Reply #41: Al Gore does not have clean hands, sadly:

[beachmom]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-schwartz/lets-not-forget-al-gore_b_69349.html

I'm not saying he is as bad, I am just saying we need to look at the entire person when they were in power, not just what they are saying now.

"extraordinary renditions", were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgement of the host government.... The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, "That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass."


This is from Richard Clarke.

More on extraordinary rendition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition

Extraordinary rendition and irregular rendition are terms used to describe the apprehension and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one state to another.<1> "Torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the United States has purportedly transferred suspected terrorists to countries known to employ harsh interrogation techniques that may rise to the level of torture. It has been alleged that torture has been employed with the knowledge or acquiescence of the United States (a transfer of anyone to anywhere for the purpose of torture is a violation of U.S. law).

From what I have read, Obama is continuing this practice in some form or another. It's still wrong.

It started during the Clinton Administration:

The American Civil Liberties Union alleges that extraordinary rendition was developed during the Clinton administration by CIA officials in the mid-1990s who were trying to track down and dismantle militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, particularly Al Qaeda.