Sunday, February 01, 2009
The new renditions policy: Is it what Al Gore would have done?
The question is, does Barack Obama's policy on "renditions" go as far as Al Gore's originally did? You know, the Al Gore who said "That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass." Lefty bloggers believe that it does not, but in this area decisions that turn on specific facts are usually more challenging than statements of principle in the abstract.
5 Comments:
By 
Brian, at
Sun Feb 01, 05:45:00 PM:
TH, seeing as you liked citing Richard Clarke earlier, take a look at his recent Op-Ed:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/29/the_confusion_over_renditions/
Grabbing someone overseas for trial in the US is different from grabbing people and shipping them off to be tortured.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Feb 01, 06:20:00 PM:
Of course, in the quoted passage Gore was talking about illegal renditions, so I suppose there is some argument about what is unlawful and what is really, really, unlawful.
By 
, at
Sun Feb 01, 09:08:00 PM:
Al Gore doesn't care what is lawful or unlawful. Al Gore is about the MONEY.....CA$H....CA$HI$H...if you will.
Al Gore is a nut. And libs love that.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Feb 01, 10:41:00 PM:
"Grabbing someone overseas for trial in the US is different from grabbing people and shipping them off to be tortured."
What if the grabbed fellow is a wanted criminal in said country and harsh interrogation methods are perfectly legal there? Is it up to us to decide what foreign criminal codes should be respected and which should be ignored? Isn't that arrogant unilateralism? How do you think those countries will react when we grab their fugitives and refuse to hand them over?
This isn't idle speculation. A large number of prisoners grabbed in Iraq turned out to be wanted criminals in other nations (especially Gulf states and Egypt) for crimes ranging from murder, to rape, to drug trafficking. They didn't commit a crime on US territory, so we can't judicially punish them. People like you are making us close Guantanamo. You say that they can't be returned to their home countries because they'll be tortured.
So what would you suggest be done?
By davod, at
Mon Feb 02, 07:28:00 AM:
Isn't rendition the extra legal removal of someone to another place. The process circumvents the law in the country where the person is located.
You cannot have a legal rendition. If you could do it legally they would be extradited.
WRT to legal and illegal being the difference between sending someone to a country where they will or no be tortured. The Clinton people sent people to Egypt knowing that Egypt does torture people. The escape clause was that Egypt's laws say they do not torture people.
