extraordinary rendition aff - v1 - bgs

SDI 2005 BGS Lab EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION AFF

1

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION AFF

1AC............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 2 DEMOCRACY ADD-ON ....................................................................................................................................................................... 17 DEMOCRACY IMPACT EXTENTION (TERRORISM) ...................................................................................................................... 18 HUMAN RIGHTS ADD-ON .................................................................................................................................................................. 19 TORTURE............................................................................................................................................................................................... 21 RELATIONS LINKS .............................................................................................................................................................................. 25 RELATIONS IMPACTS......................................................................................................................................................................... 27 INTERNATIONAL LAW INTERNALS................................................................................................................................................ 30 INTERNATIONAL LAW IMPACTS..................................................................................................................................................... 33 SOFT POWER INTERNALS.................................................................................................................................................................. 36 SOFT POWER IMPACT......................................................................................................................................................................... 39 AUTHORITY T (AFF)............................................................................................................................................................................ 40 TERRORISM (AFF)................................................................................................................................................................................ 47 NARRATIVES........................................................................................................................................................................................ 51


2

1AC OBSERVATION 1: INHERENCY EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION IS INCREASING: DETAINING SUSPECTS WITH OUT CHARGE AND VIOLATING INTERNATIONAL LAW Jane Mayer, 2/14/2005, “Outsourcing Torture”, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6 Rendition was originally carried out on a limited basis, but after September 11th, when President Bush declared a global war on terrorism, the program expanded beyond recognition—becoming, according to a former C.I.A. official, “an abomination.” What began as a program aimed at a small, discrete set of suspects—people against whom there were outstanding foreign arrest warrants—came to include a wide and ill-defined population that the Administration terms “illegal enemy combatants.” Many of them have never been publicly charged with any crime. Scott Horton, an expert on international law who helped prepare a report on renditions issued by N.Y.U. Law School and the New York City Bar Association, estimates that a hundred and fifty people have been rendered since 2001. Representative Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, said that a more precise number was impossible to obtain. “I’ve asked people at the C.I.A. for numbers,” he said. “They refuse to answer. All they will say is that they’re in compliance with the law.”Although the full scope of the extraordinary-rendition program isn’t known, several recent cases have come to light that may well violate U.S. law. In 1998, Congress passed legislation declaring that it is “the policy of the United States not to expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether the person is physically present in the United States.” The Bush Administration, however, has argued that the threat posed by stateless terrorists who draw no distinction between military and civilian targets is so dire that it requires tough new rules of engagement. This shift in perspective, labelled the New Paradigm in a memo written by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, “places a high premium on . . . the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians,” giving less weight to the rights of suspects. It also questions many international laws of war


3

ADVANTAGE 1: TORTURE EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION USES TORTURE AS A FORM OF INTEROGATION Jane Mayer, 2/14/2005, “Outsourcing Torture”, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6Arar is suing the U.S. government for his mistreatment. “They are outsourcing torture because they know it’s illegal,” he said. “Why, if they have suspicions, don’t they question people within the boundary of the law?” Rendition was originally carried out on a limited basis, but after September 11th, when President Bush declared a global war on terrorism, the program expanded beyond recognition—becoming, according to a former C.I.A. official, “an abomination.” What began as a program aimed at a small, discrete set of suspects—people against whom there were outstanding foreign arrest warrants—came to include a wide and ill-defined population that the Administration terms “illegal enemy combatants.” Many of them have never been publicly charged with any crime. Scott Horton, an expert on international law who helped prepare a report on renditions issued by N.Y.U. Law School and the New York City Bar Association, estimates that a hundred and fifty people have been rendered since 2001. Representative Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, said that a more precise number was impossible to obtain. “I’ve asked people at the C.I.A. for numbers,” he said. “They refuse to answer. All they will say is that they’re in compliance with the law.” Although the full scope of the extraordinary-rendition program isn’t known, several recent cases have come to light that may well violate U.S. law. In 1998, Congress passed legislation declaring that it is “the policy of the United States not to expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether the person is physically present in the United States.” The Bush Administration, however, has argued that the threat posed by stateless terrorists who draw no distinction between military and civilian targets is so dire that it requires tough new rules of engagement. This shift in perspective, labelled the New Paradigm in a memo written by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, “places a high premium on . . . the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians,” giving less weight to the rights of suspects. It also questions many international laws of war. Five days after Al Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vice-President Dick Cheney, reflecting the new outlook, argued, on “Meet the Press,” that the government needed to “work through, sort of, the dark side.” Cheney went on, “A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world these folks operate in. And so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.The extraordinary-rendition program bears little relation to the system of due process afforded suspects in crimes in America. Terrorism suspects in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have often been abducted by hooded or masked American agents, then forced onto a Gulfstream V jet, like the one described by Arar. This jet, which has been registered to a series of dummy American corporations, such as Bayard Foreign Marketing, of Portland, Oregon, has clearance to land at U.S. military bases. Upon arriving in foreign countries, rendered suspects often vanish. Detainees are not provided with lawyers, and many families are not informed of their whereabouts.The most common destinations for rendered suspects are Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan, all of which have been cited for human-rights violations by the State Department, and are known to torture suspects. To justify sending detainees to these countries, the Administration appears to be relying on a very fine reading of an imprecise clause in the United Nations Convention Against Torture (which the U.S. ratified in 1994), requiring “substantial grounds for believing” that a detainee will be tortured abroad. Martin Lederman, a lawyer who left the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2002, after eight years, says, “The Convention only applies when you know a suspect is more likely than not to be tortured, but what if you kind of know? That’s not enough. So there are ways to get around it.”

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6


4

THE USE OF TORTURE ON EXTRAORDINARILY RENDERED SUSPECTS IS NOT ONLY LIKELY BUT INEVITABLE WITHOUT A BAN Lynda Hurst – July 2 , 2005 nd (Writer for the Toronto Star; Saturday; Island Paradise or Torture Chamber; News; Pg. A01)

Despite the contention of many specialists that torture doesn't yield valuable evidence, Pike says the agency firmly believes in "hostile interrogation." "It would be nice," he says, "to think that torture was inhumane, illegal and ineffective, but the dilemma is, it is effective. The CIA knows that from past experience." Because the agency operates outside the law, doing what the government doesn't want to be publicly associated with, "it isn't bound by international treaties," says Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. The White House has said it doesn't consider that the "unlawful combatants" in the war on terror (now referred to as "security detainees") are covered by the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, which prohibits "violence to life and person, cruel treatment and torture." But critics point out the convention also states "no one in enemy hands can fall outside the law." Moreover, they say the U.S. is also bound by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it ratified a decade ago. The covenant prohibits incommunicado detention, requires that detention centres be officially recognized, that identities be registered, that families be told of the detention and that the times and places of all interrogations and names of those present be documented. None of these provisions is being met with the ghost prisoners, says David Danzig, spokesman for Human Rights First, a legal advocacy group that has produced two reports on U.S. treatment of suspects, both those in the military system and the unacknowledged phantom system. Danzig says the International Red Cross has a list of 36 individuals, almost exclusively high-value detainees, that the U.S. admits it is holding but will not say where. "But our conversations with government officials, former detainees and others suggest it's safe to say hundreds, probably thousands, is more accurate for the number of people being held in secret." Among them, it's claimed, are three top Al Qaeda lieutenants: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (who Pike believes is being held on Diego Garcia), Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaida. The Southeast Asian terrorist Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, is also one of the disappeared, according to Danzig's organization and another advocacy groups. They have little doubt the secrecy surrounding their detention makes the use of torture "not only likely, but inevitable."


5

TORTURE DEHUMANIZES ALL WHO ARE AROUND IT. Morris- 2004 (Rev. Fred Morris, Executive Director for the Florida Council of Churches and Director for Latin American and Caribbean Relations, The National Council of Churches of Christ of the USA, “School of the Americas” September 11, 2004, http://www.ccmep.org/2004_articles/general/091104_morris.htm) Torture brutalizes and dehumanizes not only those who are tortured but those who torture, those who are intimidated by the torture of others, and those who try to ignore the fact that torture exists. "It dehumanizes those who are tortured by treating them as less than human and, in many cases, by forcing them into less-than-human feelings and often into less-than-human acts. If one is forced to betray friends, companions and family through torture, as many are, the psychological and spiritual damage may be irreparable, quite apart from the permanent physical damage that often results."It dehumanizes those who torture. In addition to the psychopathology induced and encouraged in those who practice torture, persons and governments who resort to torture, for whatever motives, betray their social contract with their fellow humans and effectively secede from the human community. "It dehumanizes those who are intimidated. Churchmen who cease to proclaim the gospel in its fullness out of fear; students who cease to make the search for truth their vocation out of fear; journalists who give the public less than the truth for fear of reprisal; workers who, through fear of repression, are not allowed to organize to defend their interests; politicians who can only rubber-stamp authoritarian proposals from dictatorial regimes, for fear of the consequences of more independent, conscience-led actions—all these and in fact the whole community of man share in the dehumanization caused by torture. "Torture dehumanizes those who try to ignore it, saying it is an "internal affair" or a passing phase. Such indifference dries up the wellsprings of human sympathy and compassion and breaks the social contract of the world community to be concerned for the whole family of man. Civilizatin and freedom are not built, and cannot be maintained, by those who assume the posture of indifference."


6

DEHUMANIZATION OUTWEIGHS ALL David Berube – 1997 (Professor of communications at South Carolina; Ph.D. in Communications; “Nanotechnological Prolongevity: The Down Side”; NanoTechnology Magazine; June/July 1997; p. 1-6; accessed at http://www.cla.sc.edu/ENGL/faculty/berube/prolong.htm) Assuming we are able to predict who or what are optimized humans, this entire resultant worldview smacks of eugenics and Nazi racial science. This would involve valuing people as means. Moreover, there would always be a superhuman more super than the current ones, humans would never be able to escape their treatment as means to an always further and distant end. This means-ends dispute is at the core of Montagu and Matson's treatise on the dehumanization of humanity. They warn: "its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record -- and its potential danger to the quality of life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.... Behind the genocide of the holocaust lay a dehumanized thought; beneath the menticide of deviants and dissidents... in the cuckoo's next of America, lies a dehumanized image of man... (Montagu & Matson, 1983, p. xi-xii). While it may never be possible to quantify the impact dehumanizing ethics may have had on humanity, it is safe to conclude the foundations of humanness offer great opportunities which would be foregone. When we calculate the actual losses and the virtual benefits, we approach a nearly inestimable value greater than any tools which we can currently use to measure it. Dehumanization is nuclear war, environmental apocalypse, and international genocide. When people become things, they become dispensable. When people are dispensable, any and every atrocity can be justified. Once justified, they seem to be inevitable for every epoch has evil and dehumanization is evil's most powerful weapon.


7

ADVANTAGE 2: RELATIONS EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION KILLS US-ITALIAN RELATIONS Dilanian 2005 (Ken, staff writer for the Knight Ridder, “Further strain on Italy’s U.S. ties,” Knight Ridder, July 1, http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/12031781.htm, viewed 7-13-05) The episode threatens to blossom into a full-fledged political crisis for the Italian government, worsen U.S.-Italian relations -- already frayed over the shooting death earlier this year of an Italian secret-service agent by American soldiers in Iraq -- and unmask the identities of CIA operatives, some of whom may still be working undercover.It's also illuminated the growing U.S. use since the Sept. 11 attacks of what the CIA calls ``extraordinary renditions,'' forcible transfers of suspects to third countries, often to nations known to practice torture. RENIDTION IS THE STRAW THAT BREAKS THE CAMEL’S BACK FOR US-ITALY RELATIONS Newsday – July 5, 2005 (New York; Marie Cocco; OPINION; Pg. A28; Flouting our Founding Father’s ideals)

In this time of celebrating our Independence Day, the Italians are showing us up. Not with their food or fine design, but with their insistence on keeping faith with the rule of law. The latest row between the United States and our close ally is a furor over the CIA's apparent abduction of a Muslim cleric and alleged terror suspect from a Milan street two years ago. The seizure of Hussan Mustafa Osama Nasr was carried out by 13 American intelligence operatives who whisked the radical off to Egypt, where he allegedly has been tortured. Italian authorities already had the cleric under surveillance. Prosecutors say they were on the verge of arresting Nasr and penetrating his network when he was kidnapped. An Italian judge now has issued warrants for the arrest of the 13 abductors, though no one really believes these secret agents with fake identities will be tracked down. A storm rises over whether any Italian officials had foreknowledge of the operation. The noise is a diversion from the deeper scandal. The caper, known as an "extraordinary rendition," is one more example of contempt for the law that has taken hold of our own nation since 9/11.


