Has Bush legalized torture?

Question

Extraordinary rendition" is a term the American ruling elite has introduced into the world's political lexicon. Under this criminal program, the CIA and other US government agencies seize and transfer foreign nationals to countries where torture is commonplace or to secret US-run facilities on foreign soil where similar conditions prevail. The program has been in effect since at least the early 1990s during the Clinton administration, according to the ACLU complaint, but the September 11 terrorist attacks provided the pretext for its vast expansion.

Most of you have missed the point.......whats to stop the CIA from sending American dissidents off to rendition camps around the world? you already know you can be arrested, detained and held with no reasons being given to anyone........are yall sure you still wanna support rendition?

Answer 1

The right of habeas corpus has been a part of this country's legal tradition longer than we've actually been a country. It means the government has to explain why it's holding a person in custody. But now, the war on terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that the prisoners should not be covered by habeas — or even by the Geneva Conventions — because they're the most fearsome terrorist enemies we have.
However 80% are released after years of abuse and torture when its proven that they were innocent!!!
When a human is tortured he will say anything to stop the torture, thats why rendition id bullshit, especially when 80% of the setainees were innocent anyway. Remember that Americans can be detained as well,

Extraordinary rendition may be a new term, but it is not a new practice — the English did it in the 17th century, shipping prisoners to Scotland to be tortured. Secret prisons are not a recent invention either. Britain ran such a camp holding Nazi prisoners at Bad Nenndorf, Germany, after World War II. Evidence of ill treatment there was kept secret for 60 years. America also had a secret postwar camp known only as "P.O. Box 1142" at Fort Hunt next to the Potomac River in Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C. There, former U.S. interrogators have now disclosed, more than 3,400 Nazi prisoners were kept "off the books" in violation of the Geneva Conventions while they were interrogated about vital technical intelligence that could be useful to America.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the United States captured terrorist suspects overseas and "rendered" them back to the U.S. or to a third country to face trial. The CIA's extraordinary renditions reported to have occurred after 9/11 are quite different. What makes them extraordinary is that there is no judicial proceeding or due process of law; after the kidnapping, terrorist suspects simply disappear into a system of secret prisons for long-term detention and interrogation, sometimes accompanied by torture.One frequently used aircraft was Gulfstream N379P, whose trips included delivery of Agiza and El Zari to Egypt. The company that owned it, Premier Executive Transport Services, was a CIA front whose officers had post office box addresses where 325 fictitious names also were registered. The plane's connection began to emerge when another of its renditions got under way at 2:40 a.m. on October 23, 2001, at a little-used terminal at Karachi International Airport in Pakistan.

A 27-year-old Yemeni man, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, had been apprehended by the Pakistan intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He was taken blindfolded and in chains to be handed over to the CIA. Suspected of involvement in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, he had been reported missing for three weeks from Karachi University, where he was studying microbiology. He was flown from Pakistan to Jordan and then promptly disappeared.

What gave this transfer significance was the clumsy way in which it was handled. According to Pakistani sources, an airport official at the Karachi airport demanded a landing fee from the CIA plane. The crew refused. ISI agents then instructed airport staff that they would pay the fees, and the plane took off. But the incident created a minor stir that drew attention to the Gulfstream, which had been tucked away in a quiet corner of the airport so as not to be conspicuous.

On October 26, 2001, Masood Anwar, a Pakistani journalist with The News in Islamabad, wrote how Mohammed claimed he had been flown out of the country aboard a plane bearing tail number N379P. Those details ricocheted via the Internet among spy-hunters, bloggers and plane-spotting enthusiasts curious about precisely how the newly declared war on terrorism was being conducted.

Research by human rights groups, journalists and European governments subsequently revealed that the CIA had operated some 30 aircraft disguised by the use of companies like Premier Executive Transport Services and in other ways. Other aircraft were leased to operating companies and their subsidiaries. Eurocontrol data showed that 32 such aircraft made at least 1,245 stopovers in the various European countries.

Dozens of flights went to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. was detaining terrorism suspects. European investigators believed many of the flights were for extraordinary renditions. Eurocontrol data show the CIA planes made the following stopovers between October 2001 and the end of 2005: 76 in Azerbaijan; 72 in Jordan; 61 in Egypt; 52 in Turkmenistan; 46 in Uzbekistan; 40 in Iraq; 40 in Morocco; 38 in Afghanistan; and 14 in Libya.

Answer 2

Technically speaking the Bush administration hasn't legalized torture, they've simply re-defined torture so that "extraordinary rendition" isn't torture.

It's funny, I thought we fought the American Revolution partly to get rid of torture as a tool of the legal system. We supposedly invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein was an evil man who tortured people, should the US then stoop to similar techniques in fighting the war on terror? No matter how heinous the crime, the accused should still be seen as a human being and be assumed innocent until proven guilty regardless of their national origin and political affiliations. After 9/11 the US gained a great deal of sympathy on the international stage, when we stoop to "extraordinary rendition" we loose any sympathy we had by stooping to the same techniques as our supposed enemies.

The majority of Americans claim to be Christians, well who would Jesus (the victim of torture) torture?

Answer 3

Torture is different things to different folks.

But suppose I said I could put the twelve men who were directly responsible for WTC in a small room, and restrain them, and that I would let you go in and do anything to them that you'd like... I also would tell you that they were laughing and cheering about their victory over Americans.

Now remember, hundreds of people had their very last cell phone conversation on that day. And their last words were "I love you." These people committed no crime other than to go to work, and they never had a chance to go to work or see their loved ones again.

Would you stand so hard on principles, or pick up the rubber hose? Worse?

Answer 4

I really hope so!

Terrorists are not signatories to the Geneva convention and any way we can get information out of them, the better.

How does it affect America's moral superiority in the world today? It doesn't. Our American hostages in Iran and Lebanon were held for years and tortured before being released. Daniel Pearl was mutilated before he was ultimately decapitated. John McCain himself in his story will admit to giving information while being tortured.

Nations are torturing our people anyway, and how the world chooses to see us is unaffected by whether or not we use waterboarding or subject people to rap music to get information that saves lives.

If Bush legalized torture, I commend him for having the balls to protect the nation and put the fear of God into these people to extract information and save American lives.

Answer 5

"Extraordinary rendition" is nothing new and has been done for years. What do you think is going to happen to someone if we send them to another country for "interrogation"? President Clinton used it, President Bush has used it, and the next President will probably do it too.

Answer 6

The only thing I am upset with is that we have to outsource the torture.

We have CIA agents making handsome salaries, they should preform this work themselves.

As for the ACLU, they are communists

Answer 7

interesting that this began under Clinton -which shows how The New World Order pre-dates Bush.

Answer 8

There is no torture going on. Our government would never do such a thing. As for the ACLU, they're just a bunch of windbags.

Answer 9

where's the outcry for the soldiers/journalist and other civilians that are being tortured by our enemies? Is that okay?

I would rather have our government torture than stand by and let another attack take place while we give our enemies coffee and donuts . . .

Answer 10

Nor more so than Charlie Manson legalized murder.

It's still illegal.

That doesn't stop him, but then, mass-murder is also illegal, and that didn't stop him, either.