VBS.TV Blog

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION

November 06, 2009
by IAN WINTHROP

When oppressive regimes need to find the most brutal creative torturer imaginable, where do they look? Is there a recruitment website for evil, sadistic sub-humans? Like, monster.com, but for real monsters. Ever since the US opened the torture floodgates eight years ago, we’ve been introduced to an series of horrifying torture tales, each more shocking and fucked up than the last. And ever since we started outsourcing torture to our allies, the brutality has increased exponentially. Speaking at a recent lecture, Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, charged the CIA with shipping terror suspects to Uzbekistan as part of the extraordinary rendition program. If you read our post earlier this week about Maher Arar, you would know that abuses of the program are far from uncommon. What made Murray’s speech so damning was his accusation that the Uzbekistanis rape prisoners with broken bottles, boil them alive, and torture the prisoner’s children until the parent signs a confession.

So, back to the original question: where does the state find a child-torturer?