We’ve remained shamefully silent as the US violates its own values

WHAT sort of values is the West fighting for in its so-called war against terror? It’s no longer about freedom, is it, or democracy?

It has nothing to do with justice, or the standards of civilised law espoused by, among others, the US Supreme Court.

And why are we turning a blind eye? Why is our Government so determined to ensure that the US will never be embarrassed at the discovery of anything improper on its planes in Shannon?

Government ministers go on television, bland to the point of smugness, and tell us they have received assurances that none of the US planes passing through Shannon contains any prisoners who have been deprived of basic human and civil rights.

We’re not supporters of this new policy of rendition, the same ministers tell us, and if there was any evidence that Shannon was being used in pursuit of that policy, we’d be very cross. The Taoiseach has even invited opposition leaders, if they have any such evidence, to bring it to the gardaí.

And what would happen then? Sweet nothing. There will be no question of any US plane being inspected, any random patrol asking permission to go on board. Because that might establish the assurances we’re so happy to rely on are just lies.

So our Government stands idly by, demeaning and debasing itself, and us in the process, in the face of mounting evidence - evidence of the sort that has outraged many thinking Americans.

Here’s one of those Americans, the sort of American whose views ought to count, from a recent article in the Los Angeles Times: “In recent years I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican. These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties ... Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect ... Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of ‘preemptive war,’ an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavoury regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes. ... Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under extreme provisions of the USA Patriot Act. Of even greater concern is that the United States has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice-president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate ‘cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment’ on people in US custody.”

Those are the views of the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. Could there be a stronger indictment of the 43rd President of the Unites States, George W Bush?

Rendition, or as it’s sometimes called extraordinary rendition, was until recently a secret US government programme in which prisoners are moved from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. We’re more familiar with the word render here in Ireland in a different context - it’s what happens in the knacker’s yard where the carcasses of dead animals are melted down for recycling or disposal.

In Ireland, just as in Britain, the practice of rendering in the knacker’s yard is governed and regulated by law. There are, it seems, appropriate and inappropriate ways to treat animal carcasses.

But rendition is about how human beings should be treated. And there is only one reason for using such a policy as part of a programme of war. It saves the US forces involved from the inconvenience of the law. It ensures they are free to do whatever they want with prisoners, and that includes sending them to jurisdictions where torture is routinely used.

According to the story that first surfaced in the Washington Post, rendition is part of a secret prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in eastern Europe (Romania and Bulgaria are suspected), as well as a small centre at Guantanamo.

THESE prisons are called ‘black sites’ and their existence was until recently known to very few people. One of those people, it seems clear, was Vice-President Dick Cheney, who may or may not have kept his president informed. His president, of course, may not have known and may not have wanted to know - even though, again according to the Washington Post, “six days after the September 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping finding that gave the CIA broad authorisation to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al-Qaida anywhere in the world.”

Because if these prisons were in the US, they would be clearly illegal. Their methods have been outlawed by the US courts time and time again. What the CIA calls ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ even when they fall short of outright torture, are simply not capable of being practised on a human being within the law of the United States.

When 9/11 happened, I wrote here that we shouldn’t mince words. Justice, in this case, I said, demands retribution and punishment. “America has the right to seek out and punish those who did this thing, and those who are prepared to shelter them. We ... have an obligation to help and assist in that whatever way we can.

I went on to write that “as someone who has argued in the past against any involvement by Ireland in any military operation that doesn’t have a formal UN mandate, there can be no neutrality in the face of what is not just terrorism, but savage barbarism ... if we can offer some tactical or strategic facility or advantage to those fighting against terrorism, we must do it. Everyone in the world, including those who believe that America has a right to strike back, wants America to do it in as measured a way as possible. Everyone wants international rules of law and norms of civilisation to be observed as much as possible. And everyone wants the war against terrorism to be prevented from becoming a war against Islam”.

And what has happened? Even as I was writing that article, in the immediate aftermath of the strike on New York, there were people plotting to turn this into a war for American supremacy.

There isn’t a single American value that hasn’t been traduced, not a cornerstone of the greatest democracy in history that hasn’t been defiled.

Some in the rest of the world have protested, some have had their eyes opened. But our Government has stayed mute. They have shamed us.