8

US-ITALY RELATIONS KEY TO BALKAN POWER PROJECTION Daalder and O’Hanlon 2000 (Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O'Hanlon, senior fellows at the Brookings Institution, Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2000) All this shows that, in Bosnia and Kosovo today, European countries are doing their share. Complaints about the United States doing too much, and the allies falling short, are not backed up by the facts. On the most important question concerning the deployment of military forces into the region, there is no question that the allies are doing all that should be required of them. By whatever measure one uses -- troops as a percent of population, troops as a percent of gross domestic product, raw numbers of deployed personnel, or budgetary costs of the operation -- the allies not only do more, they do far more, than we do.�To be sure, that is as it should be. The United States provided most of the firepower in winning last spring's . It flew 60 percent of all combat sorties and dropped 80 percent of all precision-guided munitions used in Operation Allied Force. The allies still flew 40 percent of all combat sorties, and key countries like Italy provided bases without which the war could not have been fought. Still, they did not do enough, and in the future they will have to do more. Moreover, looking around the world at places like Korea, Taiwan, and the Persian Gulf, the U.S. armed forces do much more than their fair share, and the European allies do not contribute enough, particularly in the Persian Gulf region, where their interests are every bit as great as America's.�But overall we have little to complain about in the Balkans. The Europeans have been spending about three times as much as the United States has for military operations and economic support over the past decade. They suffered dozens killed during the UN mission in Bosnia early in the 1990s, while we stayed out. They are doing most of the work to keep the peace in the region today. Finally, although all NATO troops in the Balkans are performing well, the Europeans are doing at least as well as the Americans. Most are not eschewing difficult and dangerous situations -- as the Pentagon leadership has sometimes required U.S. troops to do out of excessive, and counterproductive, fear of casualties.


9

BALKAN PROJECTION KEY TO GLOBAL LEADERSHIP AND PREVENTING MULTIPLE REGIONAL WARS Ian Lesser, Senior Political Scientist @ RAND, “NATO Looks South” 2000 (http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1126/MR1126.chap1.pdf) Second, and significantly in light of changes in NATO and U.S. strategy, the Mediterranean region plays a critical role in power projection to the Middle East, the periphery of Europe itself (e.g., the Balkans), as well as the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. The Mediterranean and Black Sea region is the logistical anteroom for power projection to the Gulf and the Caspian. Some 90 percent of the forces and materiel sent to the Gulf during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm went by way of the Mediterranean. Yet assumptions about access, overflight, and transit (e.g., use of the Suez Canal) for extra-European operations cannot be taken for granted. Expeditionary approaches to presence and power projection, especially in relation to air power, strongly reinforce the importance of understanding and managing security relationships around the Mediterranean. Third, the United States and its European allies share stakes in managing and coping with the consequences of specific crises on the southern periphery. In this respect, the area stretching from the Western Sahara to Central Asia and the Gulf, and the Mediterranean itself, contains an extraordinary number of flashpoints capable of imposing demands on Allied diplomacy and military power. Kosovo is only the latest example. Many of the most compelling problems for policymakers and planners on both sides of the Atlantic are to be found along this “arc of crisis.” Most NATO planning contingencies are within the Southern Region, and the majority could involve Turkey in one way or another. This broad area also offers critical opportunities for foreign and security policy, from a Cyprus settlement to the Middle East peace process, from rethinking relations with Iran to the development and transport of Caspian energy resources. All have the potential to affect European security and America’s role as a global power. The geopolitics of NATO’s southern periphery at the opening of the 21st century suggest a future dominated by security challenges that cut across traditional regional lines. European, Middle Eastern, and Eurasian security will be increasingly interwoven, with implications for the nature of risks facing the Alliance. The transregional character of the strategic environment will also imply new directions for strategy and the employment of military instruments. The United States and the U.S. Air Force will have to work with allies and others across the region in new ways, reflecting changing security agendas and strategies.


10

ADVANTAGE 3: LEADERSHIP EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION UNDERMINES LEADERSHIP, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW Grey, 2004 (Robert J. Grey Jr., President of the American Bar Association, September 30, 2004 Interview Text, www.house.gov/markey/Issues/ iss_human_rights_pr041005.pdf) The American Bar Association objects strongly to the inclusion of provisions authorizing "extraordinary rendition" in the House leadership's bill that purports to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. These provisions would permit secretly transferring terrorist suspects to foreign countries known to use torture in interrogating prisoners. Extraordinary rendition not only violates all basic humanitarian and human rights standards, but violates U.S. treaty obligations which make clear that the U.S. government cannot avoid its obligations under international law by having other nations conduct unlawful interrogations in its stead. This practice not only violates our own cherished principles as a nation but also works to undermine our moral leadership in the eyes of the rest of the world. Rejecting extraordinary rendition will demonstrate our respect for the rule of law and help protect American troops who may be detained by adversaries who may be disinclined to honor international obligations in light of the U.S. government's failure to honor its own.”


11

US LEADERSHIP IF KEY TO SOLVING CONFLICTS INCLUDING WAR WITH INDIA AND PAKISTAN AND KOREA Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, Sept. 12, 1995, Ever Vigilant in the Asia-Pacific Region, Volume 10, Number 87, http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/1995/s19950912-perry.html Structures imply formal organizations, including shared commitments to a common defense plan. During the Cold War, we saw such a structure -- NATO -- come into being in Europe. But the impetus for such a security structure was missing from the Asia-Pacific region during the Cold War and is still missing. Instead, it is evident that protection of our interests must rely on U.S. leadership. The best way to prevent or deter conflict is for the U.S. to remain fully engaged in its leadership role by maintaining our forward presence, reinforcing alliances, developing bilateral and multilateral relationships and by developing dialogues that promote confidence- and security-building measures.The biggest challenge to this strategy that we face today is on the Korean Peninsula, where North Korea is a clear security threat to the region. North Korea spends 25 percent of its GNP [gross national product] on the military, compared to 3 percent in the U.S. and South Korea, and 1 percent in Japan. Its army stands at 1 million men, two-thirds of it within 100 kilometers of the DMZ [demilitarized zone]. And it has missiles deployed or under test that can target all of South Korea and Japan.The good news is that our traditional alliance with South Korea remains strong and is getting stronger. We saw just how close our two countries have become when our presidents unveiled the Korean War Veterans Memorial on the National Mall this past summer. The unveiling was testament to the roots of our friendship and to our longstanding commitment to freedom and democracy. This commitment continues to be tested by North Korea. In 1993, North Korea began threatening to withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty, to reprocess spent fuel rods from its nuclear reactor and to vastly expand its dangerous nuclear program. This would give it fuel for about five or six nuclear bombs right away and dozens more in the years to come.We took this threat so seriously that even at the risk of war, we were prepared to use sanctions against North Korea if they did not agree to stop the reprocessing. It was U.S. leadership and the resolve of our friends and allies which forced North Korea to back down and accept the framework agreement.The agreement goes a long way to keeping tensions on the Korean Peninsula at manageable levels, because it takes nuclear weapons out of the security equation. It also casts into bold relief another key security player in the region -- namely China. I happened to be visiting the Chinese minister of defense during the North Korean nuclear crisis. As it turned out, this crisis would show me just how compatible our interests are with China's. While I was there, I told the Chinese leadership that we saw the North Korean nuclear program as a serious danger to regional security. And they agreed. I told them that I thought the North Koreans were about to go ahead with reprocessing the nuclear fuel, and I asked them to use their influence with the North Koreans. This was on a Monday. On Tuesday, the North Koreans agreed to halt their program, and in the end they met our terms. It is not clear to me what specific influence the Chinese had. What is clear to me is that on this and other important security issues, China sees our two sets of interests as compatible.That is why we need to constructively engage with China. We will not ignore China's record on human rights nor its sale and testing of dangerous weapons. But we will also not try to isolate China over these issues. We cannot isolate the world's largest population, one of the world's largest and fastest growing economies, a strong military force in the region and the world, and a nation that borders areas of instability where our interests are very much at stake. There is a lot to gain from engaging with China. Through engagement we can address a broad range of global and regional security concerns. Our military-to-military contacts put us in touch with the highest levels of the PLA [People's Liberation Army], who have great influence in China. And by working to improve relations with China, we are also working to reduce tensions between the three great powers on the Asian continent -- China, India and Pakistan. The relationship between these three powers has long been one of fear and mistrust. While India worries about the threat from Pakistan, it also keeps a strong force because it feels threatened by China. And Pakistan keeps a strong force as a deterrent against India's forces. What makes this tension truly worrisome is the potential for nuclear weapons use in the event of a conflict. Our relations with China are crucial in reducing tensions between these three regional powers.


12

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS BREAKS INTERNATIONAL LAW Association of the Bar of the City of New York & Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to “Extraordinary Renditions,” (New York: ABCNY & NYU School of Law, 2004). http://www.nyuhr.org/docs/TortureByProxy.pdf The United States is party to international human rights and humanitarian law treaties that prohibit both torture and the transfer of individuals to states where they are in danger or at risk of torture. Specifically, the United States is a party to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,167 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,168 the Geneva Conventions of 1949,169 and the Refugee Convention of 1951.170 Each treaty prohibits torture, a prohibition that has become a non-derogable norm under international law. To varying degrees, the treaties also prohibit cruel, inhuman, or degrading (CID) treatment; the differences among the treaties reflect the open-textured nature of the definition of CID treatment. Either directly or indirectly (i.e., through the jurisprudence or commentary of courts or treaty or regional bodies charged with interpreting a particular treaty), each of these treaties includes another norm: the prohibition against the refoulement, or transfer, of an individual to another state where that individual faces the danger or risk of torture. Although these treaties may differ in their particulars, together with customary international law, they prohibit (and, in some instances, require the United States to criminalize) each of the different examples of Extraordinary Renditions described in Section IV.A. of this Report. INTERNATIONAL LAW PREVENTS NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WAR, DISEASE SPREAD, AND TERRORISM DPJ 05 Democratic Party of Japan, "Toward Realization of Enlightened National Interest," May 18 http://www.dpj.or.jp/vision/vision-e/document.html In this global era threats are characterized by their diversity. Some of the major threats of today include: (1) war between nation states; (2) civil war, violation of human rights, and massacres; (3) poverty, epidemics, and environmental degradation; (4) nuclear and radio active weapons, chemical weapons, and biological weapons; (5) terrorism; (6) cross-border organized crime; and (7) deterioration of the rule of law and democracy. Another characteristic of today's global threats is that they simultaneously jeopardize the security of nation-states, societies, and individuals. For example, poverty-stricken people in developing countries are also threatened by environmental degradation and infectious diseases. When a war breaks out, financial and human resources are removed from the fight against poverty and environmental devastation, further worsening the living conditions of those people. If the rule of law and democracy are undermined, lawless lands may provide safe havens to terrorists and international organized crime. To effectively counter these multiple and simultaneous threats, we need to grasp the situation in a global perspective and construct and apply comprehensive measures.

http://www.dpj.or.jp/vision/vision-e/document.html


13

PLAN THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, THROUGH THE SUPREME COURT, IN ORDER TO DECREASE ITS AUTHORITY TO DETAIN WISTHOUT CHARGE BY RULING UPON THE NEXT AVALIABLE TEST CASE THAT EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION SHOULD BE BANNED ON THE GROUNDS THAT IT VIOLATES OUR TREATY OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE GENEVA CONVENTION. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CLARIFY.


14

SOLVENCY PLAN SOLVES LEADERSHIP AND INTERNATIONAL LAW DISENTIGRATION BY INCREASING OUR MORAL CLOUT Robert J. Grey Jr. – Sept. 30, 2004 (Chicago, U.S. Newswire; The America’s Intelligence Wire; President of American Bar Association)

The American Bar Association objects strongly to the inclusion of provisions authorizing "extraordinary rendition" in the House leadership's bill that purports to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. These provisions would permit secretly transferring terrorist suspects to foreign countries known to use torture in interrogating prisoners. Extraordinary rendition not only violates all basic humanitarian and human rights standards, but violates U.S. treaty obligations which make clear that the U.S. government cannot avoid its obligations under international law by having other nations conduct unlawful interrogations in its stead. This practice not only violates our own cherished principles as a nation but also works to undermine our moral leadership in the eyes of the rest of the world. Rejecting extraordinary rendition will demonstrate our respect for the rule of law and help protect American troops who may be detained by adversaries who may be disinclined to honor international obligations in light of the U.S. government's failure to honor its own.

