The Ethics of Extraordinary Rendition

I spent every day of the past week in a boat fishing Canada’s English River system. We stayed near Sioux Lookout, Ontario and fished primarily in Minnitaki Lake, one of my favorite places on earth. It was delightful to spend each day ignoring whatever was going on in the rest of the world – no newscasts, no newspapers, no radio, no blogs, no computer, not even a telephone. I didn’t even check my email; just spent each day in contemplative pursuit of finny future entrees.

I had earmarked a subject for consideration before I left – the British Parliament’s reaction to the report that they had been unwillingly complicit in America’s extraordinary rendition efforts, and it was still being discussed in obscure corners of the web when I returned.

It seems that certain Members of Parliament are up in arms because they figured out that their agreement allowing the U.S. to land on the British controlled Indian Ocean island, Diego Garcia, had included landings to refuel flights carrying prisoners destined for torture under the extraordinary rendition program.

Here is a quote from an article in the British newspaper, “The Independent”:

Andy Tyrie, a Tory MP, welcomed the report last night. Mr Tyrie, chair of the parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, said: "In October 2007, I started asking questions about Diego Garcia. I was very concerned that Britain and British territory could have become complicit in America's programme of extraordinary rendition, whereby people have been kidnapped around the world and taken to places where they may be maltreated or tortured. The Foreign Secretary persistently gave me the brush-off. He said we could rely on US assurances. My allegations were correct. The Foreign Secretary's brush-off was not just misplaced, it was a disgrace."

Admittedly, Mr. Tyrie, as a Tory, is politically in opposition to the party in power, so he is trying to discredit the present Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister with him. However, he has succeeded in his call for an investigation because the Parliament agrees that the use of a British military base to support our torture program is unacceptable.

What strikes the deepest chord with me in all this is that the British Parliament is getting all bent out of shape not because their government is in any way actively involved in our program of torturing prisoners, but simply because airplanes carrying those prisoners were allowed to touch down and refuel on their territory. What does it say about Americans that no one in our government has become outraged enough to raise a ruckus about this program?

We don’t just refuel planes for an ally committing these atrocities. We commit the atrocities. We, the people of the United States of Amerika, condone not only the use of our airstrips to land and refuel the planes, but we foot the bill for the entire process. We hire interrogators, collaborate with nations willing to carry out tortures we can’t legally do on our own ground, kidnap and torture SUSPECTED terrorists on the word of people who might stand to gain by the removal of the suspect from their community, and hold these suspects in horrible conditions while torturing them without first proving that they actually present any real threat to us.

No nation that possesses a meaningful moral code could possibly condone such behavior, and it is that ethic which spurs the British Parliament to investigate its own government for having even the slightest peripheral involvement in it.

Will this nation, this Amerika, ever regain enough valid moral perspective to understand the vile arrogance and deep seated paranoia that blind us enough to accept and support a program of torturing and holding prisoners without trial or any kind of representation?

If we had half the ethical understanding of the British Parliament – a body which ironically has authorized far too much of the same kind of butchery in its day – we, too, would be outraged enough to investigate and chastise our own government, but it’s a whole lot easier to just ask them to pass another helping of homeland security, pop the top on another can of Bud and lean back in our Laz-e-Boys. Life gets tedious, don’t it?


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle