“Extraordinary rendition,” indeed. We’re sending North American citizens (of Arab descent) off to Arab countries; in other words, we are turning on our own and outsourcing our dirty work. It’s called torture and Bob Herbert proclaims it in a great NYT opinion article. I’m going to save the full text somewhere before this article, like all others, get lost in the Only If You Have Money And Give It To Us Can You See This archives.
President Bush spent much of last week lecturing other nations about freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It was a breathtaking display of chutzpah. He seemed to me like a judge who starves his children and then sits on the bench to hear child abuse cases. In Brussels Mr. Bush said he planned to remind Russian President Vladimir Putin that democracies are based on, among other things, “the rule of law and the respect for human rights and human dignity.”
… 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.”
… the [office of the Speaker of the House] does not understand this issue, and has not even bothered to take it seriously.
Please support Markey’s bill and make it see daylight. It is our moral responsibility to follow the golden rule and to take care of all of our fellow human beings. Looking at others as collateral damage is a very inhumane thought process, regardless of culture, religion or background. It WILL be you some day, somehow, some time, some life.