THE SUPREME COURT WILL ULTIMATELY DECIDE THE ISSUE OF EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION. Danielle Knight, reporter and B.A. in International Studies/Environmental Studies from Antioch College, May 23, 2005, US News and World Report, Vol.138, Iss. 19, pg. 34 Assurances may have value, but even Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has acknowledged that Washington "can't fully control" what happens to detainees transferred abroad for interrogation. CIA Director Porter Goss agreed, testifying earlier this year that once a terror suspect is out of American control, "there's only so much we can do." That may be true for some of the countries to which terrorism suspects have been rendered since 9/11, including Uzbekistan, Syria, and Egypt. The State Department has reported patterns of torture and abuse of prisoners in all three places. "Governments that engage in torture," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, "always try to hide what they're doing, so their 'assurances' on torture can never be trusted."Senate Democrats have called for a formal review of the rendition program. But Republicans on the intelligence committee say that's unnecessary because the CIA's inspector general is investigating the matter. With so many thorny issues, many legal experts believe the issue will wind up before the Supreme Court. "This will be a long-term struggle," says Kim Lane Scheppele, who teaches constitutional and national security law at the University of Pennsylvania. "And these issues will be the big issues of our time."


15

THE SUPREME COURT SHOULD BAN EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION BY RULING THAT IT VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL LAW Danielle Knight, “Outsourcing a real nasty job” US News & World Report, 5/23/05 (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050523/23rend.htm) Despite such arguments, there are sound legal bases to challenge the rendition program. Perhaps the strongest is the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The treaty was ratified by the United States in 1994 and later codified into federal law. The convention specifically prohibits transferring a legal detainee abroad if there are "substantial grounds for believing" that he or she will be subjected to torture there. Even here, though, certainty is elusive. Some legal experts say the convention is applicable only if it can be proved that it is "more likely than not" that a suspect will be tortured if he is sent to a specific country. "It's true, by definition, that extraordinary rendition is unlawful," says Joseph Margulies, the lead counsel in one of the Guantanamo Bay detainee cases heard before the Supreme Court last year. "The question is whether that illegality can be addressed in court . . . because the claims themselves are subject to a myriad of procedural defenses that are being raised by the government." Promises, promises. The administration says it is in compliance with the convention because of its practice of seeking diplomatic promises that suspects sent abroad won't be tortured. "We seek assurances," said President Bush, who has declared that torture is never acceptable, "that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home country." Assurances may have value, but even Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has acknowledged that Washington "can't fully control" what happens to detainees transferred abroad for interrogation. CIA Director Porter Goss agreed, testifying earlier this year that once a terror suspect is out of American control, "there's only so much we can do." That may be true for some of the countries to which terrorism suspects have been rendered since 9/11, including Uzbekistan, Syria, and Egypt. The State Department has reported patterns of torture and abuse of prisoners in all three places. "Governments that engage in torture," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, "always try to hide what they're doing, so their 'assurances' on torture can never be trusted." Senate Democrats have called for a formal review of the rendition program. But Republicans on the intelligence committee say that's unnecessary because the CIA's inspector general is investigating the matter. With so many thorny issues, many legal experts believe the issue will wind up before the Supreme Court. "This will be a long-term struggle," says Kim Lane Scheppele, who teaches constitutional and national security law at the University of Pennsylvania. "And these issues will be the big issues of our time."

http://timinthq.com/?go=home&url1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usnews.com%2Fusnews%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F050523%2F23rend_2.htm


16

THE JUDICIARY CAN INTERPRET ACTIONS AS VIOLATING TREATY OBLIGATIONS Glashausser, Alex (Associate Professor of Law, Washburn University School of Law. B.A., 1990, Harvard University; J.D., 1995, Duke University School of Law) “Difference and Deference in Treaty Interpretation” Villanova Law Review, 2005 Despite the potential unreliability of the United States, many nations choose to enter treaties with it. When they do, they create a relationship between sovereigns that is governed by international law. The resulting obligation on the executive branch of the U.S. government is separate from its domestic duties. That obligation does not bind the judiciary.��The basic responsibility of the federal government is to manage the country according to the Constitution, which bestows authority on it. "We the People" are the beneficiaries of that obligation. The role of the judiciary branch as part of that government is to decide various cases and controversies, including those arising under federal law. Under the Constitution, federal law includes treaties, n115 and as the Supreme Court has proclaimed, "international law is part of our law." n116 Thus, courts have a constitutional obligation to interpret and apply self-executing treaties. n117 But in the United States, international law, including that in treaties, [*50] is not superior to the Constitution. n118 To the extent that a treaty violates the Constitution directly or is superseded by later federal law, courts must not enforce it; their paramount allegiance is to the Constitution.��When the government, through the executive branch, enters into a treaty, it incurs an additional, extraconstitutional obligation. The treaty presumably will benefit "We the People," but we are only indirect beneficiaries. The principal obligee is the other nation. Regardless of what "We the People" do domestically that might impair that obligation - including the acts of courts or legislatures n119 or states or private citizens - the international responsibility of the United States remains. n120 Under international law, internal affairs generally do not excuse treaty violations. n12


17

DEMOCRACY ADD-ON THE US’S OWN VIOLATION OF THE COURT SYSTEM UNDERMINES THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY Tim Naftali – June 30, 2005 (writer for Slate; accessed at http://slate.msn.com/id/2121801/; Milan Snatch: Extraordinary Rendition comes back to bite the Bush administration)

But after years of ineffective counterterrorism operations, the U.S. government was eager to strike back. In 1984 and 1986, during a wave of terrorist attacks, Congress passed laws making air piracy and attacks on Americans abroad federal crimes. Ronald Reagan added teeth to these laws by signing a secret covert-action directive in 1986 that authorized the CIA to kidnap, anywhere abroad, foreigners wanted for terrorism. A new word entered the dictionary of U.S. foreign relations: rendition. The goal of the early renditions was to ensure that terrorists understood that they could not escape their day in U.S. court. But since launching its war on terror, the administration of George W. Bush has expanded the practice to "extraordinary rendition," which includes kidnappings of foreign suspects so they can be turned over to authoritarian allies like Egypt for interrogation sessions that likely involve torture. Last week, when 13 CIA agents were charged with kidnapping by an Italian court, it became clear that an extraordinary rendition had taken place in a democracy in defiance of its independent judiciary—a development that undermines the U.S. crusade for democracy worldwide.

DEMOCRACY IS THE ONLY WAY TO PREVENT EXTINCTION Larry Diamond, 96, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/1.htm This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2121801/

http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/1.htm


18

DEMOCRACY IMPACT EXTENTION (TERRORISM) THE US’S VIOLATIONS OF DEMOCRACY, SELF-DETERMINATION, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES UNDERMINE ANY SUCCESS IN THE WAR ON TERROR Tim Naftali – June 30, 2005 (writer for Slate; accessed at http://slate.msn.com/id/2121801/; Milan Snatch: Extraordinary Rendition comes back to bite the Bush administration) The Nasr snatch fits this pattern. For whatever reason, the Berlusconi government wanted Washington to take this man off their hands. The problem was that the Italian judiciary and local police had already begun investigating Nasr and were not going to be told by Italian intelligence that he would be removed from the country. As a result, the U.S. found itself embroiled in a turf battle between Italy's intelligence service and its courts—and came out looking bad. In its enthusiasm for action, the Bush administration has undercut the above-board institutions of a democratic ally to spirit one alleged bad guy off to Egypt. The Milan operation is another sign of the tunnel vision limiting the Bush administration's success in defusing Islamic extremism. The challenge is to destroy the center of al-Qaida and its affiliates and to discourage other centers from forming. The latter goal involves consistently showing that we are the good guys—in other words, that we respect self-determination, democracy, and civil liberties.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2121801/


19

HUMAN RIGHTS ADD-ON EXTRODINARY RENDITION DESTROY’S HUMAN RIGHTS Laura Donohue, April 26, 2003, is a fellow with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and the author of "Counter-Terrorist Law and Emergency Powers in the United Kingdom 1922-2000" http://george.loper.org/~george/trends/2003/Apr/972.html It is sobering to realize that since Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has not only introduced equally draconian provisions, it has taken each of them a step further. Proponents argue that the country faces an unprecedented threat, and that it must adapt or

perish. But this underestimates the seriousness of threats posed to other states, such as Britain, and glosses over a key point: The United States is proceeding down a path that other countries have followed with deleterious effects, falsely assuming that any mistakes can easily be corrected.The erosion of individual rights carries significant domestic and foreign-relations consequences. Beyond this, a more fundamental question arises: Has America remained true to its founding principles?Consider presumption of innocence. In Northern Ireland, despite government denials, rumors of a "shoot to kill" policy in the 1980s and '90s severely discredited British security forces. In 1995 the European Court of Human Rights determined that Britain had used undue force in the killing of three Provisional IRA activists in Gibraltar seven years earlier -- a case that became a cause célèbre among Republican paramilitaries and damaged Britain's reputation as a protector of human rights. The Bush administration has not felt a comparable need to deny extrajudicial killing. An intelligence finding signed by the president in September 2001 authorized the CIA to assassinate suspected members of al Qaeda; officials subsequently drew up a list of targeted individuals, which can be expanded, although it is unclear how this is done. Bush proudly noted the agency's successes in his State of the Union speech in January. Like Britain, the United States is creating martyrs.Or take due process. In Northern Ireland, Britain's detention policy backfired. In August 1971, the government arrested 342 Catholic men, and by November nearly 1,000 people had been interned. The result? Rioting erupted across the province and energized the Republican movement, which was committed to using violence to create a united Ireland. The European Court later ruled that indefinite detention violated the European Convention of Human Rights. The British government had to argue special circumstances to justify even the seven-day detention power in the 1974 Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act. These powers eventually became subject to parliamentary oversight.Compare this with what has happened in the United States. On Sept. 20, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued an order authorizing him to detain foreign citizens for an unspecified amount of time "in the event of an emergency or other extraordinary circumstance" -- without congressional oversight. A second order on Oct. 31, 2001, empowered the INS to override an immigration judge's

order allowing an individual's release. For months the administration detained hundreds of unidentified Arab men, keeping many in solitary confinement. In December, Ashcroft issued an order extending to the FBI and the U.S. Marshals' Service the powers of "investigating, determining the location of, and apprehending any alien in violation of immigration law." That order went into effect on Feb. 28, 24 hours before the attorney general lost control of the INS to the Department of Homeland Security. Within hours of the start of the war in Iraq, the FBI utilized these powers to question and detain Iraqis in the United States.A year and a half after attacking Afghanistan, America continues to hold more than 600 men from 43 countries at Guantanamo Bay. The administration refuses to apply the Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda suspects or prisoner-of-war status either to them or to Taliban members. Britain's decision to intern suspected terrorists -- many of them British subjects protected by the Geneva Conventions -- led to a revitalized terrorist campaign and international condemnation. What will follow the Bush administration's decision to imprison citizens of countries that have specifically rejected indefinite detention? These detentions also leave room for severe abuse. U.S. officials acknowledge having used so-called "stress and duress" interrogation techniques in their attempts to gain information from captives. (In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights declared Britain's use of such techniques inhuman and degrading.) Last month, a U.S. military coroner's report stated that "blunt force trauma" contributed to the deaths of two men being interrogated in Afghanistan late last year by the CIA. And in December, The Washington Post reported on the CIA's use of "extraordinary rendition," the practice of turning detainees over to countries such as Morocco, Egypt and Jordan that do not shrink from torturing suspects to gain information. Such actions alienate allied and non-allied states at a time when America most needs international support.And what about the right to a fair trial, the right to legal counsel and the right to face one's accusers?


20

EVERY INVASION OF FREEDOM MUST BE REJECTED Petro 74 [Professor of Law @ Wake Forest University. University of Toledo Law Review Spring 1974, page. 480] However, one may still insist, echoing Ernest Hemingway—“I believe in only one thing: liberty”. And it is always well to bear in mind David Hume’s observation: “It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Thus, it is unacceptable to say that the invasion of one aspect of freedom is of no import because there have been invasions of so many other aspects. That road leads to chaos, tyranny, despotism and the end of all human aspiration. Ask Solzhenistyn. Ask Milovan Djilas. In sum, if one believes in freedom as a supreme value and the proper ordering principle for any society aiming to maximize spiritual and material welfare, then every invasion of freedom must be emphatically identified and resisted with undying spirit.


