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September 30, 2004
Scandal: Torturing Outsourced Without Competitive Bidding
Obsidian Wings draws our attention to a very important bill in Congress attempting to override, oh, The UN Convention on Torture, lots of U.S. Federal Laws and general standards of decency in order to legalize outsourcing of torture:
The Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. "Extraordinary rendition" is the euphemism we use for sending terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture for interrogation. As one intelligence official described it in the Washington Post, "We don't kick the sh*t out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the sh*t out of them.”The best known example of this is the case of Maher Arar. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was deported to Syria from JFK airport. In Syria he was beaten with electrical cables for two weeks, and then imprisoned in an underground cell for the better part of a year. Arar is probably innocent of any connection to terrorism.
Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey has introduced a bill that would outlaw this practice of sending people to be tortured in places other than Abu Ghraib. He has very few co-sponsors and it would be very important for everyone to call, visit and write their representatives in the next few days urging them to support Markey's bill and urging them to work against the Republican leadership's shameful attempt to legalize torture as a part of H.R. 10, the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004." That's right, the Republicans have snuck in legalizing outsourcing of torture in a bill about about the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Report.
Even if Hastert & Co withdrew their legalization attempt, it still would be very important to suppork Markey's bill because as things stand, sending people to be tortured is okay as long as the recipient country "assures" us the person won't be tortured. Well, maybe, they'll also claim that they were "merely abusing," not torturing the victim.
On that note, here's an amusing sidestory. Yesterday night, the Washington Post head a story on its website that read "Plan Would Let U.S. Deport Suspects To Nations That Might Abuse Them" -- not sure if this was the exact wording but the term used definitely was abuse. I thought it was funny that abuse now meant torture done by us and and nations doing our bidding. This morning, I find the headline now reads "Plan Would Let U.S. Deport Suspects To Nations That Might Torture Them" So we get to keep our monopoly on abusing while everyone else tortures.
I also want to know if torturing countries will be forced to go through a competitive bidding process, or will no-bid contracts be awarded? We can't waste taxpayer money now. So, call your rep: 1-800-839-5276 or 202-224-3121. Visit their office. Write them a letter. This is just too shameful.
Posted by zeynep at September 30, 2004 10:31 AM
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