Just Say No, Part 3

In the upcoming months, it will be interesting to watch the progress of Khaled al-Masri’s lawsuit. Al-Masri alleges he was picked up at the Macedonian border Dec. 31, 2003 and held against his will, “taken into custody” in PC meme, in Macedonia for 23 days, and then flown to Afghanistan for a four month detention at the hands of the US government. In May 2004, he was let go, flown first to Albania and then on to Germany.

The main defendant in the lawsuit is George Tenet, who was the director of the CIA 1997 through 2004. The CIA’s campaign of foreign national interrogation, which has come to the light of day recently, like earwigs and pill bugs exposed to the sun when a rock is turned over, snared al-Masri in its web of espionage when he was mistakenly identified as a 9/11 hijacker’s compadre.

His case is the first time I’ve read the term “rendition program.” Rendition sounds so harmless. Rendition conjures up jokey covers of songs, or Mad TV’s latest send up of a music video. According to the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, however, rendition also means, “extradition of a fugitive who has fled to another state.” However, typical of fedbeast impatience, they’re putting the cart in front of the horse yet again. They’re nabbing said fugitives before they know if they are truly fugitives. They're abusing said fugitives, trying to discover if they are truly fugitives. And this said fugitive, who isn’t a fugitive at all, is saying no.

No, I didn’t do anything wrong.
No, you did something wrong,
And No, you can’t just make me go away.

"Now I am hoping that an American court will say very clearly that what happened to me was illegal and cannot be done to others.'' Khaled al-Masri