21

TORTURE

DIPLOMATIC ASSURANCES FAIL TO HALT THE TORTURE Human Rights Watch, “Outsourcing” Torture, 2004 , http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/torture/renditions.htm In many cases, governments, aware of the legal prohibition on sending suspects to such countries, seek written guarantees—so-called "diplomatic assurances"—from authorities in the country concerned that the suspect will not be tortured if transferred. A growing number of cases, detailed in the reports and briefings listed on this page, suggest that such guarantees are insufficient. There are important reasons why this is case. Security and police authorities in countries where torture is still practiced routinely (countries to which many suspected terrorists are sent) deny that torture occurs at all, making such assurances all but worthless. And the treatment of such suspects is almost impossible to monitor: torture is illegal and is practiced in secret, deep within the walls of closed detention facilities, with no opportunity for independent actors to keep an eye on how authorities are treating detainees. Indeed, torture has resulted even when the transferring government has insisted on written guarantees and the right to monitor suspects’ subsequent treatment. YOU HAVE A MORAL OBLIGATION TO REJECT TORTURE Fisher 2005 (William, Global Information Network, “Rights: Rendition, or Outsourcing Torture?” March 14, http://ezproxy.cl.msu.edu:2047/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=807480491&sid=11&Fmt=3&clientId=3552&RQT=309&VName=PQD, viewed 7-13-05) Markey's bill would require the State Department to annually compile a list of countries believed to torture and mistreat detainees and prohibits the United States from sending individuals to those countries. It also rejects current State Department practice of obtaining assurances from such countries that it will not torture a particular individual.Introducing the bill last week, Rep. Markey said, "Extraordinary rendition is wrong because it violates international treaties that the United States has signed and ratified, including most notably Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture, which prohibits sending a person to another state "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." Torture, Markey said, "is morally repugnant whether we do it or whether we ask another country to do it for us. It is morally wrong whether it captured on film or whether it goes on behind closed doors unannounced to the American people." The bill does permit legal, treaty-based extradition, in which suspects have the right to appeal in a U.S. court to block the proposed transfer based on the likelihood that they would be subjected to torture or other inhumane treatment


22

WE HAVE A MORAL OBLIGATION TO STOP THE TORTURE CAUSED BY THE IMMORAL PRACTICE OF EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION. Herbert 2005 ( Bob Herbert, Columnist for the New York Times, “It’s Called Torture,” February 8, 2005. http://peaceandjustice.org/article.php?story=2005022809372038&mode=print0) A Massachusetts congressman, Edward Markey, has taken the eminently sensible step of introducing legislation that would ban this utterly reprehensible practice. In a speech on the floor of the House, Mr. Markey, a Democrat, said: "Torture is morally repugnant whether we do it or whether we ask another country to do it for us. It is morally wrong whether it is captured on film or whether it goes on behind closed doors unannounced to the American people."�Unfortunately, the outlook for this legislation is not good. I asked Pete Jeffries, the communications director for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, if the speaker supported Mr. Markey's bill. After checking with the policy experts in his office, Mr. Jeffries called back and said: "The speaker does not support the Markey proposal. He believes that suspected terrorists should be sent back to their home countries."�Surprised, I asked why suspected terrorists should be sent anywhere. Why shouldn't they be held by the United States and prosecuted?�"Because," said Mr. Jeffries, "U.S. taxpayers should not necessarily be on the hook for their judicial and incarceration costs."�It was, perhaps, the most preposterous response to any question I've ever asked as a journalist. It was not by any means an accurate reflection of Bush administration policy. All it indicated was that the speaker's office does not understand this issue, and has not even bothered to take it seriously.�More important, it means that torture by proxy, close kin to contract murder, remains all right. Congressman Markey's bill is going nowhere. Extraordinary rendition lives.


23

THE MORAL OBLIGATION TO STOP TORTURE OUTWEIGHS ANY IMPACT. TORTURE DESTROYS NOT ONLY THE VICTIM, BUT ALSO THE TORTURER AS WELL. WHILE THE VICTIM IS BOUND HELPLESS AND ABUSED, THE TORTURER IS DEHUMANIZED. Schell, 2005 (Jonathan Schell is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute “What is Wrong with Torture,” January 20, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0120-25.htm) Torture is not wrong because someone else thinks it is wrong or because others, in retaliation for torture by Americans, may torture Americans. It is the torture that is wrong. Torture is wrong because it inflicts unspeakable pain upon the body of a fellow human being who is entirely at our mercy. The tortured person is bound and helpless. The torturer stands over him with his instruments. There is no question of "unilateral disarmament," because the victim bears no arms, lacking even the use of the two arms he was born with. The inequality is total. To abuse or kill a person in such a circumstance is as radical a denial of common humanity as is possible. It is repugnant to learn that one's country's military forces are engaging in torture. It is worse to learn that the torture is widespread. It is worse still to learn that the torture was rationalized and sanctioned in long memorandums written by people at the highest level of the government. But worst of all would be ratification of this record by a vote to confirm one of its chief authors to the highest legal office in the executive branch of the government. Torture destroys the soul of the torturer even as it destroys the body of his victim. The boundary between humane treatment of prisoners and torture is perhaps the clearest boundary in existence between civilization and barbarism. Whether the elected representatives of the people of the United States are now ready to cross that line is the deepest question before the Senate as it votes on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales. TORTURE FROM EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION IS NOT ONLY IMMORAL BUT ALSO COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. Ignatius, 2005 (David Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post, “ ‘Rendition’ Realities,” Wednesday, March 9, 2005. Page A21, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18709-2005Mar8.html) Torture is immoral and illegal, and the refusal to allow cruel interrogation techniques is one measure of a civilized society. But this ironclad moral argument doesn't necessarily apply to the practice known as "extraordinary rendition." Rendition is the CIA's antiseptic term for its practice of sending captured terrorist suspects to other countries for interrogation. Because some of those countries torture prisoners -- and because some of the suspected terrorists "rendered" by the CIA say they were in fact tortured -- the debate has tended to lump rendition and torture together. The implication is that the CIA is sending people to Egypt, Jordan or other Middle Eastern countries because they can be tortured there and coerced into providing information they wouldn't give up otherwise. The problem with this argument is that it assumes that the CIA believes that torture works. But in 30 years of writing about intelligence, I've never encountered a spook who didn't realize that torture is usually counterproductive. Professional intelligence officers know that prisoners will confess to anything under intense pain. Information obtained through torture thus tends to be unreliable, in addition to being immoral.


24

THE TORTURE VICTIMS SUFFER FROM EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION IS EQUIVALENT TO THAT OF MURDER. Herbert 2005 ( Bob Herbert, Columnist foqr the New York Times, “It’s Called Torture,” February 8, 2005. http://peaceandjustice.org/article.php?story=2005022809372038&mode=print0) As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?�When I interviewed Maher Arar in Ottawa last week, it seemed clear that however thoughtful his comments, I was talking with the frightened, shaky successor of a once robust and fully functioning human being. Torture does that to a person. It's an unspeakable crime, an affront to one's humanity that can rob you of a portion of your being as surely as acid can destroy your flesh. TORTURE IS DEHUMANIZATION. Klein, 2005 (Naomi Klein, columnist for The Nation and an award-winning journalist and author of the international best-seller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, Klein was a Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics, May 12, 2005, http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050530&s=klein) This is torture's true purpose: to terrorize--not only the people in Guantánamo's cages and Syria's isolation cells but also, and more important, the broader community that hears about these abuses. Torture is a machine designed to break the will to resist--the individual prisoner's will and the collective will. This is not a controversial claim. In 2001 the US NGO Physicians for Human Rights published a manual on treating torture survivors that noted: "perpetrators often attempt to justify their acts of torture and ill treatment by the need to gather information. Such conceptualizations obscure the purpose of torture....The aim of torture is to dehumanize the victim, break his/her will, and at the same time, set horrific examples for those who come in contact with the victim. In this way, torture can break or damage the will and coherence of entire communities." TORTURE DESTROYS THE IMAGE OF THE SELF, DEHUMANIZING AND DESTROYING THE ENTIRE BODY. Spitz, 1989 (Shirley Spitz is a psychologist for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Recognition, “The Psychology of Torture,” May 17,1989, http://www.csvr.org.za/papers/papspitz.htm) The 1975 definition of torture included for the first time the aspect of mental pain and anguish. Just as physical torture destroys language through the creation of extreme physical pain, so mental torture destroys what one might term the central core of the individual, the Self. It is this Self that is the organizing function of our psychological world. The organizing structure of the psyche. Torture is thus not only a gross violation of the body, but also of the mind. Torture is a trauma that disturbs the adaptational functioning of the individual leading to pathological alteration in images of the Self and its interactions with the outside world. Torture is a gross violation of the Self.


25

RELATIONS LINKS EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION HAS NO BENEFIT AND WILL CRUSH FUTURE RELATIONS WITH ITALY The Washington Post – July 3, 2005 (Sunday Final Edition; Editorial; B06; A Roman Mess)

It is not known, and may never be, what benefit to U.S. security resulted from the reported CIA seizure of a radical Egyptian cleric on a street in Milan in 2003 and his delivery to Cairo for detention in an Egyptian prison. But the price of the extraordinary operation is all too apparent: from the more than $100,000 some 18 operatives allegedly blew on luxury hotels to the kidnapping charges an Italian prosecutor has brought against 13 of them, to the understandable uproar in Italy and the damage it could cause to future Italian-American cooperation in the war on terrorism. Was the sudden disappearance of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr and any intelligence it yielded -- allegedly under torture so severe that he lost hearing in one ear -- worth it? It's hard to believe so, especially since Italian authorities are telling journalists that the Bush administration had an workable alternative to its lawless behavior: allowing the security services of a close NATO ally to complete their own legal operation against Mr. Nasr and his associates.

E.R. DESTROYS RELATIONS WITH NEEDED ALLIES Charles M. Sennott – July 3, 2005 (writer for the Boston Globe Staff; National/Foreign; Pg. A9; Sunday Third Addition; Globe correspondent Sarah Liebowitz in London contributed to the report)

The international fallout from the apparent CIA abduction of an Islamic militant cleric off the streets of Milan highlights the potential for such tactics to heighten friction between the United States and its European allies. The issue is how to wage the fight against terrorism. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi summoned the US ambassador, Mel Sembler, on Friday. He demanded that the United States show "full respect" for Italy's sovereignty. Berlusconi, a key ally of President Bush on the Iraq war despite its unpopularity in Italy and in much of Europe, called on the United States to explain the kidnapping of the Egyptian cleric in Milan, just one month before the United States launched its invasion of Iraq in March 2003. European intelligence officials, Western diplomats, and specialists on terrorism say the brazen operation whether it had approval from a level of Italian intelligence or not has focused a harsh European spotlight on a dark corner of the US antiterrorism campaign. The CIA's increasing use of "extraordinary renditions," in which US authorities abduct terrorism suspects and transfer them to third countries that are known to use torture, has inflamed passions across Europe among human rights activists and the intelligence community. It has raised concern that such tactics not only flout international law, but that they may also ultimately undercut much-needed cooperation between the United States and its European allies. Tom Parker, a senior official in the British government's counter-terrorism operations in the 1990s who has subsequently worked in counterterrorism and international law for the United Nations, said: "There is no doubt that this incident in Milan and others like it in other cities in Europe will undercut cooperation between governments and the US."

RENDITION ANGERS ITALY AND RISKS CRUSHING RELATIONS Voice of America 2005 (“Arrest Warrants for CIA Operatives Could Strain US-Italian Relations,” June 30, http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-06-30-voa40.cfm, viewed 7-13-05) Relations between Italy and the United States are being tested after arrest warrants were issued last week for 13 CIA operatives suspected of abducting an Egyptian terror suspect. But the Washington Post newspaper is now reporting that some Italian officials were aware of the operation. The work of Italian investigators has brought to light extensive information about what prosecutors say was a CIA operation of "extraordinary rendition" carried out in Milan in 2003. The man abducted was Osama Mousafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, an Egyptian believed to have Islamic terrorist links.


26

RENDITIONS ARE CRUSHING EUROPEAN RELATIONS, ITALY PROVES Contenta, Sandro “Rome Goes Public with ‘Transfer to Torture’ Case” The Toronto Star, July 3, 2005 �An Italian judge issued warrants for the arrest of 13 CIA operatives on charges of kidnapping Omar, whose full name is Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian-born cleric with refugee status in Italy.��It's the first time a foreign country has tried to prosecute American agents for their alleged role in a "transfer to torture," as some international law experts describe the program.��Legal observers say it's unlikely U.S. authorities will ever allow the agents to be extradited for trial in Italy. But the charges indicate the extent to which U.S. anti-terrorism tactics are alienating allies in Europe. Says Meg Satterthwaite, research director at the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice in New York, which has published two recent reports on rendition: "The American rallying cry is that all states should work together to end terrorism. But if you're calling for international co-operation on the one hand and abducting people on the other, it just doesn't make sense."��Italian opposition Senator Tana de Zulueta says the White House is on a collision course with European attempts to thwart terror suspects through increased police information-sharing across borders.��"The U.S. government is on a completely different wavelength," she says. "They're actually taking combat techniques to the streets of Europe."


