Rosher.Net

It’s such an unusual term… ‘extraordinary rendition’. One might, not so long ago before it hit the headlines, have expected it to mean a bravura performance by some operatic wonder, or symphonic instrumentalist. Like ‘wow! that was an extraordinary rendition of Mahler’s fourth!’ Now, of course, we are faced with the truth, that it means long distance hands-clean torture and interrogation.

The story as it runs at the moment in the UK is a to-and-fro media/politician debate about whether our own government (fond as it is to hanging tightly on to the reins of control) assisted the US (that land of the free, and it’s own definition of the word ‘torture’) in their transfer of alleged terrorists under ‘extraordinary rendition’, so that they could be interrogated using techniques illegal in their own country. Did we allow them to land at our airports? Did we re-fuel their aircraft? Did we ‘get our hands dirty’?

Didn’t we ought to be asking another question? WFT are you doing, America? If it’s illegal in your own country, if you wouldn’t condone doing it on your own soil, if it’s that bad, why does it make it alright to do it in someone else’s back yard? And if you’re not doing something utterly unethical, not reprehensible to any reasonable American, then why not do it at home? It’s like the perv who thinks under-age sex is ok in the East. If it’s wrong here, it’s wrong there! Why is that so hard to understand? Why is that not the main headline? At least have the courage of your [heh] convictions.

ethics