Hope!

p.s. Change!

p.p.s. I hope Eric Holder or any of his lackeys don't try and get a job as a law professor when they're done in D.C.

ditto to Anon21. The Obama's civil liberties policies aren't much better than Bush, but at least he's not torturing people. This line between "torture" and "not torture" seems beyond the comprehension of most conservatives. Or maybe people like the OP are being intellectually dishonest. I'll leave that for others to judge.

... adding "we take very seriously criminal fraud against the United States government."

Hey maybe there is some hope in bringing Barack Obama to justice concerning his fraudulent statements about Obamacare.

Hey maybe there is some hope in bringing George W Bush to justice concerning his fraudulent statements about Iraq War.

fixed!

Would we do this sort of thing in Europe? Canada? Even Latin America? I don't think that the host governments would put up with it, even if the person was a citizen of a different country. (At least since the practice came to light after 9/11.)

But Afghanistan is close to being a failed state. Moreover, we could do it without much outcry. So we did it. The extradition process (if there is one in Afghanistan) is too complicated and slow anyway, right?

In the Obama administration, they take bribing the wrong person very seriously.

I agree that this is not rendition, but it still seems like a very questionable way to treat an ordinary criminal suspect. Perhaps an unanticipated consequence of treating enemy combatants like criminal suspects is that law enforcement will start treating criminal suspects like enemy combatants. Something to keep in mind next time you are pulled over for speeding and the cop hoods you, strips you naked and takes your photograph.

one of many- I believe extradition presumes that the authority in the "perps" jurisdiction consents to the transfer. While the conditions in the 'stan make such a process unlikely- I'm not sure that "extradition" is a reasonable term for this type of action.

"ruuffles (mail) (www):

Hey maybe there is some hope in bringing George W Bush to justice concerning his fraudulent statements about Iraq War.

fixed!"

Relying on Clinton's CIA Director, Tony Blair, Chiraq, Putin and the UN.

FIXED

Rendition? Or extradiction? Sounds more like the latter...

And they did a body search. Folks, this is not exactly unknown for mere suspects (think TSA/airport at the extreme), never mind those actually arrested under court-issued warrant.

Earphones... dunno. Just to block sensory input, not good - but did they supply music, like the ones you use on commercial flights? Admittedly, a lot of music I would consider to be torture, especially hours on end. I've been known to (and gotten in minor trouble for) turn down/off speakers in the office...

Hooded. Now this I admit I can not immediately come up with much of a reason for, unless it was over-application of a standard developed for known-to-be-violent cases to forestall them watching for opportunities.

This was "rendition," insofar as U.S. agents made the arrest in another country and brought him back to the states. It was not "extraordinary rendition," however, as it did not involve an illegal transfer, as Afghanistan consented. If it were "extradition," then there would have been legal proceedings in Afghanistan to turn him over from Afghanistan to the United States.

JHA

The real problem is that he got a trial, isn't it? Had he simply been disappeared, it would have been ok.

Rendition for purposes of trial has a reasonable historical pedigree; rendition for purposes of torture was never practiced by the United States prior to the Bush administration.

The policy you are referring to began under Clinton:

Both the Reagan and Clinton cases involved apprehending known terrorists abroad, by covert means if necessary. The policy later expanded.

In a New Yorker interview with CIA veteran Michael Scheuer, an author of the rendition program under the Clinton administration, writer Jane Mayer noted, "In 1995, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt, making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally — including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea... 'What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian,' Scheuer said. 'It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.' Technically, U.S. law requires the CIA to seek 'assurances' from foreign governments that rendered suspects won’t be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was 'not sure' if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed." However, Scheuer testified before Congress that no such assurances were received. He further acknowledged that treatment of prisoners may not have been "up to U.S. standards." However, he stated,

This is a matter of no concern as the Rendition Program’s goal was to protect America, and the rendered fighters delivered to Middle Eastern governments are now either dead or in places from which they cannot harm America. Mission accomplished, as the saying goes.

Thereafter, with the approval of President Clinton and a presidential directive (PDD 39), the CIA instead elected to send suspects to Egypt, where they were turned over to the Egyptian Mukhabarat.

The policy you are referring to began under Clinton:

And it continues under Obama. According to the LA Times:

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States. [...] But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.

Is it a crime to pay bribes in Afghanistan? Can a contracting business in Afghanistan operate without bribery? And how is it a federal crime to [do some thing] in Afghanistan?

Ha, ha, it is to laugh. Bribery a crime in Afghanistan--bribery is a way of life in Afghanistan. The country ranks 176 out of 180 in Transparecy International's 2008 corruption rankings--just above Haiti, Iraq, Myannmar, and Somalia (the US ranked 18).

Bribery of a US public official (in this case a member of the US Army Corps of Engineers, acknowledging this was a sting) is a crime, and that is what Azar pled guilty to (here is the indictment). Or do you want to give a pass to corrupt US public officials because the corruption took place outside US territory?