27

RELATIONS IMPACTS US-ITALY RELATIONS ARE KEY TO ACCESS TO ITALIAN BASES Alise Frye, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 9-24-2002 (http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/Archive/P.20020924.CSBA_Releases_Repo/P.20020924.CSBA_Releases_Repo.htm) Focusing on theater bases for land-based aircraft, Dr. Bowie suggests that, over the long run, the increasing difficulties raised by political factors, base infrastructure, and emerging military threats could significantly constrain US power-projection operations overseas. During Operation Enduring Freedom (October to December 2001,) a lack of developed infrastructure limited land-based fighter aircraft involvement in the fight. Air Force fighters delivered only 10 percent of the munitions used while heavy bombers provided approximately 70 percent and carrier-based aircraft dropped the other 20 percent. Political access issues are also a significant problem. Although the United States has powerful tools to help gain support, allies can withhold access or hold it hostage to influence US action, such as Italy did in 1999 during combat against Serbia. Similar problems are currently affecting the US buildup in the Persian Gulf. ACCESS TO ITALIAN BASES CRUCIAL FOR POWER PROJECTION Defense Link, Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense, March 1999 (http://www.dod.gov/pubs/allied_contrib2002/02-Chptr2/02-Chptr_2tx.html) Italy contributes actively to our security partnership, both through NATO and bilaterally. Italy is a major staging and logistics base for operations in and beyond the immediate region. Italy hosts U.S. forces and contributes significantly to United States power projection capability. NATO air bases in Italy, for example, were essential in the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia during the 1999 Kosovo crisis, and continue to provide essential staging and transportation points for NATO peacekeeping missions in the Balkans.


28

US-ITALY RELATIONS ARE CRUCIAL TO SOLVE GLOBAL WARMING Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs and Head of the U.S. Delegation to COP-9, “U.S.-Italy Cooperation on Climate Change” December 11, 2003 (http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2003/Dec/12-93318.html) The Italy-U.S. partnership is a very important part of the Bush Administration's international effort on climate change, and the drive to develop cleaner energy technologies that we believe are key to addressing climate change in a way that protects the environment and capitalizes on the economic productivity of the citizens of our two countries. The U.S.-Italy partnership on climate change is one of the most developed of our bilateral climate change partnerships. It has an important origin, coming directly out of a decision by Prime Minister Berlusconi and President Bush at their 2001 meeting.That was followed last year in Rome by the first U.S.-Italy climate change research and technology meeting. Since then, we have accomplished much together. Most recently, Minister Matteoli and I met in Sacramento, California to lead a discussion about cleaner energy technologies. We agreed that the development and deployment of transformational technologies is fundamental to addressing global climate change. We talked about a range of technologies, but one that we focused on was hydrogen.As part of our bilateral partnership, Italian and U.S. experts in government and in the private sector are working on a number of other clean energy technologies: stationary fuel cells; hydrogen production; hydrogen infrastructure, cleaner fossil fuels technologies, including carbon capture and storage; and, geothermal, wind, and other renewable sources of energy. In the United States, we are working to reduce projected greenhouse gas emissions in the near term, as we also work to develop and deploy advanced energy technologies that will achieve our goals in the longer term. For the coming decade, President Bush has committed the United States to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of our economy by 18%. Major industrial sectors have responded to President Bush's challenge to develop new, voluntary initiatives to reduce emissions by committing to ambitious emissions reductions over the coming decade. We appreciate greatly Italy's assistance and participation in the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, which seeks to develop new cost-effective technologies to capture and store emissions from utilizing coal and other fossil fuels. There will be a follow-up meeting of this Forum next month in Pisa. Just a few weeks ago, in Washington, Minister Matteoli, U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, and other ministers helped launch the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy to accelerate the global transition to a hydrogen economy. The United States is also working under the GenIV program to develop next-generation nuclear technology, and we have reentered the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project to develop fusion technology by mid-century.Improving our understanding of the climate system is also important to our international approach, because it is our knowledge of earth and climate systems that form the basis for our actions and investments to address climate change. We were pleased that representatives from Italy attended the Earth Observation Summit in July in Washington D.C., where we agreed to exchange information, to work with developing countries, and to support a comprehensive Earth observation system with a 10-year implementation plan. And last month, the Group on Earth Observations met in the beautiful town of Baveno to discuss the way ahead and to give guidance to five subgroups on the first draft of the foundation document. America welcomes Italy's leadership in bridging different approaches to climate change and finding common ground. We also note Italy's leadership in the current presidency of the European Union, where it is helping to advance trans-Atlantic cooperation on climate change and a range of other important issues. The progress we are making in cooperation with Italy and other partners, and in our efforts at home, are important for achieving the goals of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).


29

US-ITALY COOPERATION ESSENTIAL TO COMBATING GLOBAL WARMING Richard Boucher, US Dept of State, 1-23-2002 (http://www.useu.be/Categories/ClimateChange/Jan2302USItalyClimateChangeMeeting.html) "The United States and Italy convened a bilateral "Joint Climate Change Research Meeting" in Rome on January 22-23, 2002, following upon the July 19, 2001 pledge of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to undertake joint research on climate change. This pledge recognized the need to draw on sound science and the power of technology to reduce the uncertainty associated with future global climate and environmental change.�The respective delegations were led by Dr. Harlan Watson of the U.S. Department of State and Dr. Paul Anastas of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for the American side, and by Dr. Corrado Clini of the Ministry of Environment and Territory and Dr. Luciano Criscuoli of the Ministry of Education and Research for the Italian side.�The two sides identified more than 20 joint climate change research activities for immediate implementation and more topics for further development in the critical areas of global and regional climate modeling, atmospheric studies related to climate, carbon cycle research, low-carbon technologies, and other related areas. The climate science research activities for immediate implementation will improve the capability to understand, monitor and predict climatic variations and their impacts. In addition, the technology research activities for immediate implementation will contribute to the development of advanced low carbon technologies to limit net emissions of greenhouse gases.


30

INTERNATIONAL LAW INTERNALS EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION IS IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IN ITS HIGHEST V. Sridhar, staff writer, April 11, 2003, Frontline, “An illegal war”, <http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2007/stories/20030411004802400.htm> The CESR points out that most jurists specialising in international law "consider the U.N. Charter as the highest embodiment of international law - codifying and superseding existing laws and customs". This is because the use of force is antithetical to the "central purpose" of the U.N. Charter, which, by definition, outlaws the use of violence to settle disputes among nations at the expense of peaceful ways and means. The Charter as a whole imposes "a general prohibition on the use of force" to resolve conflicts. In fact, this prohibition is not only enshrined in the Charter but also figures as a "peremptory norm" in customary international law. This prohibition is so critical that the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties permits "no derogation" of this principle. The report observes that the prohibition of the use of force to settle issues among nations is the "cornerstone of the collective security system established by the U.N. to prevent any recurrence of the horrors of World War II". EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION VIOLATES THE GENEVA CONVENTION Association of the Bar of the City of New York & Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to “Extraordinary Renditions,” (New York: ABCNY & NYU School of Law, 2004). http://www.nyuhr.org/docs/TortureByProxy.pdf Geneva IV contains detailed rules regarding the internment, transfer and deportation of civilians.350 Article 45 specifically provides that: Protected persons shall not be transferred to a Power which is not a party to the Convention. . . . Protected persons may be transferred by the Detaining Power only to a Power which is a party to the present Convention and after the Detaining Power has satisfied itself of the willingness and ability of such transferee Power to apply the present Convention. If protected persons are transferred under such circumstances, responsibility for the application of the present Convention rests on the Power accepting them, while they are in its custody. Nevertheless, if that Power fails to carry out the provisions of the present Convention in any important respect, the Power by which the protected persons were transferred shall, upon being so notified by the Protecting Power, take effective measures to correct the situation or shall request the return of the protected persons. Such request must be complied with. In no circumstances shall a protected person be transferred to a country where he or she may have reason to fear persecution for his or her political opinions or religious beliefs.

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2007/stories/20030411004802400.htm


31

THE GENEVA CONVENTION PROTECTS VICTIMS AGAINST EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION Association of the Bar of the City of New York & Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to “Extraordinary Renditions,” (New York: ABCNY & NYU School of Law, 2004). http://www.nyuhr.org/docs/TortureByProxy.pdf Detained civilians captured in situations of international or non-international armed conflict who do not fall within the definition of “protected persons” in Geneva IV are nevertheless covered by Article 3 common to all four Geneva Conventions.”354 Common Article 3, which applies to armed conflict of any kind – international and non-international – is recognized as part of customary international law.355 Pursuant to Common Article 3, detainees “shall in all circumstances be treated humanely” and prohibits the following acts “at any time and in any place whatsoever”: “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating or degrading treatment.” 356 EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL LAW Fisher, William Dr. Professor, Leonidas T. Barrow Centennial Chair in Mineral Resources�Director, Geology Foundation. And Director, John A. Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, RIGHTS: RENDITION, OR OUTSOURCING TORTURE?, Global Information Network, March 14, 2005, http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=8&did=807480491&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1121190251&clientId=3552 Markey's bill would require the State Department to annually compile a list of countries believed to torture and mistreat detainees and prohibits the United States from sending individuals to those countries. It also rejects current State Department practice of obtaining assurances from such countries that it will not torture a particular individual. Introducing the bill last week, Rep. Markey said, "Extraordinary rendition is wrong because it violates international treaties that the United States has signed and ratified, including most notably Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture, which prohibits sending a person to another state "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." Torture, Markey said, "is morally repugnant whether we do it or whether we ask another country to do it for us. It is morally wrong whether it captured on film or whether it goes on behind closed doors unannounced to the American people."


32

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION VIOLATES MANY TREATIES Association of the Bar of the City of New York & Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to “Extraordinary Renditions,” (New York: ABCNY & NYU School of Law, 2004). http://www.nyuhr.org/docs/TortureByProxy.pdf It is unclear whether Geneva IV would apply to individuals detained outside the United States (and not Iraqi or Afghan nationals captured during the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, respectively) as part of the “War on Terror,” including individuals detained at the U.S. secret detention facilities. First, in the context of the so-called war against terrorism, the United States is not engaged in international armed conflict with another state during the course of which these individuals were detained. Second, without a status hearing (which have now begun in the case of detainees at Guantánamo only, and whose procedural adequacy has been called into question by military lawyers and human rights groups) it is not possible to determine whether a particular individual is an interned civilian to whom Geneva IV would apply. As noted above, however, regardless of whether Geneva IV protections apply, transfer of any of these individuals to states where they are in danger of torture would still clearly be prohibited under human rights treaties. THE GENEVA CONVENTION APPLIES TO EXRAORDINARY RENDITION Jane Mayer, 2/14/2005, “Outsourcing Torture”, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6 Others in the Administration worried that the President’s lawyers were wayward. “Lawyers have to be the voice of reason and sometimes have to put the brakes on, no matter how much the client wants to hear something else,” the former State Department lawyer said. “Our job is to keep the train on the tracks. It’s not to tell the President, ‘Here are the ways to avoid the law.’ ” He went on, “There is no such thing as a non-covered person under the Geneva Conventions. It’s nonsense. The protocols cover fighters in everything from world wars to local rebellions.” The lawyer said that Taft urged Yoo and Gonzales to warn President Bush that he would “be seen as a war criminal by the rest of the world,” but Taft was ignored. This may be because President Bush had already made up his mind. According to top State Department officials, Bush decided to suspend the Geneva Conventions on January 8, 2002—three days before Taft sent his memo to Yoo.


33

INTERNATIONAL LAW IMPACTS US VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW UNDERMINE ITS LEGITIMACY. V. Sridhar, staff writer, April 11, 2003, Frontline, “An illegal war”, <http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2007/stories/20030411004802400.htm> DURING the last 50 years, the framework of international law binding the community of nations has been significantly strengthened by the universal acceptance of the U.N. Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions. These have laid the basis for citizens and states to resolve disputes within a legal framework in a peaceful manner. The CESR report notes that legality, in its essence, "is (the) principled, predictable, and consistent application of a single standard for the strong and weak alike". The "selective manipulation of international law by powerful states undermines its legitimacy, just as domestic order is destroyed when powerful individuals are allowed to act above the law". CONTINUED VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW BY THE US CAUSES RECIPROCATION BY OTHER NATIONS AND TERRORISM. Peter Freyne, political columnist, March 26, 2003, Seven Days, “inside track; Back to the Jungle”, Vol.8, Issue 30; pg. 07A, proquest The United Nations was founded almost 60 years ago because the survivors of World War II -- a horror in which an estimated 61 million people got wasted -- put the rights of the Earth's citizens ahead of the right of their rulers to slaughter them at will. Peace is a human right. But on worldwide television Monday evening, our president publicly thumbed his nose at the United Nations. Diplomacy is henceforth irrelevant. Under the new Bush Doctrine, America will do what it damn well pleases. "I think that any time killing and violence have got to be used to resolve conflict, [it] indicates a failure of human intelligence and a failure of the human spirit," said a sober Rep. Bernie Sanders Monday. Ol' Bernardo was at the H.O. Wheeler School in Burlington's Old North End to announce a $100,000 federal grant that will open a dental clinic at the school. Tooth decay is a serious medical problem among the poor, noted Sanders. Many of the children of refugees at Wheeler rarely see a dentist. That'll soon change.But like a toothache that won't go away, the unfolding events on the world stage were bugging Bernie."If the U.S. defies international law," said Sanders, "and if the U.S. and Britain defy the United Nations, then we are establishing a horrendous precedent for the future." Any country that wants to go to war for any reason will feel justified in doing do. Mr. Sanders called the Bush Doctrine "a movement toward international anarchy."The invasion of Iraq, warned Bernie, will end up "helping a fanatic like Osama bin Laden attract more recruits." Great.



