Obsidian Wings has an important Torture Outsourcing Update, with news about the the House Republicans' attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition” and the growing, and horrified, reaction to it. Well, outside of the Ashcroft Justice Dept., which is all for it.
This episode alone fully justifies voting against George Bush.
Katherine R. at Obsidan Wings concludes her update with this query:
I want to ask—very loudly ask— a direct question to any members of the media who might end up reading this post:
Newspapers have reported that the second highest ranking official in the Department of Justice signed the order deporting Maher Arar to Syria, and that the President has signed a secret “finding” authorizing extraordinary renditions.
But George W. Bush and his press secretary have never, ever been asked about what happened to Maher Arar. Nor have they ever been asked about their position on extraordinary rendition.
Why not?
To me, as well, when they ask, I think the focus should be more on the 70 people who were deported to torture or death through extraordinary rendition PRIOR to 9/11…at least according to George Tenet. Obviously this is a real effective policy for stopping terrorism and not causing more of it…
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Thanks for the link.
Christopher–I will be posting some specifics on examples of extraordinary rendition, two of which (involving 7 suspects) took place before 9/11.
I anticipate much cringing…and grow consistently more tired of the suddenly appropriate idea that considering our own rights derivative of some greater natural law still doesn’t require America to accord the same human dignity to the rest of the world’s peoples…
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