"Nope...not gonna do it...wouldn't be prudent..."
Posted on 10/22/2007 9:48:26 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
5 Myths About Rendition (and That New Movie)
By Daniel Benjamin
Saturday, October 20, 2007
With hearings in Congress, legal cases bouncing up to the Supreme Court and complaints from Canada and our European allies, the issue of rendition is everywhere. There's even a new, eponymously titled movie in a theater near you, starring Reese Witherspoon as a bereft wife whose innocent husband gets kidnapped and Meryl Streep as the frosty CIA chief who ordered the snatch. Like most covert actions and much of the war on al-Qaeda, the practice is shrouded in mystery -- and, increasingly, the suspicion that it's synonymous with torture and lawlessness.
In fact, the term "rendition" in the counterterrorism context means nothing more than moving someone from one country to another, outside the formal process of extradition. For the CIA, rendition has become a key tool for getting terrorists from places where they're causing trouble to places where they can't. The problem is where these people are taken and what happens to them when they get there. As a former director for counterterrorism policy on the National Security Council staff, I've been involved with the issue of rendition for nearly a decade -- and some of the myths surrounding it need to be cleared up.
1. Rendition is something the Bush administration cooked up.
Nope. George W. Bush was still struggling to coax oil out of the ground when the United States "rendered to justice" its first suspect from abroad. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan authorized an operation that lured Lebanese hijacker Fawaz Younis to a boat off the coast of Cyprus, where FBI agents arrested him. (Younis had participated in the 1985 hijacking of a Jordanian plane and was implicated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847, which left a U.S. Navy diver dead.)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Two words: HAW and HAW.
Too bad Reese signed on for this, she is good to look at.
Why let a few facts and some common sense get in the way of fashionable left-wing hysteria?
Still, as a Clintonista hack this guy pays too much homage to liberal biases.... yet he is able to pose as the wise elder cautioning the MSM, Kos-freaks and DNC hacks to stop propagandizing against our nation’s own interests and security. Won’t do any good, though. The hysterics do not listen to such voices of reason.
Richard Clarke, in his book, tells about Al Gore’s response to whether rendition is legal. That response was, “He’s a terrorist, grab his ass.”
We should stop attacking the movie. Its the only publicity the movie is getting.
I’ll bet dollars to donuts that “extraordinary rendition” started LONG before Reagan. It’s just that by 1987 we were keeping records of everything, including gray-area actions.
I mean, seriously, do you think for one second that FDR would have hesitated to “rendition” a captured top Nazi or Japanese Military Intelligence agent believed to have critical information? I can’t prove it, but I sure don’t doubt it.
Movie review (even the libs don’t like it):
“’Rendition’ is painfully boring”
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/custom/today/bal-to.rendition19oct19,0,6347076.story
While good decent entertainers are entertaining or supporting the troops on their own dime.
The leftist out their are busy making movies to line their own pockets, slamming a wartime President, while supporting Hillary, and traveling the world to say how evil America is. What a bunch of self-centered a$$&*%&^$^#!!!!
FDR went way beyond rendition during WWII.
Japanese Admiral Yamamoto was targeted for assassination (successfully) after his travel intinerary was decrypted by the Americans.
I recently watch a “War Stories” documentary about this (hosted by Ollie North.)
More background here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Isoroku_Yamamoto
“Rendition” is bush league compared to what was done in the 1940s to beat the Axis Powers.
I just don’t understand why if our “Greatest Generation” could engage in these military tactics, why is it so wrong to engage in them now?
Surprised to hear that Gore actually said something once that wasn’t utterly foolish.
She shouldn't have chosen such a stupid role - I guess anything that attacks the Administration is "artsy".
Too bad Reese isn't as sharp as her chin.
Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars. That’s enough to scare me anyway.
"The politics of this movie are apparent from the very beginning. Suffice it to say that people who think liberals, communists and Muslims are equivalent will hate this film."
One review I saw noted that the movie would have been much better if the subject of the rendition had been guilty of what he had been accused of, and then they could have explained how rendition and torture is wrong, even when the person is guilty.
That would have been a useful movie, and one I would have paid money to see. At least it is a legitimate argument.
bump
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