Tuesday, March 08, 2005

 

Gonzales Defends "Renditions"

Yes, Alberto "no video, no torture" Gonzales strongly supports sending people off to countries that promise not to "torture" them:
Gonzales Defends Transfer of Detainees
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 8, 2005; Page A03


Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales yesterday defended the practice of "extraordinary rendition," the process under which the United States sometimes transfers detainees in the war on terrorism to other nations where they may undergo harsh interrogation, trial or imprisonment.
...
...Gonzales, speaking to reporters at the Justice Department yesterday, said that U.S. policy is not to send detainees "to countries where we believe or we know that they're going to be tortured."
...
Gonzales added yesterday that if a country has a history of torture, Washington seeks additional assurances that it will not be used against the transferred detainee.

At the same time, (Gonzales) said, the administration "can't fully control" what other nations do, according to accounts of his remarks by wire services. He added that he does not know whether countries have always complied with their promises.
(Emphasis added.)

The US State Department's Report on Human Rights in 2004 had some information on whether such promises were broken:
The State Department report also harshly attacked the treatment of prisoners in such countries as Syria and Egypt, where the United States has shipped terrorism suspects under a practice known as "rendition." An Australian citizen has alleged that under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten. Most of his fingernails were missing when he later arrived at Guantanamo Bay.

Bush administration officials have said they never intend for captives to be tortured and seek pledges from foreign governments that they will treat detainees humanely.
Source: Washington Post State Dept. Study Cites Torture of Prisoners Mar 1, 2005. (Emphasis added.)
Then, too, the Bush Administration does not believe pulling someone's fingernails out is really torture anyway, as it is not "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." (Source: Washington Post Memo Offered Justification for Use of Torture June 8, 2004.) PDF copy of memo available from the June 13, 2004 Washington Post Article titled: Justice Dept. Memo Says Torture 'May Be Justified'

Short version: If those whiners lived through the "harsh interrogation" then it wasn't torture. Besides, everyone knows it's only torture if someone publishes pictures of it...

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