British writer Oliver Kamm, in a column that appeared in Monday’s Guardian, would suggest that rendition in certain circumstances, primarily to combat terrorism, is justified. Moreover, according to Kamm: “Rendition does not mean torture. It means moving someone from one country to another without reference to a formal extradition treaty.”
In layman’s terms, “rendition” is the seizing and then extrajudicial transferring of a person from one country to another. In its modern context we understand it to mean capturing Muslims believed to be involved in terrorism and putting them on a flight to another country selected by the US, because of its laws regarding torture, and thereafter extracting information from them by any means deemed necessary by the parties who sent them there. Sometimes foreigners are removed before they have even set foot on American soil — that is, “extraordinary rendition”.
Morally, legally and politically this is, understandably, picking up flak from many quarters, which has resulted in a number of official investigations, notably from the European Union.
Leaving aside issues of morality and indeed humanity for the time being, even proponents of rendition will battle to convince me of the benefits of torture in extracting information. It is at best unreliable — coerced from unwilling parties — and may just as well be disinformation as far as the interrogator or his CIA observer go.
Accordingly, even if it were justifiable in certain circumstances, which I humbly submit it is not, it cannot be relied upon in the so-called “war on terror”.
During the past few decades, intelligence agencies have begun to realise that electronic intelligence can only get you so far. In order to obtain meaningful data from which you can analyse your opponent’s position, you need human intelligence — men on the ground.
In terms of 9/11, one of the earth-shattering revelations of the post-Twin Towers investigations was that if the CIA, MIA, FBI and all the other agencies started pooling information instead of jealously guarding their secrets, then America’s response to terrorism would be that much more effective.
In other words, in terms of pooling resources and putting human assets on the ground, the US’s capability is enhanced; in terms of rendition, as stated above, all it achieves is resentment and resistance in pursuit of a sub-standard product.
Morally this method of circumventing the American justice system in order to inflict torture as a means of extracting information is totally bankrupt. If it were otherwise, its proponents would have sought to introduce Bills to allow for these practices to be conducted in the US. The fact that they are so barbaric that no one would even dare to suggest it sums up most people’s feelings on the subject.
Politically, both at home and abroad, it is creating resentment and a resistance to what the US is trying to achieve in its “war on terror”. It destroys the sense of decency to which Americans like to believe that their officials conform while going about their business. In its place is an anything-goes mentality best suited — as the spin doctors would have us believe — to their opponents.
In respect of the example used by Kamm (ie Adolf Eichmann) as justification for rendition, I would suggest the following: the reason why the Allies persevered throughout the darkest days of World War II, when the Nazi onslaught was at its height, was the underlying belief among their forces and the people back home that what they were doing was right. They were fighting for freedom against the worst form of tyranny ever experienced in the history of mankind.
In the case of rendition, the secrecy that surrounds it — and the lengths to which people will go to deny its existence or distance themselves from being associated with it — confirms that its adherents are aware of the wrongfulness of their actions.
Even an Eichmann, butcher that he was, kidnapped long after the war does not justify rendition — because on the back of an animal such as this, decent men like Oliver Kamm will try to justify what we know to be wrong.
There can never be a basis for decent men avoiding the due process of law in order to carry out terrible acts in the name of expedience.
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