Question RE: Clinton Administration & Torture

[Proud Liberal Dem]

I was reading the other day about Senator Shelby's retort to Holder that the Clinton Administration might be investigated for its use of "Extraordinary Rendition" program if Democrats continue to press Bushco on the torture issue. I remember hearing that the Clinton Administration DID start the ER but my understanding (or the explanation given) was that they were using to snag terror suspects in foreign countries but they weren't shipping them to repressive countries to be tortured? Is that the understanding that everybody else had about their program versus Buscho's ER? Or did I misunderstand the use of the program by the Clinton Administration? If it was just simply snagging terror suspects for trial here in the US, why would Holder (or the rest of us) be worried about investigations into it? As far as I remember, people weren't getting tortured under the Clinton Administration, were they, and if so, there's no "moral equivalency" between what Bushco did and what the Clinton Administration did, right? :shrug:

[rustydog]

1. Rendition is not torture, period. Bush started Extraordinary Rendition

I believe. The extraordinary part is we then shipped those renditioned to torturing countries.

I could be wrong.

For these Bush-loving, torture apologists to try to equate rendition with beating an innocent taxi driver to death shows their belief that international laws were savagely broken and they are growing desperate.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. They Were Kidnapped And Tortured Under Clinton

Egypt was a favorite destination IIRC. Clinton, Gore, and Holder green-lighted it. I was never so ashamed to be a Democrat as I was when that was uncovered.

For example, see:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/30/061030ta_talk_mayer

[EFerrari]

6. Yes. That's correct. ACLU has some information at their site.

That happened.

However, unlike Bush, President Clinton didn't put together a GLOBAL torture program and he didn't subvert many of our institutions in service of that program.

[wyldwolf]

3. sure, why not Sen. Shelby? This is what you'll find

Scott Horton, who testified as an expert witness for the European Parliament on the matter of Bush-era extraordinary rendition and is a New York attorney known for his work in international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, had this to say:

There are two fundamental distinctions between the programs (Clinton-era and Bush-era.) The (Bush) extraordinary renditions program involved the operation of long-term detention facilities either by the CIA or by a cooperating host government together with the CIA, in which prisoners were held outside of the criminal justice system and otherwise unaccountable under law for extended periods of time. A central feature of this program was rendition to torture, namely that the prisoner was turned over to cooperating foreign governments with the full understanding that those governments would apply techniques that even the Bush Administration considers to be torture. This practice is a felony under current U.S. law, but was made a centerpiece of Bush counterterrorism policy.

The (Clinton) earlier renditions program regularly involved snatching and removing targets for purposes of bringing them to justice by delivering them to a criminal justice system. It did not involve the operation of long-term detention facilities and it did not involve torture. There are legal and policy issues with the renditions program, but they are not in the same league as those surrounding extraordinary rendition.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004326

I don't believe anyone currently posting in this thread, including one known Clinton hater, or anyone who will post in this thread, is more of an authority on this than Scott Horton.

Dennis Kucinich recognized this when he introduced H.Res. 1258 on the House Floor, which were proposed articled of impeachment for GW Bush.

H.Res. 1258; Article XIX. Rendition; paragraph 5 (Congressional Daily Record Page H5202) states:

The administration has claimed that prior administrations have practiced extraordinary rendition, but, while this is technically true, earlier renditions were used only to capture people with outstanding arrest warrants or convictions who were outside in order to deliver them to stand trial or serve their sentences...

Wasting even more tax money on another pointless Clinton investigation would serve one useful purpose - it would lay to rest another Right wing (and now, unfortunately, left wing) myth about Bill Clinton.

Sure, the Clinton-era policy was still a violation of International Law, but no one in the US would ever convict him for it.

According to Clinton administration official Richard Clarke:

extraordinary renditions', were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgment of the host government…. The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: "Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and 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.'

After all, if asked, how many people would have been against snatching Osama Bin Laden in the 90s?

Now, you'll see some people on the left aiding Shelby in a fruitless search to prove the Clinton administration did something even remotely similar to what Bush did.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Nice Try

Of course, your many words don't negate the obvious - when you kidnap a person and deliver them to governments that are known to regularly use torture, you cannot plausibly deny that you've had someone tortured. Your point that Bush was worse is certainly correct, but Clinton is guilty of sending people to be tortured.

You yourself have admitted this previously, but said it was OK because LBJ did it too (which I cannot find evidence of).

[wyldwolf]

5. Scott Horton, International Human Rights Lawyer, and Dennis Kucinch speak for me on this matter

said it was OK because LBJ did it too

Where did I say it was OK?

:rofl:

Link?

[MannyGoldstein]

10. Horton Does Not Disagree With Me

And you're right - you didn't say that torture was OK, only that we shouldn't be mad at Clinton for torturing since LBJ did it first:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8231844

My apologies.

