The American Secret Police

Within the last few days, the international backlash over the American program of rendition has heated up when an Italian judge issued arrest warrents for 13 CIA operatives over the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in 2003. The U.S. and Italian inteligence bureaus had been investigating the cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, for training anti-U.S. militants for the soon-to-be-launched war in Iraq. The Italians charge that the rendition has hurt their ability to prosecute Nasr and also complain that the rendition amounted to an illegal kidnapping. They have sent the warrents to Interpol, thus compelling other countries to search for, and deport if found, the CIA operatives. In addition to the illegal kidnapping, the U.S. sent Nasr to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured while in custody of the Egyptian police. The rendition program is stunningly and unquestionably illegal. It is essentially kidnapping, but it is also accompanied by handing over suspects to countries that are known as human rights violators. It is one of the increasingly large number of actions taken by the Bush Administration that should lead to their impeachment and hand-over to the International Criminal Court on human rights abuses and breaking international law. In addition, any information gained in the interrogations where due process is not present, and especially where torture is involved, is not very likely to be useful and is certainly not allowable in a court. The rendition program violates international (and probably U.S.) law and hurts any efforts to curtail terrorism around the world.