34

LEGITIMATE INTERNATIONAL LAW IS KEY TO PREVENTING GLOBAL ANARCHY AND DEVASTATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS. V. Sridhar, staff writer, April 11, 2003, Frontline, “An illegal war”, <http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2007/stories/20030411004802400.htm> The report, titled Tearing Up the Rules: The Illegality of Invading Iraq, observes that the legal issues at stake "cut to the heart of the claimed legitimacy of this war". Faced with anti-war protests across the world, those running the war machine have had "to derive legitimacy from somewhere other than the will of the people". Indeed, on the eve of the war, the governments of the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia felt obliged to justify the war in legal terms. While U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that the war had legal sanction, the Tony Blair-led U.K. government sought the opinion of its Attorney-General to justify its participation. The CESR observes that the core principles of international law need to be respected if the world is to be prevented from descending into a situation in which "the law of the jungle prevails over the rule of law". Failure, it notes, will result in "potentially disastrous consequences" for the human rights of not only the Iraqi people but people all over the world. INTERNATIONAL LAW SOLVES WMD PROLIFERATION

Xinhua, China-Russia statement on new world order, China Daily, July 2, 2005 http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-07/02/content_456571.htm The two leaders believe that in face of new threats and challenges, further effective measures should be taken to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) as well as their carriers and relevant materials, according to the joint statement. The joint statement says the two sides have decided to cooperate more closely in related international organizations and forums and expand cooperation with other like-minded countries. The issue of proliferation of WMDs should be resolved through political, diplomatic and international cooperation within the framework of international law, says the joint statement. THE UNITED STATES MUST ACT SOON TO RESTORE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION THROUGH INTERNATIONAL LAW OR FACE THE DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY Craig R. Eisendrath and Melvin A. Goodman, both senior fellows at the Center for International Policy, July 2004, USA Today, “Shoot First, Talk Later: How the U.S. Has Abandoned Diplomacy”, Proquest Not too long ago, the nation was celebrating the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, believing that, with the end of the Cold War, a new era of peace and prosperity had begun. With the fall of the Soviet Union over a decade ago, the U.S. had a unique opportunity, as the surviving superpower, to lead the world toward a period of greater cooperation through the use of diplomacy, international organization, and international law. Instead, the world is drifting toward military anarchy while democracy at home continues to erode at a frightening pace.



35

INTERNATIONAL LAW KEY TO SOFT POWER Sloan and Borchert 2003 (Director of the Atlantic Community Initiative and head of a political and business consultancy in Switzerland, “Mind the Three Transatlantic Power Gaps How a new framework can help reinvent the transatlantic relationship,” http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/co/co_nov03g.pdfIt goes without saying that the UN is the preeminent platform to debate all issues pertinent to the establishment of a new world order. Most important in this regard is the fact that the UN has recently embarked on promising ways to strengthen global governance by working more closely with non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations and multi-national corporations. Opening the international arena for the civil society is one of the strongest tools to strengthen soft power in the long run.

http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/co/co_nov03g.pdf


36

SOFT POWER INTERNALS EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS HURT SOFT POWER Association of the Bar of the City of New York & Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to” Extraordinary Renditions,” (New York: ABCNY & NYU School of Law, 2004). http://www.nyuhr.org/docs/TortureByProxy.pdf Torture harms not only the detainees, but also interrogators and our society. The universal condemnation of the abuses that have come to light at Abu Ghraib prison and other U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan have damaged this nation’s standing in the community of nations, and have served to fuel the enmity of those who seek to harm U.S. citizens and U.S. interests domestically and abroad. Extraordinary Renditions may be one step removed from the direct torture of detainees by U.S. agents, but to condone any level of U.S. involvement in the interrogation by torture of detainees remains wrong and immoral. This position is reflected in international law, which, as discussed above, prohibits both torture and complicity to torture, including, as discussed below, in the context of terrorism and national security emergencies.

US SOFT POWER IS UNDERMINED BY THE POLITICAL BACKLASH OF EXPOSED EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS Charles M. Sennott – July 3, 2005 (writer for the Boston Globe Staff; National/Foreign; Pg. A9; Sunday Third Addition; Globe correspondent Sarah Liebowitz in London contributed to the report)

"I would be quite surprised to learn that such action was taken given how much it could undermine cooperation," added Post, who now teaches at George Washington University and has written extensively on the psychology of terrorism. Parker, the former British counterterrorism official now researching counter-terrorism policies at Brown University, said, "the political reality is that now that these operations are being exposed, they are having a blow-back effect on the goals of the US counterterrorism strategy. . . ." "There is a tipping point at which these kinds of extreme measures become counterproductive. If you are going to pursue these, you have to presume that it is going to be exposed and so you have to pick and choose carefully." Frank Anderson, former head of the CIA's Near East Division, also questioned whether the Nasr abduction was worth the risk. "It would appear that this guy was just not a high-value enough target," Anderson said


37

THE PRACTICE OF EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION DESTROYS THE US’S INTERNATIONAL IMAGE The Houston Chronicle 2005 (“The Italian Job ; CIA’s capture and secret transport of terrorist suspects into the hands of cruel regimes should end,” June 29, lexis nexis)��THE United States' war on al-Qaida requires extraordinary measures, but no tactic should go beyond the law, and no U.S. official should be above it.The CIA's practice of capturing terrorist suspects in foreign countries and then flying them to a third country known for its use of torture is objectionable on its face. U.S. law forbids extradition of suspects to nations that use torture, and assurances from officials in such countries as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria that no prisoner will be tortured have proved worthless and false. The decision by an Italian judge to issue arrest warrants for 13 CIA operatives should serve notice that the abductions, known as renditions, are extralegal, wrong and, in the case of a Muslim cleric abducted in Milan, harmful to the global effort to combat terrorism. The 13 agents stand accused of abducting an imam known as Abu Omar on the street in Milan in 2003 and then transporting him to Egypt, where he was imprisoned. Upon release, he called his wife in Italy and told her he had been tortured with electrical shocks. Then he vanished, perhaps re-arrested by Egyptian authorities. Italian prosecutors and police say the rendition ended a promising investigation of the imam and his suspected terrorist network.Would President Bush tolerate the abduction of a U.S. resident by agents from Italy or any other country, with no due process or protection under the law? The CIA's renditions are no less intolerable in the eyes of the United States' most important allies.The U.S. chairman of Amnesty International, Joe W. "Chip" Pitts III, appeared to be on firm ground when he told the Chronicle editorial board Monday that undisclosed U.S. prisons and secret detentions are coming to resemble the disappearances characteristic of Latin America's dirty wars against government opponents. As the Bush administration embarks on a campaign to improve the United States' image in the world, ending secret abductions, detentions and transport to countries with ruthless regimes should be at the top of the list. CIA TORTURE DESTROYS US LEGITIMACY. Alfred W. McCoy, professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, September 14, 2004, Bella Ciao, “The Hidden History of CIA Torture: America’s Road to Abu Ghraib”, http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=3320 Despite torture’s appeal as a "lesser evil," a necessary expedient in dangerous times, those who favor it ignore its recent, problematic history in America. They also seem ignorant of a perverse pathology that allows the practice of torture, once begun, to spread uncontrollably in crisis situations, destroying the legitimacy of the perpetrator nation. As past perpetrators could have told today’s pundits, torture plumbs the recesses of human consciousness, unleashing an unfathomable capacity for cruelty as well as seductive illusions of potency. Even as pundits and professors fantasized about "limited, surgical torture," the Bush administration, following the President’s orders to "kick some ass," was testing and disproving their theories by secretly sanctioning brutal interrogation that spread quickly from use against a few "high target value" Al Qaeda suspects to scores of ordinary Afghans and then hundreds of innocent Iraqis.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=3320


38

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION DESTROYS AMERICA’S WORLD LEADERSHIP AND PRESTIGE. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, March 10, 2005, US Fed News, “REP. CONYERS JOINS REP. MARKEY IN CALL FOR END TO TORTURE OUTSOURCING”, LexisNexis Rep. John Conyers, Jr., issued the following statement today at a press conference to demand an end to the Bush Administration's practice of 'outsourcing torture' through extraordinary rendition, the practice sending prisoners to countries than are known human rights abusers. �In the wake of press reports confirming that the White House has authorized the CIA to hand over prisoners to other countries for interrogation, including countries known to routinely practice torture, Representatives Conyers joined Rep. Markey and other Members have introducing the "Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act" (HR 952) that would prevent the practice of sending prisoners to countries that are known human rights abusers:�"I join Rep. Markey and others to protest what should be treated as a horrible disgrace to our country but has become the cornerstone of our anti-terrorism policy. The CIA whisking people off in the middle of the night to a Middle Eastern country used to be the stuff movies were made of, but now has become a horrible reality.�A conversation that started about whether stacking naked men in a pyramid was inhumane has turned into an explanation of how boiling another human being's hand is good interrogation technique. For those who said "What's the big deal?" when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, I say this is the big deal. This is what happens when an otherwise civilized society begins down the slippery slope of justifying the degradation of other human beings.�In fact, the only thing more horrible than what each one of these rendered persons experience at the hands of their tortures, is that our government is now arguing that the practice is good intelligence policy, within the law, and won't be stopped any time soon.�This refusal to admit a horrible mistake - characteristic of the Bush Administration - is belied by the fact that they are now trying to hide the evidence. When I asked the Inspector General of the Homeland Security Department to investigate how Mr. Maher Arar was rendered to be tortured in Syria for 10 months, he immediate undertook the task. I am sorry to report that his investigation has been thwarted by uncooperative employees who have refused to turn over documentation of Mr. Arar's rendition or even to speak of his case. The Justice Department is now taking unprecedented measures to seal Mr. Arar's civil case under the rare "state's secrets" privilege.�For all of our prestige in the world, our most esteemed position used to be leadership in human rights. We cannot let that be thrown away by an Administration that survives only through its terrorism policy and the justifications it spins for that policy.


39

SOFT POWER IMPACT SOFT POWER KEY TO WORLD STABILITY Sloan and Borchert 2003 (Director of the Atlantic Community Initiative and head of a political and business consultancy in Switzerland, “Mind the Three Transatlantic Power Gaps How a new framework can help reinvent the transatlantic relationship,” http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/co/co_nov03g.pdf Soft power can help legitimize hard power. Although hard power is most essential to win wars, and often to give credibility to strategic choices, soft power is all the more important to win and preserve the peace. Soft power is the very prerequisite for trust among people and states. Without trust a stable international order cannot be built and sustained. Today, however, soft power and hard power are hardly seen as two sides of the same coin. Europe clearly is all-too-quick to shun military might (of which it has little) and too dependent on soft power (with which it is well endowed). Europe's hard power deficit, however, undermines the gravitas of European diplomacy, particularly in dealing with its superpower US ally. This is part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that US soft power policy approaches are all too often the neglected stepchild in American responses to international challenges. ** Check oheg core for more!!!


