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| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Yeah, I was going to point out that extraordinary rendition doesn't necessarily mean torture. It's when it's secretive that we have a problem... I'll wait to see whether there's a bit more transparency (and a bit less torture) this time around before leaping down his throat. |
I'm not well versed on this whole rendition thing and the nuances so maybe someone can help clear this up for me.... but didn't Obama just EXPAND rendition? Here is what I understand (someone correct me where I'm wrong):
With rendition, agents turn detainees over to authorities in their home country for interrogation. The Left went berzerk over this practice under Bush (even though it started under Clinton)... and this was one of the things that was going to change under Obama. According to this LA Times article, Obama had a sudden revelation as President that renditions are more necessary than ever (I assume after being able to read the actual intelligence reports after becoming president) if the CIA can't hold these subjects at Gitmo or its own secret sites. Here's a blurb:
| quote: | The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.
But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes — for taking suspected terrorists off the street. |
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-r...8176,full.story
So, the major controversy was due primarily because the home countries of the terrorists torture for information. Most of these terror suspects grabbed by the CIA come from countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and other places where the Geneva Convention only provides respectability but not any legal constraints of any kind. People were bitching that the CIA essentially outsourced its torture to subcontractors in this rendition process, ensuring that these methods would get used without getting their own hands dirty and getting the information torture produced.
Because of the Gitmo hysteria, Obama's kind of forced to expand rendition now because there's no place to put them. By law, the CIA can't bring suspects back to the US, so the only options are now rendition, assassination, or release.
"Frankly, I think the US does a better job of treating its detainees than anywhere a rendition program would deliver them, but without a Gitmo or CIA holding site, that's the only way to ensure that we can get any intelligence that will protect the US. I'm not surprised that Obama has reached the same conclusion, now that he has the responsibility to keep the nation secure from foreign attack. It's amazing how clarifying that responsibility can be, and Obama at least must have a little more comprehension of what Bush went through the last seven years. Perhaps the Left will suddenly realize the same logic and give him a pass on this."
-Kevin McCollough
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