Renditions

I am reading "Ghost Plane," which opens with an imaginary visit to a secret prison in Damascus that was, in 2002 and 2003, home to a number of suspected terrorists abducted from various places around the globe. These prisoners, tortured daily, were part of the now well publicized CIA covert renditions program authorized by George Bush after September 11. At the same time that he was publicly excoriating Syria for human rights abuses, including torture, Bush was enthusiastically supporting a program that took advantage of the the willingness of the Syrian government to torture terrorists. Or suspected terrorists. Many of whom proved to be innocent, as investigations in Canada and elsewhere have shown. The CIA and the SIS (aka MI5) would fax lists of questions to the interrogators at the Syrian prison. I have a lot more to read.