40

AUTHORITY T (AFF) POWER AND AUTHORITY DISTINCTION IS MEANINGLESS –

A) THE FACT THAT THE U.S. DOES RENDITION PROVES WE HAVE THE AUTHORITY – IT IS ONLY A QUESTION OF WHO RECOGNIZES THAT AUTHORITY

B) POWER AND AUTHORITY ARE EQUIVALENT American Heritage Dictionary 2000 (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=authority) au·thor·i·ty: The power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge. EXECUTIVE ORDER GRANTS BUSH THE AUTHORITY FOR RENDITION William Fisher, “Torture By Rendition” January 13, 2005 (http://cafeutne.org/partners/guest/motet?show+-ukCjNx+-ilad+NeverGiveUp.HumanRights+209+-25-) The legal authority for *renditions* is based on an Executive Order signed by President Bill Clinton, and reportedly summarized in a 2002 memo entitled "The President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captive Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations." According to The Washington Post, *knowledgeable US officials said White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales participated in its production.*


41

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION RECOGNIZES ITSELF AS HAVING THE LEGAL AUTHORITY FOR RENDITION – THE PLAN PUTS DOMESTIC LAW IN SYNC WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW Danielle Knight, “Outsourcing a real nasty job” US News & World Report, 5/23/05 (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050523/23rend.htm) The legal underpinnings of the rendition program are more than a bit murky. The Bush administration says justification for the practice rests on several pillars. These include executive authority in times of war, something called the "states secrets privilege," which is not a law but a series of legal precedents, and the fact that Washington routinely seeks diplomatic assurances that terrorism suspects will not be tortured before they are sent abroad for interrogation. Presidential policy. The legal authority may also rest, in part, on a still classified directive signed by President Bush after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Some scholars speculate that the directive may include language about executive-branch authority similar to that contained in several Justice Department memos that surfaced after the detainee-abuse scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Those documents sought to legitimize coercive interrogation and torture techniques in Afghanistan, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib. The presidential directive, in other words, may argue that "there is no law that prohibits the administration from doing this," says Scott Silliman, director of the Center for Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University. John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general and author of several of the interrogation memos, now teaches at the University of California-Berkeley law school. In a law review article on renditions published last year, Yoo employed precisely this reasoning. The September 11 attacks, he wrote, "triggered the President's authority as Commander in Chief and the United States' rights under international law to transfer custody of enemy prisoners to other nations." Despite such arguments, there are sound legal bases to challenge the rendition program. Perhaps the strongest is the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The treaty was ratified by the United States in 1994 and later codified into federal law. The convention specifically prohibits transferring a legal detainee abroad if there are "substantial grounds for believing" that he or she will be subjected to torture there. Even here, though, certainty is elusive. Some legal experts say the convention is applicable only if it can be proved that it is "more likely than not" that a suspect will be tortured if he is sent to a specific country. "It's true, by definition, that extraordinary rendition is unlawful," says Joseph Margulies, the lead counsel in one of the Guantanamo Bay detainee cases heard before the Supreme Court last year. "The question is whether that illegality can be addressed in court . . . because the claims themselves are subject to a myriad of procedural defenses that are being raised by the government."


42

PREFER DOMESTIC AUTHORITY VERSUS INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF AUTHORITY: A) NO DETAINMENT AFFS ARE TOPICAL UNDER YOUR INTERPRETATION. GENEVA CONVENTION STRIPS AUTHORITY FOR ANY DETAINMENT WITHOUT CHARGE. Human Rights Watch June 18, 2004 (http://electroniciraq.net/news/1551.shtml) The 1949 Geneva Conventions permit the detention without charge of prisoners of war and other detainees only in the case of an international armed conflict - which by definition is between governments - or an occupation. Washington says that both will come to an end on June 30, meaning that the ongoing conflict between the Iraqi government and Iraqi insurgents would become a civil war. That a sovereign government may seek assistance from foreign governments does not transform a civil war into an international conflict. In the absence of an occupation or an international conflict, no one can be detained under international humanitarian law without being charged with a recognized crime. Those not charged must be released and repatriated "without delay." "The Bush administration can't have its cake and eat it too," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "If the occupation is over, so is the U.S. authority to detain Iraqis without criminal charges." B) THIS CLEARLY OVERLIMITS, REMOVING THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HALF OF THE TOPIC. C) REJECT AN INTERPRETATION THAT RENDERS ANY WORDS IN THE RESOLUTION MEANINGLESS. ONCE ANY WORDS HAVE NO VALUE THE INTERPRETATION IS ARBITRARY.


43

INCLUDE IN 2AC VS RENDITION T IN CORE: THE LEGAL AUTHORITY IS NOT AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC – THAT’S WHY YOUR REPORT DIDN’T FIND IT Michael John Garcia, Legislative Attorney with the American Law Division, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, April 28, 2005 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32890.pdf) Although the particularities regarding the usage of extraordinary renditions and the legal authority behind such renditions is not publically available, various U.S. officials have acknowledged the practice’s existence. Recently, there has been some controversy as to the usage of renditions by the United States, particularly with regard to the alleged transfer of suspected terrorists to countries known to employ harsh interrogation techniques that may rise to the level of torture, purportedly with the knowledge or acquiescence of the United States.


44

THE AUTHORITY STILL EXISTS THROUGH THE USE OF LOOPHOLES IN DIRECTIVES Jane Mayer, 2/14/2005, “Outsourcing Torture”, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6 The legal pronouncements from Washington about the status of detainees were painstakingly constructed to include numerous loopholes. For example, in February, 2002, President Bush issued a written directive stating that, even though he had determined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the war on terror, all detainees should be treated “humanely.” A close reading of the directive, however, revealed that it referred only to military interrogators—not to C.I.A. officials. This exemption allowed the C.I.A. to continue using interrogation methods, including rendition, that stopped just short of torture. Further, an August, 2002, memo written largely by Yoo but signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee argued that torture required the intent to inflict suffering “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” According to the Times, a secret memo issued by Administration lawyers authorized the C.I.A. to use novel interrogation methods—including “water-boarding,” in which a suspect is bound and immersed in water until he nearly drowns. Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, told me that he had treated a number of people who had been subjected to such forms of near-asphyxiation, and he argued that it was indeed torture. Some victims were still traumatized years later, he said. One patient couldn’t take showers, and panicked when it rained. “The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,” he said. THE PRESIDENT HAS AUTHORITY TO IGNORE RULES SUCH AS THE GENEVA CONVENTION Phillip Carter [is a former Army officer who writes on legal and military affairs from Los Angeles. Posted Thursday http://slate.msn.com/id/2102203/#ContinueArticle,] June 10, 2004, at 1:42 PM PT Where the laws have spoken, they have generally said the president indeed lacks the legislative power to nullify a statute in this way. Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution grants the president the power to "recommend … such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient," but this only confers the power to send legislation to Congress, like the annual budget. It does not, as president Truman found out in the famous Korean War case Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, allow the president to unilaterally change or simply ignore the law. Similarly, the president cannot unilaterally set aside the Geneva Conventions. Once ratified by the Senate, such treaties become the law of the land. The president can no more set binding international agreements aside than he can set aside the federal open-meetings act or murder statutes.To pre-empt this criticism, the Pentagon's lawyers point to the executive power of the president to act both as commander in chief of the military and as chief prosecutor. The memo contends that the sole discretion to prosecute wars and prosecute criminals lies with the president, and if the president wants to set aside laws (like the torture and war-crimes statute), he can do so by declining to prosecute them. On Page 24, the draft memo states: Any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of unlawful combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the Commander-in-Chief authority in the President. … Congress can no more interfere with the President's conduct of the interrogation of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategy or tactical decisions on the battlefield.


45

PRESIDENT HAS LEGAL AUTHORITY TO ORDER TORTURE JOHN J. LUMPKIN [Journalist - The Washington Post Organization/VIP/OtherAssociated Press http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/456.html#] June 8, 2004� Administration lawyers concluded in a policy paper last year that a president can legally order interrogators to torture terrorist suspects.The lawyers, who were not identified by name, were part of a working group writing a policy governing interrogation techniques to be used at the prison for terrorist suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.However, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Monday that the final set of interrogation methods adopted for use at Guantanamo in April 2003 are humane, legal and useful _ and more restrictive than the methods some had proposed. Di Rita described the paper as a staff legal analysis that was part of an internal administration debate on how to obtain intelligence from al-Qaida operatives in U.S. custody, within the confines of a standard of humane treatment. The intelligence sought was to prevent terrorist attacks, he said. The contents of the paper, labeled "draft" and dated March 6, 2003, were first reported in Monday's The Wall Street Journal. A portion of it was then obtained by The Associated Press. The lawyers who prepared it include attorneys from both the Defense and Justice Departments, and possibly other parts of the government.The paper discusses both domestic law and international treaties governing torture and the treatment of prisoners, and concludes Bush has vast legal authority for a number of reasons. Mary Ellen O'Connell, a professor of international law at Ohio State University who has seen the draft paper, called its arguments unconvincing. "In every case it finds defenses, narrower readings of that statute, or justifications that allow torture in a wide variety of circumstances," she said. "The legal analysis is weak." Ultimately, the Pentagon adopted a set of 24 interrogation methods it would use at Guantanamo, Di Rita said. The majority are psychological tricks and techniques described in Army field manuals. The seven techniques not found in manuals include isolating a prisoner from others, altering his diet (but still providing him adequate food to survive), and questioning him up to 20 hours at a time for up to three days, he said. Four of the seven nonstandard methods require at least tacit approval from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. None are torture in the Pentagon's view, Di Rita said. "It's my belief that Americans would find them perfectly reasonable," he said. "There's nothing that involves deliberately applying pain." The four methods have been used on two inmates at Guantanamo, including one who may have been designated a "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 plot, military officials said. Gen. James T. Hill, the senior commander with authority over Guantanamo Bay, said last week that interrogators do not use dogs or drug injections during interrogations. However, the lawyers who wrote the March 2003 paper suggested the U.S. government may have the authority to conduct some drug injections during interrogation as long as they don't "disrupt profoundly the senses or personality." The lawyers identify three concepts that would permit American personnel to commit crimes in the course of interrogation.One is that President Bush, as commander in chief of the military, has complete authority to make war, and interrogating prisoners falls within that scope. It likens congressional or judicial review of interrogation procedures to Congress, or a court, interfering with the planning of a battle."In order to respect the President's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign, ... (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority," the paper says.Another, termed necessity, is that hurting or even killing one person to save two lives is justified. The third concept, self-defense, says the harsh interrogation of a prisoner believed to have information on an imminent terrorist attack is the same as shooting someone pointing a gun at you. Law professor O'Connell called that an "absurd" leap, saying the situations are not legally equivalent.


46

THE CIA HAS UNLIMITED AUTHORITY TO RENDITION SUSPECTS Jehl, Douglas and Johnston, David “CIA now acting independently to move prisoners” The New York Times, Mar 7, 2005 The Bush administration's secret program to transfer scores of terrorism suspects to foreign countries to be imprisoned and interrogated has been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency under broad authority that has allowed the agency to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or the State or Justice departments, according to current and former government officials.��The unusually expansive authority for the CIA to operate independently since the September 2001 attacks was provided by the White House under a still-classified directive signed by President George W. Bush within days of the attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.��This rendition process has been central to the government's efforts to disrupt terrorism, but it has been bitterly criticized by human rights groups on the ground that it violates the Bush administration's public pledge to provide safeguards against torture.��In public, the Bush administration has refused to confirm that the rendition program exists, saying in response to questions only that the United States did not hand over people to face torture. The transfers were portrayed as an alternative to what U.S. officials have said is the costly, personnel-intensive process of housing them in the United States or in U.S.-run facilities in other countries. ��In recent weeks, several former detainees have described being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques and brutal treatment during months spent in detention under the program in other countries. The former prisoners say they were beaten, shackled, subjected to electric shocks and otherwise mistreated before being released without being charged.��Former government officials say that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA has flown 100 to 150 terrorism suspects to other countries, including Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan. Each of those countries has been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture in its prisons


47

TERRORISM (AFF) EMPERICALLY, RENDITION BREEDS MORE TERRORISM Jane Mayer, 2/14/2005, “Outsourcing Torture”, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6 Scientific research on the efficacy of torture and rough interrogation is limited, because of the moral and legal impediments to experimentation. Tom Parker, a former officer for M.I.5, the British intelligence agency, who teaches at Yale, argued that, whether or not forceful interrogations yield accurate information from terrorist suspects, a larger problem is that many detainees “have nothing to tell.” For many years, he said, British authorities subjected members of the Irish Republican Army to forceful interrogations, but, in the end, the government concluded that “detainees aren’t valuable.” A more effective strategy, Parker said, was “being creative” about human intelligence gathering, such as infiltration and eavesdropping. “The U.S. is doing what the British did in the nineteen-seventies, detaining people and violating their civil liberties,” he said. “It did nothing but exacerbate the situation. Most of those interned went back to terrorism. You’ll end up radicalizing the entire population.” TORTURE IN 99 PERCENT INEFFECTIVE BECAUSE VICTIMS WISH TO END THE PAIN AND MISERY THEY ARE PUT THROUGH. PLEASE EXCUSE THE GENDER LANGUAGE. Ledeen, 2004 (Michael Ledeen, a National Review Online contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen is a Resident Scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, “Misunderstanding the war on terror” May 22, 2004 http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/4531) First, the matter of the "abuses" of the prisoners. Maybe the temperature of the rhetoric has cooled enough for us to address the most important aspect of the debacle: Torture and abuse are not only wrong and disgusting. They are stupid and counterproductive. A person under torture will provide whatever statements he believes will end the pain. Therefore, the "information" he provides is fundamentally unreliable. He is not responding to questions; 99 percent of the time, he's just trying to figure out what he has to say in order to end his suffering. All those who approved these methods should be fired, above all because they are incompetent to collect intelligence.


