Taxi Drivers to the Dark Side Convicted

In common law, rendition "is a transfer of persons from one jurisdiction to another, and the act of handing over, both after legal proceedings and according to law." Whereas, extraordinary rendition is a rendition, which is illegal and exists outside the bounds of international law. Although the practice has existed for some time, according to the ACLU, it was refined during the Clinton administration by CIA officials in the mid-1990s who were trying to track down and dismantle militant Islamic organizations throughout the Middle East. What came next under the watchful eye of the Bush junta and its own clandestine services, has come to exemplify the reckless cowboy-like swagger and irresponsibility of both the policies and people tasked to execute those orders.

Canadians are well versed in the tawdry details involved with the Mahar Arar extraordinary rendition case. As summarized in Wikipedia:

Arar, a Syrian-born dual Syrian and Canadian citizen, was detained at Kennedy International Airport on 26 September 2002, by US Immigration and Naturalization Service officials. He was heading home to Canada after a family holiday in Tunisia. After almost two weeks, enduring hours of interrogation chained, he was sent, shackled and bound, in a private jet to Jordan and then Syria, instead of being extradited to Canada. There, he was interrogated and tortured by Syrian intelligence. Maher Arar was eventually released a year later. He told the BBC that he was repeatedly tortured during 10 months' detention in Syria — often whipped on the palms of his hands with metal cables. Syrian intelligence officers forced him to sign a confession linking him to Al Qaeda. He was finally released following intervention by the Canadian government.

These illegal embarrassments, when revealed, have been completely ignored by the American judiciary and investigations into criminal activities committed by the Executive under George W. Bush have been scuttled by the Obama administration. However, not all countries consider the principles of justice to be malleable and subordinate to governmental abuse. After years legal blockage, an Italian judge has sentenced 23 Americans in absentia to up to eight years in prison on Wednesday for the abduction and extraordinary rendition of a Muslim cleric.

The case surrounds the actions of CIA agents, who were tasked with "the secret kidnapping of a radical Muslim cleric off the streets of Milan in early 2003, his transport via US airbases in Italy and Germany to Egypt, and there, evidently with the CIA station chief for Italy riding shotgun, directly into the hands of Egyptian torturers." The problem with the whole affair was that their actions were anything but secret. Believing they were immune from all prosecution and international law, the agents were observed by Italian police publicly talking on their cell phones, running up huge expenses at luxury hotels, and were caught in their rental cars by local traffic cameras "as they drove illegally through pedestrian walkways." Obviously not being able to watch the Bourne Ultimatum in cinema, they were completely unaware of how clandestine operations were to be conducted.

According to the NY Times,

The heaviest sentence -- eight years in prison -- was handed down to the former head of the CIA's Milan station, Robert Seldon Lady, while 21 other former agents got five years each. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Romano was also sentenced to five years, despite a request from the Pentagon that the case should be tried by U.S. courts. [Judge] Magi dropped the case against three Americans, including a former CIA Rome station chief, because of diplomatic immunity. Charges were also dropped against five Italians, including the former head of the Sismi military intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari, because evidence against them violated state secrecy rules. However, the judge sentenced two more junior Sismi agents to three years in prison as accomplices, indicating Italian authorities were aware of the abduction.

Instead of having foreign governments with an independent judiciary prosecute the criminal activities of the CIA and members of the Bush administration, the Democratic led Congress and Presidency should be reaffirming constitutional law and prosecuting those persons, agencies, and officials who violated America's treaty obligations and casually prescribed kidnapping, murder, and torture as America's new modus operandi in fighting terrorism. Then again, that would entail caring about anything other than just being elected.