Extraordinarily Questionable

Something tells me that this issue is not going to go away easily. I hope it doesn't, and at least I will do my part. It is Called Torture, (as Bob Herbert has entitled his column in today's New York Times) and it is absolutely unacceptable. More so if it is sponsored by the United States, the champion of democracy, the "land of the free".
Washington has repeated so many times that the end justifies the means, that they have come to believe it. It is not acceptable to -in the name of "homeland security"- torture and detain people indefinitely without charges. It is also not acceptable by international standards and certainly not by this country's code of law, to deny a prisoner (suspect, detainee, illegal combatant, or however you want to call him) the right to legal representation, or to keep him incomunicado for any length of time.
Our government has the nerve to ship detainees to Syria (and other countries with similar records) with the purpose of circumventing US constitutional jursidiction, to have them tortured and extract unreliable information. They do this outside American soil, and turn a blind eye to the treatment given to these prisoners, and the methods used to extract information. In the meantime, this is what the State Department has to say about Syria on their website's country background notes:

Syria has been on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism since the list's inception in 1979. Because of its continuing support and safe haven for terrorist organizations, Syria is subject to legislatively mandated penalties, including export sanctions and ineligibility to receive most forms of U.S. aid or to purchase U.S. military equipment. . .Other issues of U.S. concern include the Syrian government’s human rights record, its support for terrorist groups in Syria and Lebanon, its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, its continued military and security presence in Lebanon, and since the Iraq war, infiltration of foreign fighters and weapons across the Syrian-Iraqi border. In May 2004, the Bush administration, pursuant to the provisions of the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, implemented sanctions on Syria.

Why do we send prisoners to that country? Why do we even ask for their help? Operation Extraordinary Rendition is a highly questionable method to ensure our Homeland Security. Why, if the information these suspects have is supposedly so valuable, if they are such dangerous terrorists, would we not want to hold them here instead of risking losing them abroad? The US argues they hold sensitive information and therefore require special measures. Why then waste time sending them overseas? Why not have our very best interrogators, in our best interrogation facility talk to these individuals? What (if there is nothing to hide) can be done overseas that cannot be done here? Especially in a country like Syria, which sponsors terrorism, is developing a WMD program, is an occupying power in Lebanon, and has an arms embargo from the US?

Extraordinary Rendition is Extraordinarily Questionable.

Books 

Books, without "The End"

Lately I have started reading several books, but I haven't been able to stay with them until the end. I have not given up, but for some reason I have began reading something else, and then something else, without finishing any of them.
I Have Seen the World Begin, The Noonday Demon, My Invented Country (Mi Pais Inventado), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Walden are among them. A People's History of the United States, Me Talk Pretty One Day and Catch 22 are next on the list, but THIS HAS TO STOP! So I better get started reading some of those unfinished books.
Any more titles you recommend? My list is long; those are just a few I'm hoping to finish soon.

Not an Aggie

By the way, I didn't make it into A&M. I'm still waiting for a few schools to write back. Now I'm going to sleep

Monday Morning

After a great week I finally get back to my desk and have time to write down some thoughts. It's 7:00 am and I just dropped Jenn off at the airport : ( She spent almost ten days visiting, and we were able to celebrate Valentine's together and share a wonderful week at her parents'. I'm glad we had a chance to see each other, and I'm even happier that I will visit her next month in Vancouver! I think I'm building up some resistance to my allergies, (they have several cats) on my first visits I could barely breath in their house, but the last two nights I actually made it without taking any antihistamines.

(10 minutes staring at my screen have gone by)... and suddenly I feel a bit nostalgic. The way life "happens" in front of our eyes is almost surreal, some days I feel I'm in a movie, and I can't tell if I'm watching it, or if I am part of it. In the past few months I have moved back home, my sister got married, my best friend's dad got diagnosed with cancer, a good friend's wedding got called off, my dad re-married, I visited my grandparents in Colombia, my girlfriend came home, went back to Vancouver, came back again, and now I'm going up there... and the upcoming months are not going to be any different; each week seems like a new scene, and after it has passed, I look back and ask myself: did that really happen?
...Some random thoughts I guess, but my lack of sleep is catching up with me, we had to be up at 3:30 this morning, and she finished packing like at 1:00 am. I still have a few hours before I go to work, I'm probably not making a lot of sense now so I should stop writing...

