I’m just doing a little word substitution here:
I’m trying to imagine how that would play out.
If his name was Khalid al-Masri we’d let it go. Because, you know, with a name like that…
The hell of it is, I think you’re right.
Not only did he have to endure inhumane and brutal torture at Gitmo; he then got to experience the bullshit that is the legal system today. That’s the part that bothers me the most: the gov’t claims that its seekrets are more important than legal redress and three separate courts (and the German gov’t) drop it like it’s hot.
John McAfee will let you know
I’m not sure if you chose that example knowing about this or not. The answer is, it plays out pretty uneventfully, if said Americans are some kind of commie peaceniks.
Except in this case, it was Salvadorans who were trained, specifically in how to torture people effectively, and armed by the CIA, not the Russians, who tortured and killed four American nuns.
I can’t say I’m happy to learn how close I accidentally came to the mark, but I am grateful, at some level for the knowledge.
Edit to add the wikipedia link:
I need to go to my happy place for a while.
I need to remember that governments do not have a conscience.
Ha ha, as if there were universal moral principles that could apply to American Exceptionalism!
There was also one in Guatemala, so you were even closer to the mark:
Wasn’t there somebody in the Bush Administration who came out and straight-forwardly admitted their policy was to continue trying to get information out of prisoners even after they were identified as not guilty? Throwing the net wide, like if you could randomly grab 1000 people from around the world and pick their brains with impunity, who knows, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon might lead you to Bin Laden or something.
Notes taken by Rumsfeld’s aide on 9/11: “Need to move swiftly…go massive–sweep it all up things related and not.”
This sounds like the plot of a dystopian novel.
Except, 100 years from now, when all the facts have come to light, the novel will seem rather tame compared to what actually happened.
I always try to direct my moral compass using that qualifier.
What will people in 100 years, given better knowledge and hindsight, think of this behaviour?
Hell, why 100 years? Who knows what kind of wack philosophies might have taken root by then.
What would your mother think of this behaviour? (Assuming a normal loving mother rather than some Mommie Dearest type abusive psycho.)
Just, perspective.
We could go 10,000 and contact with aliens if it would provide the appropriate moral context.
These fucking Gitmo pictures! Jesus, what the fuck! So terrible!
Torturing innocent civilians who can provide no information, all to advance the War of on Terrorism.
Because it’s only terrorism when those people do it.
Ensuring a whole new generation of people who despise the U.S., guaranteeing money and jobs in the defense industry.
Brought to you by the Cheney/Rumsfeld administration, the same folks who gave us that oh-so-effective “shock and awe” strategy that made the whole world worship and fear us.
Did anyone notice that this is quite old news and has already been published about 10 years in the past (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/international/europe/09kidnap.html)? In the meantime our German government (now stating his kidnapping to be “unaccceptable and a serious mistake”) did nothing to help this man, but instead spied on him, too.
Al-Masri also reported being questioned by German agents during his stay in Macedonia.
He’s now become mentally unstable and is imprisoned for several acts of violence at the moment.
If The State requires one of its citizens to be insane, perhaps violently so, it is within The State’s power to make that happen 
