I've been meaning to blog about this for a little while now, but I really haven't really had the time until now.  It seems that Obama has quickly backtracked on one of his executive orders, as shown by Boots and Sabers.  On January 23rd, he ordered a ban on torture and rendition, and closed down the secret CIA prison network overseas that we really know nothing about.  On the 31st, he re-authorized renditions.  Everybody seems confused... mostly the liberal organizations who backed Obama's stance on the torture, like Human Rights Watch.  They've gone from saying that any use of rendition and torture under the Bush Administration was bad, to saying that under limited circumstanced, it's OK to use rendition under the Obama Administration.

Glenn Greenwald even went out of his way to explain the nuance of the situation.  You see, now we find out that there are actually two different types of renditions.  Really, the liberals were only against extraordinary rendition, not plain old ordinary ones.  Though the definition of what makes something extraordinary is somewhat vague.  More importantly, Greenwald doesn't think its appropriate to bash Obama for the rendition program when we don't know he's actually done it!  Granted, he's authorized it, but apparently that's not important.  Why would he authorize it if he didn't intend to do it, especially when he promised to stop the program?  That doesn't make any sense.

But then Greenwald does the amazing.  He says:

Second, I have a question for those who believe that rendition, in all cases (even when it's not used to disappear individuals or send individuals to countries where they will be tortured), is inappropriate and wrong:

Suppose (for the sake of discussion) that: (a) the U.S. learns exactly where Osama bin Laden is located in Pakistan; (b) there is ample evidence that bin Laden (i) perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and (ii) is in the advanced stages of planning new imminent attacks on the U.S.; and (c) the Pakistani Government is either unwilling or unable to apprehend bin Laden in order to extradite him to the U.S. for trial.  Further suppose that efforts to compel the Pakistanis to do so through the U.N. are blocked (because, say, China or Russia vetoes any actions).

What's amazing to me here is this is just the sort of case that people make for torture.  They create a wild set of facts that won't happen in order to justify something that is actually used much more commonly for ordinary people.  I've talked about these people before.  For instance, there was this Canadian gentleman.  He was disappeared to Syria, where some pretty horrific things were done to him, and that's just one example.

And that phrase right there is a pretty scary thing.  Disappeared.  You see, people seem to automatically argue about rendition, and go straight to torture.  But let's leave torture out of it completely.  Let's just say we grab a guy off the street and throw him in a locked room forever.  No torture, just no escape.  You've been found guilty by someone with no defense, and we're just going to lock you away.

The problem with rendition, as I've argued before, is innocence.  The entire reason for most of our basic judicial rights, is to protect the innocent, and guard against mistakes.  It gives a person to stand before a neutral party, declare their innocence, and force the jailer to prove their guilt.  When someone is disappeared somewhere though, none of that applies.

Now then, if someone wants to argue that we should be able to go into another sovereign nation, and extradite a person we believe to be guilty to stand trial here in the United States, I think a good argument can be made.  But what Obama re-authorized was the rendition of persons to other countries, where no such judicial protections may occur.

Somehow, as long as these people never step foot on American soil, even if we do the taking, that absolves us of any guilt we may have about not honoring what we have always considered inalienable rights that belong to all men.  It was wrong to have rendition under Clinton, Bush, and it is wrong to have it under Obama.