Maybe you're the next Kiefer Sutherland, or maybe you're just another cowardly chickenhawk who gets off on torturing people.

Neither. Nor am I a charlatan who runs for president based on a set of acts being actually, literally evil, only to do those precise things once I got the job.

And I'm surely not a bootlick of that president, so desperate to affirm another grown man's infallibility and majesty that I lose all sense of reason.

Another thought on chickenhawks...

Our Commander-in-Chief is escalating a war in Afghanistan, overseeing another one in Iraq, lobbing missiles that kills civilians in Pakistan, and, apparently, roughing up bribery suspects with tactics I don't exactly recall him advocating this time last year. And he's left himself room in his renowned executive order to do whatever he wants to a terrorism suspect if he decides he *really* needs to.

How many days did he spend in the military?

Chickenhawk. And maybe a cowardly one who gets off on killing civilians and (almost, but not really, because he has a D after his name) torturing people.

A Lebanese citizen being held in a detention center [in Alexandria, VA] was hooded, stripped naked for photographs and bundled onto an executive jet by FBI agents in Afghanistan in April, making him the first known target of a rendition during the Obama administration.

I do believe just forcing a prisoner to listen to rap music or kept awake was considered torture under Bush.

My how the definition of torture has changed with the change in administrations. Who would have thought?

ShelbyC writes:"I'm not sure bribing govt folks should be a crime anyway. It's too dificult to seperate from extortion. Of course, accepting bribes should be a crime."

Accepting or demanding one is worse, but offering is still wrong and should be criminalized. That still has nothing to do with how the United States can 'extradite' and try a person from another country —for an offense committed in the other country.

The alleged jurisdiction is the 'eastern district of Virginia' where the electronic fund transfer ended up. Will we extend mutual extradition, shipping off US citizens to be executed for online insults to 'the prophet' that are viewed on a computer in some nation it is a crime?


one of many wrote:"...there was no rendition, no one was turned over to anyone else - the FBI took custody and retained custody. "

You are mistaking 'rendition' for 'extraordinary rendition', but the technical term shouldn't matter much. In either case, the FBI has no authority to arrest a non-American in a foreign nation for an act committed overseas.

JakeCollins wrote:"... Obama's civil liberties policies aren't much better than Bush, but at least he's not torturing people. This line between "torture" and "not torture" seems beyond the comprehension of most conservatives."

Obama's civil liberties policies are far worse. Many people held their noses while supporting Bush, believing it was repugnant-but-justified by saving American lives.

Under Obama we are doing worse, snatching foreign nationals for petty-cash related acts. No American lives were threated by these people, whose ‘sin’ isn't even recognized as wrong in much of the world.

The NY Times ran a series exposing and opposing Bush administration torture. Most techniques were designed to leave no physical damage: sensory deprivation from blindfolds or head bags, humiliation by nakedness, biochemical reactions from controlled hypothermia, weakness induced by withheld food, disorientation from repetitive loud noise, ad nauseum.

Two salient points. The Times relied on FBI informers, who supplied information about methods used at Guantanamo by other agencies. Both officially and unofficially, collectively and individually, the FBI and it’s agents condemned these methods. Now these are being represented as “standard operating procedures”. What a change; what an absolute, horrible reversal.

Then, all the coercive interrogation techniques were described as ‘torture’ by the media. Now there is a deafening silence when a petty-crime figure is covertly brutalized under a President who got elected on the promise to eliminate “secret authorization of brutal interrogations”. Like JakeCollins, partisan defender Kevin Drum tries to minimize the broken promise by twisting ‘brutal techniques’ into ‘waterboarding only’. The political left refuses to admit the nonexistent difference between ‘Bush torture’ and ‘Obama not-torture’ brutality and inhumane treatment.

There is a long, continuous trend toward prisoner maltreatment by America, expanding its empire, and incessant inflation of executive reach. Bush, Clinton, Bush, or Obama —the exact president is unimportant— the trend is deplorable.

If representative of policy, Azar’s case is a substantial expansion of reach, widened civil rights violations, and standardization of cruelty in interrogations.

I'm getting a clearer picture here- some approve (grudgingly or not) with "extraordinary rendition" to secretly capture and wisk terror suspects away to be properly interrogated outside of the light and the law, using at best questionable methods, and that's ok because it supposedly works, while openly capturing a suspected criminal using "rendition" and (gasp) giving him a trial, is bad somehow.

I do not understand how this case constitutes extraordinary rendition. A suspected criminal was extradited by Afghanistan to the US to face trial. He was mistreated in transit. It seems like an example of detainee abuse, but not extraordinary rendition. I've posted a longer analysis at .

I think it's important to distinguish these two problems - detainee abuse and rendition - because they involve different policy solutions.