This article looks at the method of extraordinary rendition as part of the Bush administration's foreign policy regarding the "War on Terror".
Extraordinary rendition is the term used to describe the process employed by the U.S government, which involves the transporting of seized detainees overseas to CIA black sites by U.S agents to countries known for using torture. This is often to facilitate "extraction of information", or confessions. The policy is used to imprison and interrogate suspected terrorists, or those suspected of being afiliated with terrorist organizations. It has been employed since the mid-1990s, developed by the CIA during the Clinton administration in order to restrain and destroy militant Islamic organizations.
Controversy of Extraordinary Rendition
Congressman Edward Markey has called extraordinary rendition “the 800lb gorilla in our foreign and military policy-making that nobody wants to talk about”. In November 2001 President Bush allowed himself the right to detain any non-American citizen anywhere in the world for an indefinite period of time. Bush went on to publicly boast about the alleged results realized through the policy of extraordinary rendition. In his State of the Union address of February 2003 the president said, “more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many different countries. Many others have met a different fate. Put it this way, they’re no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies”.
Perhaps the most controversial method used for interrogation is what is known as 'waterboarding'. The technique simulates drowning, whereby a cling-film like implement is usually placed over the face. The suspect is then restrained with his head slightly lower to the floor than his feet and water is then poured over his face repeatedly, which results in an unbearable feeling of drowning. The US government refutes allegations that waterboarding contravenes international laws on torture. Although recently, Mike McConnell, the US Director of National Intelligence has said "whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture".
The United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), which the U.S is a signatory of, states-
- No State Party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
- For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.
George Bush and Extraordinary Rendition
Bush’s global war on terror, and more specifically, the disturbing Abu Ghraib photographs brought to light the abuses suffered. As Isabel Hilton has reported, because there has so far been no repudiation of the Bush administration regarding such abuses, there will be no remedy for the potentially even worse treatment of the unknown number of prisoners who we have not been made aware of – that is, the prisoners who have been kidnapped and disappeared by U.S forces across the world. President Bush asserts that measures like extraordinary rendition are necessary because of the new, unprecedented terror threat to the U.S. He is also keen to mention that it is to protect the safety for “our friends and allies” as much as it is for the security of the U.S, which strengthens his reasoning for the use of such extreme measures, or at least that would seem to be what his intention is.
Utilitarianism, a consequentialist morality, contains the belief that morally wrong actions can be justified in order to achieve morally right outcomes. Regarding extraordinary rendition, a utilitarian may view the kidnapping and torturing of suspected terrorists as the necessary lesser of two evils. The greater evil may be a terrorist attack, which may kill in greater numbers. However, even with this argument, it may prove difficult for Bush to be able to justify his actions. Some reports state that captured suspects include migrants, whose crime is that they have overstayed their visas. It has also been reported that boys as young as thirteen years of age have been rendered to a foreign country, and men so old that they can hardly walk. In December 2005 it was reported that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan, who, while in Egyptian custody supplied the Bush administration’s pre-war claims linking Al-Qaida to Iraq, did so in order to avoid harsher treatment. He admitted to inventing the allegations, which further casts doubt on the effectiveness of extraordinary rendition.
