No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition

تعذيب
(go ahead, look it up...)

Kudos to 60 Minutes and ABC News for detailed and clear stories about rendition (why does this remind me of the word Render?)---the US practice of taking people from one place to another against their will to answer questions. Actually, to take them by force from a country where they might live or be visiting to a place where criminal inquiries might also involve boiling, beating, electrical shocks and other methods that encourage talking.

And screaming.

This is the sort of stuff that's against US law on US turf. But in other countries with bit more public disregard for civil liberties, torture is sort of a quaint cultural thing.

Look, I'm as willing as anyone to use extraordinary means to track down and disable terrorists or people who support terrorists.

But I draw the line where our methods involve murder, torture and brutality. Heck, if that is a practice the US (doesn't really) approve because they would prefer (not to) know because any human being with a civilized conscience is appalled at barbarity, then why have a policy called rendition in the first place?

Oh--ABC's Terry Moran asked that of White House officials today and, to quote him, these administration spokesmen (do they really say this with a straight face) insisted that taking suspects to Egypt, Iraq, Uzbekistan, and other Medieval countries makes it easier to question them in their own languages and with cultural nuance specific to their backgrounds.

Yeah, my Uzbeq dictionary falls short when trying to ask a suspect " Tell us about the people you met with a year ago or I'll cut your balls off and kill your children."

Helps to have allies at times like that.

Here is some of the tortured language and developments when the Bush administration practices torture while denying it does:

The Nation

The Washington Post's copies of 'legalizing' interrogation techniques

Orwellian White House