 2005-02-07

On January 27th, President Bush, in an interview with the Times, assured the world that “torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture.” Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer who was born in Syria, was surprised to learn of Bush’s statement. Two and a half years ago, American officials, suspecting Arar of being a terrorist, apprehended him in New York and sent him back to Syria, where he endured months of brutal interrogation, including torture. When Arar described his experience in a phone interview recently, he invoked an Arabic expression. The pain was so unbearable, he said, that “you forget the milk that you have been fed from the breast of your mother.”

Arar, a thirty-four-year-old graduate of McGill University whose family emigrated to Canada when he was a teen-ager, was arrested on September 26, 2002, at John F. Kennedy Airport. He was changing planes; he had been on vacation with his family in Tunisia, and was returning to Canada. Arar was detained because his name had been placed on the United States Watch List of terrorist suspects. He was held for the next thirteen days, as American officials questioned him about possible links to another suspected terrorist. Arar said that he barely knew the suspect, although he had worked with the man’s brother. Arar, who was not formally charged, was placed in handcuffs and leg irons by plainclothes officials and transferred to an executive jet. The plane flew to Washington, continued to Portland, Maine, stopped in Rome, Italy, then landed in Amman, Jordan.

During the flight, Arar said, he heard the pilots and crew identify themselves in radio communications as members of “the Special Removal Unit.” The Americans, he learned, planned to take him next to Syria. Having been told by his parents about the barbaric practices of the police in Syria, Arar begged crew members not to send him there, arguing that he would surely be tortured. His captors did not respond to his request; instead, they invited him to watch a spy thriller that was aired on board.

Ten hours after landing in Jordan, Arar said, he was driven to Syria, where interrogators, after a day of threats, “just began beating on me.” They whipped his hands repeatedly with two-inch-thick electrical cables, and kept him in a windowless underground cell that he likened to a grave. “Not even animals could withstand it,” he said. Although he initially tried to assert his innocence, he eventually confessed to anything his tormentors wanted him to say. “You just give up,” he said. “You become like an animal.”

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[G_j]

1. kick

[MadHound]

2. No, the monsters who condone these actions aren't dozing.

They're waiting for the films to come back in order to fulfill their sick fantasy life.

I'm continually amazed at the depths that our country, and our fellow citizens, can sink to. And fearful of how much further we're going to go.