[wyldwolf]

12. no, I said Clinton wasn't the first to use rendition or outsource questioning...

which is what you were contending

[demhistorian]

7. Great information. Thank you.

[EFerrari]

8. Scott Horton is wrong.

Fact Sheet: Extraordinary Rendition (12/6/2005)

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION

Beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day, the Central Intelligence Agency, together with other U.S. government agencies, has utilized an intelligence-gathering program involving the transfer of foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism to detention and interrogation in countries where -- in the CIA's view -- federal and international legal safeguards do not apply. Suspects are detained and interrogated either by U.S. personnel at U.S.-run detention facilities outside U.S. sovereign territory or, alternatively, are handed over to the custody of foreign agents for interrogation. In both instances, interrogation methods are employed that do not comport with federal and internationally recognized standards. This program is commonly known as "extraordinary rendition."

The current policy traces its roots to the administration of former President Bill Clinton. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, however, what had been a limited program expanded dramatically, with some experts estimating that 150 foreign nationals have been victims of rendition in the last few years alone. Foreign nationals suspected of terrorism have been transported to detention and interrogation facilities in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Diego Garcia, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and elsewhere. In the words of former CIA agent Robert Baer: "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear -- never to see them again -- you send them to Egypt."

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/extraordinaryrendition/22203res20051206.html

[wyldwolf]

9. I'll take a human rights lawyer's and Kucinich's word over the ACLU's

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

14. And that's entirely your perogative. n/t

[demhistorian]

11. From "5 Myths About Renditions"

People who are "rendered" inevitably end up in a foreign slammer -- or worse.\

Actually, that's not a foregone conclusion. Alvarez was brought to the United States. So was Mir Aimal Kansi, who killed two CIA employees in their cars outside the agency's Langley headquarters in 1993, and Ramzi Yousef, the architect of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Both were apprehended in Pakistan, whose leaders decided that the nation would rather not have those two -- folk heroes to some -- sitting in jail, awaiting extradition. Pakistan's leaders feared that cooperating with the United States would be dangerously unpopular, so they wanted the suspects out of the country quickly. For many pro-U.S. Muslim leaders, that concern has only deepened as anti-Americanism has soared...

...During the Clinton years, the United States required the country that received a rendered person to have some kind of legal process against the suspect -- an arrest warrant or indictment, for example. It's not clear whether that is still the case.

Rendition is just a euphemism for outsourcing torture.

Well, not historically. The guidelines for Clinton-era renditions required that subjects could be sent only to countries where they were not likely to be tortured -- countries that gave assurances to that effect and whose compliance was monitored by the State Department and the intelligence community. It's impossible to be certain that those standards were upheld every time, but serious efforts were made to see that they were. At a minimum, countries with indisputably lousy human rights records (say, Syria) were off-limits. Another key difference: Renditions before Bush were carried out to disrupt terrorist activity, not to gather intelligence or interrogate individuals.

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/1019rendition.aspx

[EFerrari]

13. Yes, rendition and extraordinary rendition aren't the same thing

as anyone knows who has been following the torture story since 2002.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. Well, The Reality Was A Little Different

There was no credible assurance that they would not be tortured - if there was any assurance at all. Egypt is notorious for torture.

From: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=389&topic_id=5630133&mesg_id=5630314

"In a New Yorker interview with CIA veteran Michael Scheuer, an author of the rendition program under the Clinton administration, writer Jane Mayer noted, "In 1995, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt, making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally — including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea... 'What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian,' Scheuer said. 'It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.' Technically, U.S. law requires the CIA to seek 'assurances' from foreign governments that rendered suspects won’t be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was 'not sure' if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed."<21> However, Scheuer testified before Congress that no such assurances were received.<22> He further acknowledged that treatment of prisoners may not have been "up to U.S. standards." However, he stated,

This is a matter of no concern as the Rendition Program’s goal was to protect America, and the rendered fighters delivered to Middle Eastern governments are now either dead or in places from which they cannot harm America. Mission accomplished, as the saying goes.<23>

Thereafter, with the approval of President Clinton and a presidential directive (PDD 39), the CIA instead elected to send suspects to Egypt, where they were turned over to the Egyptian Mukhabarat."

[wyldwolf]

16. Again, the reality of sourced material is much more concrete than what you're contending

[EFerrari]

17. I found this timeline at PBS the other night. As far as I can tell, it's right:

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/rendition701/timeline/timeline_1.html

Yes, Clinton did render people to Egypt where they were tortured. It wasn't very frequent and certainly not routine as it was under the Torture President or the Torturing 110th Congress. But, it did happen. We might as well know the worst so we can deal with it.

[Senator]

18. "The Reality" ?!?

Your posted quote says that the "reality witness" lied either to Mayer or to Congress about the agreements. And then spoke about what "may" not have been the reality of treatment.

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