Outsourcing Torture

Thanks Jordan, Vanessa, and Annonymous for your comments. This is the link to Outsorcing Torture, the New Yorker Article I mentioned on my previous post. I wouldn't call it a waste of time to worry about US foreign policy; giving up is not really an option, especially if we consider the fact that over 56 million Americans voted against the current administration (Annonymous, take a look at this map by professor Robert Vanderbei from Princeton University, and you will realize how divided the country is. By the way, the bombing in Lebanon took place 3 days after my last post).

More Shame

As if the torture scandal of Abu Grahib was not enough, apparently the US government is outsourcing torture to other countries. This fills me with disgust, and the apathy of the common citizen stuns me. Next week I'll post a link to the full text of the New Yorker article that reported this. It is not yet available online.
What follows is an excerpt form the New York Times, or click here for the full text.

Torture, American Style
By BOB HERBERT
Published: February 11, 2005

Maher Arar is a 34-year-old native of Syria who emigrated to Canada as a teenager. On Sept. 26, 2002, as he was returning from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities at Kennedy Airport in New York, where he was in the process of changing planes.

Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was not charged with a crime. But, as Jane Mayer tells us in a compelling and deeply disturbing article in the current issue of The New Yorker, he "was placed in handcuffs and leg irons by plainclothes officials and transferred to an executive jet."

In an instant, Mr. Arar was swept into an increasingly common nightmare, courtesy of the United States of America. The plane that took off with him from Kennedy "flew to Washington, continued to Portland, Maine, stopped in Rome, Italy, then landed in Amman, Jordan."

Any rights Mr. Arar might have thought he had, either as a Canadian citizen or a human being, had been left behind. At times during the trip, Mr. Arar heard the pilots and crew identify themselves in radio communications as members of "the Special Removal Unit." He was being taken, on the orders of the U.S. government, to Syria, where he would be tortured.

The title of Ms. Mayer's article is "Outsourcing Torture." It's a detailed account of the frightening and extremely secretive U.S. program known as "extraordinary rendition."

This is one of the great euphemisms of our time. Extraordinary rendition is the name that's been given to the policy of seizing individuals without even the semblance of due process and sending them off to be interrogated by regimes known to practice torture. In terms of bad behavior, it stands side by side with contract killings.

Our henchmen in places like Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan and Jordan are torturing terror suspects at the behest of a nation - the United States - that just went through a national election in which the issue of moral values was supposed to have been decisive. How in the world did we become a country in which gays' getting married is considered an abomination, but torture is O.K.?

Shame on us. And I say us, because even though I don't hold a blue passport, I consider myself American. In fact, within a year I should receive my citizenship. But things like this really make me think twice.

A Pickle for the Knowing Ones

Ok, Jenn says I'm a dork for having bought this book, but I still think this guy is a genius!

His name is Lord Timothy Dexter, the "Lord" title, is self-conferred. He lived in the 1700's, was filthy rich and eccentric. He wanted to be an author, so he wrote a book and published it himself (A Pickle for the Knowing Ones). He disregarded every grammatical convention and made up words as he saw fit. He also avoided using any punctuation signs, which caused an uproar among the "well educated" wealthy people in his community. His response? A second edition of the book, identical to the first one, with the following APPENDIX at the end:

fouder mister printer the Nowing ones complane of my book the fust edition had no stops I put in A Nuf her and thay may peper and solt it as they plese

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
........................................................................
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
.......................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......................
...........................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..........................
................................!!!!!!!!...............................
..................................!....................................
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
...........................???????????????????.........................

Come on! The guy is brilliant! The book is like twenty pages, and I have not stoped laughing! Maybe I am a dork after all?

You can listen to the NPR Weekend Edition (January 22, 2005) commentary on the book by clicking here
It is, at the very least, entertaining! (05:22 min).

JONN 41:40

I'll be more than happy to explain. Comments are welcome

Oh Messenger! Alo? We meet again : )