From

The fact the US hands people in its custody over to 'expert countries' in the use of torture is not a real big surprise. Bush and his team have done all they can to ensure that US personnel will not be charged with crimes against humanity. To help ensure they do not face charges they 'contract' out the work. 

What is most amazing is the ability of American diplomats and leaders to stand up and challenge the use of torture in many countries. In fact the invasion of Iraq is being sold to an American and world audience due to the way Saddam and his regime treated its citizens.

Perhaps the difference between Saddam and the Bush administration when it comes to denying basic rights, may be that Bush has said you can't send Americans to be tortured. However if you are of middle eastern heritage you are fair game and thus one of dubious enough character to justify the CIA sending you onto Syria or like minded country.

America, now how did it go wrong? Could have been when American companies supplied the Hitler prior to and during WWII. Might have been when the war manufacturing class kept pushing the war in Vietnam, or was it the training, knowledge, money and weapons of mass destruction they gave to Saddam, or was it the funding of 'Freedom Fighters' in Central America, then again it could have been all the stuff they gave to Osama Bin Laden. 

It really does not matter where it has gone wrong, it should be good to know that it has. Once that is accepted things can begin to repair themselves. Things like making it safe again for Americans to travel outside of North America. Things like being able to go to an airport or get on a train and not have to worry about some foreign terrorist attacking, heck it is bad enough with the American home bred terrorists.  Now word that the CIA actually has a plane they use to ferry suspected bad guys to Syria and other 'axis of evil' States, (was Texas included in that list, I can't remember). In the case of Canadian Maher Arar, the Americans simply put him on a plane bound for Syria after telling that government he was on board. Arar spent two years in a Syrian jail being tortured. He was fianally released. The Canadian government is currently holding an inquiry into their part in the American and Syrian torture of Arar.

The 'rendering' (the CIA phrase for handing off prisoners to be tortured) of suspects to countries that employ interrogation techniques banned in the United States could violate the UN Convention on Torture, World Organisation for Human Rights USA executive director Morton Sklar said.

Human rights groups in the United States are working on legal challenges to renditions, said Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, because one of their purposes is to transfer captives to countries that use harsh interrogation methods outlawed in the United States. That, he said, is prohibited by the U.N. Convention on Torture.

Silly human rights groups, first the United States would have to admit they do this, second like it would stop them. 



--Rick Barnes is a communications and advocacy specialist working in the non-profit sector and a contibuting editor for pej.org.