48

THE CEASE OF US EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION WOULD INCREASE SOFT POWER FOR THE WAR ON TERROR Nat Hentoff – July 11 , 2005th (writer for Liberty Beat; CIA Criminals, In Italy: Arrest warrants issued for 13 CIA agents for kidnapping a terrorist suspect; DN; accessed at http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0528,hentoff,65755,6.html

These international crimes , which are also violations of American law, have resulted in more than 100 terrorism suspects being shanghaied by the CIA to torture cells in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, and other countries. None of the CIA operatives involved—or their superiors in Washington—have been charged with any crime. But now, for the first time in any country where these kidnappers have plucked people off the street, 13 CIA agents involved in the abduction of Nasr (to his native Egypt) have been indicted in Italy, and 240-page arrest warrants have been issued to pick them up. All 13, however, have left—or rather, escaped from—Italy. Porter Goss, head of the CIA, must know where they are, but I do not believe he will turn them in. Democratic congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who has been the leader in Congress to shut down these lawless "extraordinary renditions," said on June 24: "This is an outrageous practice. The United States cannot stand for torture. This Administration's rogue kidnapping efforts are now being questioned by some of our closest allies in the war on terror. [Sweden and Canada have protested CIA kidnapping in their countries.] This practice of rendition will only impede our fight against terrorism and alienate our allies. "President Bush needs to put an end to the practice of outsourcing of torture, his defense of this illegal practice jeopardizes U.S. officials who are now caught in the middle of an international kidnapping." Earlier, on May 25, Ed Markey, addressing his colleagues in the House, detailing the CIA's brazen violations of American treaty commitments under the International Convention Against Torture, asked, "Where is the outrage in this chamber?" There was no answer. There is no answer now in Congress or, to any meaningful extent, in this nation. And George W. Bush continues to speak of the "transparency" of this constitutional democracy's rule of law.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0528,hentoff,65755,6.html


49

THIS UNORTHODOX APPROACH TO FIGHTING TERRORISM IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, CAUSING DISTRACTING INVESTIGATIONS AND FRACTURED INTELLIGENCE NETWORKS. MULTILATERAL DIPLOMACY IS KEY. Muqtedar Khan – June 30, 2005 (writer for Aljazeera; Is there no end to US scandals?; accessed at http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=8984)

The Guardian reported on June 26, 2005 that several nations had similar problems with the U.S. and were beginning to take action. Canada is holding hearings into the deportation of a Canadian to Syria for questioning about alleged ties to Al Qaeda. German prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into the suspected kidnapping of a German man who was flown to Afghanistan. In Stockholm, a parliamentary investigator has already concluded that CIA agents violated Swedish law by subjecting two Egyptian nationals to 'degrading and inhuman treatment' during a rendition in 2001. Anger and frustration with American tactics will have a severe toll on intelligence cooperation. Already European law enforcement agencies are spending time and resources investigating Americans. Soon they all may have two separate divisions, one to investigate “Al Qaeda” and the other to investigate illegal U.S activities. Several recent intelligence commissions have exposed the vast limitations of U.S. intelligence system. Clearly it is woeful. If it loses the faith, support and cooperation of several allied nations then the U.S. intelligence gathering and covert operations will have to face more severe challenges with lesser resources. The key to all such problems is the gross inability of the Bush administration to understand and appreciate the importance and vital significance of multilateralism. Diplomacy is key to international cooperation. Diplomacy is not something that the State Departments alone should pursue; it is a style of management that all American agencies must adopt both overseas and at home. Until the Bush administration develops a more sophisticated understanding of diplomacy it will continue to have periodic scandals in myriad areas.

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION PREVENTS THE PROSECUTION OF TERRORISTS BY DETAINING THEM AND TORTURING THEM Jane Mayer, 2/14/2005, “Outsourcing Torture”, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6

The Bush Administration’s departure from international norms has been justified in intellectual terms by élite lawyers like Gonzales, who is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Gonzales, the new Attorney General, argued during his confirmation proceedings that the U.N. Convention Against Torture’s ban on “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” of terrorist suspects does not apply to American interrogations of foreigners overseas. Perhaps surprisingly, the fiercest internal resistance to this thinking has come from people who have been directly involved in interrogation, including veteran F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents. Their concerns are as much practical as ideological. Years of experience in interrogation have led them to doubt the effectiveness of physical coercion as a means of extracting reliable information. They also warn that the Bush Administration, having taken so many prisoners outside the realm of the law, may not be able to bring them back in. By holding detainees indefinitely, without counsel, without charges of wrongdoing, and under circumstances that could, in legal parlance, “shock the conscience” of a court, the Administration has jeopardized its chances of convicting hundreds of suspected terrorists, or even of using them as witnesses in almost any court in the world.


50

TORTURE HURTS THE IMAGE OF THE UNITED STATES, HINDERING THE US’ ABILITY TO FIGHT THE WAR ON TERROR. Schell, 2005 (Jonathan Schell is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute “What is Wrong with Torture,” January 20, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0120-25.htm) The senators' language regarding torture reflected, with exceptions, the horror of the matter as dimly as their flowery praise of one another. None, it is true, went as far as to suggest that restrictions on the abuse of prisoners were "unilateral disarmament," as a recent Wall Street Journal editorial did. Most of the senatorial defenders of Gonzales's record concentrated on denying his responsibility for one or another of the damning memos. More striking were the arguments against torture by those skeptical of the nomination. Two dominated. One was that torture hurts the image of the United States in the world. In the words of Senator Lindsey Graham, "I can tell you that it is a club that our enemies use, and we need to take that club out of their hand." Or in the words of Senator Herb Kohl, "winning the hearts and minds of the Arab world is vital to our success in the war on terror," and "Photographs that have come out of Abu Ghraib have undoubtedly hurt those efforts." The second argument was that enemy forces would torture U.S. forces in retaliation. In Biden's words, "This is about the safety and security of American forces." Even Gonzales, who declined at every opportunity to repudiate the policies that had led to the torture, was ready to agree that Abu Ghraib had harmed the image of the United States. UNDER THE IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF PAIN AND STRESS, TOTURED VICTIMS WILL SAY ANYTHING IN ORDER TO STOP IT. IN ORDER TO PRESERVE HUMAN DIGNITY, WE MUST FULLY REJECT TORTURE. Human Rights Watch, 2004 ( “The Legal Prohibition Against Torture,” June 1, 2004, http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/11/TortureQandA.htm)

President Bush has said that the war on terrorism is about values; he has pledged that as it fights, the United States will always stand for "the non-negotiable demands of human dignity." Standing for human dignity means rejecting torture and other forms of ill treatment. Rejecting torture does not mean forgoing effective interrogations of terrorist suspects. Patient, skillful, professional interrogations obtain critical information without relying on cruelty or inhuman or degrading treatment. Indeed, most seasoned interrogators recognize that torture is not only immoral and illegal, but ineffective and unnecessary as well. Given that people being tortured will say anything to stop the pain, the information yielded from torture is often false or of dubious reliability.


51

NARRATIVES THE STORY OF ARAR Mayer, Jane “Outsourcing Torture – The Secret History of America’s ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ Program.” The New Yorker, Feb 8 2005 Arar, a thirty-four-year-old graduate of McGill University whose family emigrated to Canada when he was a teen-ager, was arrested on September 26, 2002, at John F. Kennedy Airport. He was changing planes; he had been on vacation with his family in Tunisia, and was returning to Canada. Arar was detained because his name had been placed on the United States Watch List of terrorist suspects. He was held for the next thirteen days, as American officials questioned him about possible links to another suspected terrorist. Arar said that he barely knew the suspect, although he had worked with the man’s brother. Arar, who was not formally charged, was placed in handcuffs and leg irons by plainclothes officials and transferred to an executive jet. The plane flew to Washington, continued to Portland, Maine, stopped in Rome, Italy, then landed in Amman, Jordan. During the flight, Arar said, he heard the pilots and crew identify themselves in radio communications as members of “the Special Removal Unit.” The Americans, he learned, planned to take him next to Syria. Having been told by his parents about the barbaric practices of the police in Syria, Arar begged crew members not to send him there, arguing that he would surely be tortured. His captors did not respond to his request; instead, they invited him to watch a spy thriller that was aired on board.Ten hours after landing in Jordan, Arar said, he was driven to Syria, where interrogators, after a day of threats, “just began beating on me.” They whipped his hands repeatedly with two-inch-thick electrical cables, and kept him in a windowless underground cell that he likened to a grave. “Not even animals could withstand it,” he said. Although he initially tried to assert his innocence, he eventually confessed to anything his tormentors wanted him to say. “You just give up,” he said. “You become like an animal.” A year later, in October, 2003, Arar was released without charges, after the Canadian government took up his cause. Imad Moustapha, the Syrian Ambassador in Washington, announced that his country had found no links between Arar and terrorism. Arar, it turned out, had been sent to Syria on orders from the U.S. government, under a secretive program known as “extraordinary rendition.” This program had been devised as a means of extraditing terrorism suspects from one foreign state to another for interrogation and prosecution. Critics contend that the unstated purpose of such renditions is to subject the suspects to aggressive methods of persuasion that are illegal in America—including torture. Arar is suing the U.S. government for his mistreatment. “They are outsourcing torture because they know it’s illegal,” he said. “Why, if they have suspicions, don’t they question people within the boundary of the law?”


52

STORY OF MAMDOUH HABIB Mayer, Jane “Outsourcing Torture – The Secret History of America’s ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ Program.” The New Yorker, Feb 8 2005 Another case suggests that the Bush Administration is authorizing the rendition of suspects for whom it has little evidence of guilt. Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born citizen of Australia, was apprehended in Pakistan in October, 2001. According to his wife, Habib, a radical Muslim with four children, was visiting the country to tour religious schools and determine if his family should move to Pakistan. A spokesman at the Pentagon has claimed that Habib—who has expressed support for Islamist causes—spent most of his trip in Afghanistan, and was “either supporting hostile forces or on the battlefield fighting illegally against the U.S.” Last month, after a three-year ordeal, Habib was released without charges.Habib is one of a handful of people subjected to rendition who are being represented pro bono by human-rights lawyers. According to a recently unsealed document prepared by Joseph Margulies, a lawyer affiliated with the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Chicago Law School, Habib said that he was first interrogated in Pakistan for three weeks, in part at a facility in Islamabad, where he said he was brutalized. Some of his interrogators, he claimed, spoke English with American accents. (Having lived in Australia for years, Habib is comfortable in English.) He was then placed in the custody of Americans, two of whom wore black short-sleeved shirts and had distinctive tattoos: one depicted an American flag attached to a flagpole shaped like a finger, the other a large cross. The Americans took him to an airfield, cut his clothes off with scissors, dressed him in a jumpsuit, covered his eyes with opaque goggles, and placed him aboard a private plane. He was flown to Egypt. According to Margulies, Habib was held and interrogated for six months. “Never, to my knowledge, did he make an appearance in any court,” Margulies told me. Margulies was also unaware of any evidence suggesting that the U.S. sought a promise from Egypt that Habib would not be tortured. For his part, Habib claimed to have been subjected to horrific conditions. He said that he was beaten frequently with blunt instruments, including an object that he likened to an electric “cattle prod.” And he was told that if he didn’t confess to belonging to Al Qaeda he would be anally raped by specially trained dogs. (Hossam el-Hamalawy said that Egyptian security forces train German shepherds for police work, and that other prisoners have also been threatened with rape by trained dogs, although he knows of no one who has been assaulted in this way.) Habib said that he was shackled and forced to stand in three torture chambers: one room was filled with water up to his chin, requiring him to stand on tiptoe for hours; another chamber, filled with water up to his knees, had a ceiling so low that he was forced into a prolonged, painful stoop; in the third, he stood in water up to his ankles, and within sight of an electric switch and a generator, which his jailers said would be used to electrocute him if he didn’t confess. Habib’s lawyer said that he submitted to his interrogators’ demands and made multiple confessions, all of them false. (Egyptian authorities have described such allegations of torture as “mythology.”) After his imprisonment in Egypt, Habib said that he was returned to U.S. custody and was flown to Bagram Air Force Base, in Afghanistan, and then on to Guantánamo Bay, where he was detained until last month. On January 11th, a few days after the Washington Post published an article on Habib’s case, the Pentagon, offering virtually no explanation, agreed to release him into the custody of the Australian government. “Habib was released because he was hopelessly embarrassing,” Eric Freedman, a professor at Hofstra Law School, who has been involved in the detainees’ legal defense, says. “It’s a large crack in the wall in a house of cards that is midway through tumbling down.” In a prepared statement, a Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico, said there was “no evidence” that Habib “was tortured or abused” while he was in U.S. custody. He also said that Habib had received “Al Qaeda training,” which included instruction in making false abuse allegations. Habib’s claims, he suggested, “fit the standard operating procedure.”

extraordinary rendition aff - v1 - bgs

Documents

terrorism aff

international law internals

international law impacts

authority t aff

international law jane

soft power impact

soft power internals

relations impacts