FYI: is more than a recently released movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal about the mysterious disappearance of a suspected (but innocent) . It introduces us to the horrific crimes that our government is committing, as you read this, all in the name of National Security.

Extraordinary rendition is the apprehension and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one state to another. Sounds harmless enough except for the fact that the Bush Administration has been using it to kidnap suspected terrorists, including American citizens, to circumvent the laws against torture and false imprisonment as they are whisked away to what’s know as “black sites.” They call it torture by proxy…..cute, huh? I guess that as long as they don’t actually get blood on their hands but only stand nearby directing the action, that this absolves them of all guilt. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

The list of victims of these illegal, immoral and unconscionable actions have been vehemently denied by George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and others in the face of undeniable evidence of the truth. Bold face liars….all of them!

WITNESS THESE

The range of high crimes and misdemeanors committed by George Bush and The Bush Crime Family as well as the depth of their arrogance never ceases to astound me. But what is even more baffling and almost painfully frustrating is the fact that they continue to get away with it, facing only empty threats made by those in and out of Congress.

Let’s dispense with hypotheticals and documents some actuals events of extraordinary rendition:

•  Khalid El-Masri: detained in 2003 by Macedonian agents while on vacation and held for 3 weeks before being turned over to the CIA, He was injected with drugs and flown to Afghanistan where he was beaten and held in solitary confinement for five months and then released without explanation

READ ON AS THERE ARE MANY OTHER CASES OF RENDITION AND TORTURE

• Majid Mahmud Abdu Ahmad: detained by the Pentagon at Guantanamo Bay; a classified Defense Dept. memo suggested sending Ahmad to an unspecified foreign country that employed torture.
• Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed: in 2001 a Yemeni student was spirited aboard a private plane at Karachi’s airport by Pakistani security officers
• Mamdouh Habib: in 2001 he was detained in Pakistan and interrogated for 3 weeks, then flown to Egypt and then to a U.S. airbase in Afghanistan where he was beaten, given electric shocks, deprived of sleep and blindfolded for 8 months; transferred to Guantanamo Bay where he was released without being charged in January 2005!
• Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi: rendered to Egypt and tortured providing the information that the Bush Administration used as a rationale to invade Iraq. The information concerned the relationship between the Saddam Hussein regime and Al-Qaeda which was totally fabricated to please his interrogators.

I could go on and on with documented cases, however I believe that our point has been made. Beyond the illegality and immorality of extraordinary rendition, there is the much agreed upon belief that information gathered as a result of torture is completely unreliable because everybody has a “breaking point” in which they will say anything to ease their pain and discomfort. Wouldn’t you?

Lastly, we, as abiding American citizens must never allow ourselves to succumb to fear which will rationalize the cessation of all of our inalienable rights and the humane treatment of others.-