FirmhandKY
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Joined: 9/21/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen
The stated policy is not to send prisoners to nation that use torture. If you cons had even a whiff of that policy being broken we'd never hear the end of it. So I think it is more than safe to assume that we no longer defy everything this nation stands for.
Maybe the policy, but not everyone is so convinced that this matters:
Obama's extreme rendition policy is issued, but results still uncertain
Still, some experts are critical. Maria LaHood, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the DOJ Task Force recommendations are not particularly meaningful. "Neither assurances nor monitoring can prevent against torture," she said. She cited the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was taken to Syria in 2002. Arar claims that he was severely beaten and tortured in the Syrian jail, despite assurances from Syria and consular visits from from Canadian authorities. LaHood said that it's hard to tell from policy recommendations if there's been an improvement or not.
Margaret L. Satterthwaite from the Center for Human Rights & Global Justice at New York University also criticized the DOJ task force recommendations. There is no mechanism in place for the individual subjected to rendition to challenge the transfer before an independent panel. Moreover, nobody outside the government actually knows the details of the policy, so it's hard to objectively evaluate whether the government is sticking to its promise.
We're not sure if we'll ever be able to issue a definitive ruling on this promise. The administration has announced new procedural safeguards concerning individuals who are sent to foreign countries. President Obama also promised to shut down the CIA-run "black sites," and there seems to be anecdotal evidence that extreme renditions are not happening, at least not as much as they did during the Bush administration. Still, human rights groups say that these safeguards are inadequate and that the DOJ Task Force recommendations still allow the U.S. to send individuals to foreign countries. We'll give the Obama administration credit for the steps it's already taken, but until we have a more definitive evidence that extraordinary renditions have stopped, this promise stays In the Works.
I guess, since we have a Democratic President, that we wouldn't see much reporting on this issue any more.
But, rendition is still the policy of the US government. We can "ask" for safeguards all we want, but foreign governments don't have to do anything other than say "Yeah, sure, whatever" and that seems to be sufficient to meet the requirements.
You are guessing that no "torture" is going on. It fits your biases, after all, therefore it must be true!.
A more considered position is that we simply don't know, because it is all secret. Certainly you don't know enough to state categorically that it's not happening.
Firm
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