U.S. Practice of Rendering and Interrogating Terrorist Suspects in Foreign Countries - Essay Example

U.S. Practice of Rendering and Interrogating Terrorist Suspects in Foreign Countries U.S. Practice of Rendering and Interrogating Terrorist Suspects in Foreign Countries Rendering and interrogation are practices used as a counterterrorism tool which has become integral to American Intelligence in their effort to gather information related to terrorism attacks. Nevertheless, there has been insignificant publicity concerning the nature of the frequency of the U.S practice of rendering and interrogations.

The press has made reports indicating cases where more than one hundred terrorism suspects have been captured by the United States since the occurrence of 9/11 in countries like Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, etc. Some suspects have been held in the United States for interrogation, and others are sent to the countries cited by U.S. State Department for human-right violation, including torture. However, there are human rights activist prominent U.S. allies who are against the Rendering and Interrogation.

Therefore, the paper will focus on developing relevant arguments to discuss issues related to U.S practice of rendering and interrogating terrorist suspects in foreign countries. There are reports that have been filed by various detainees concerning abuse whereby they criticize the government for failing to ensure that terrorism suspects are not interrogated in the hands of tortures. Moreover, the legal authority of the U.S. agencies to carry out rendering and interrogation has remained unclear.

On the other hand, the U.S. is a signatory to the UN’s Geneva Convention against Torture, which prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners. Washington has determined that despite the directives issued by former President Bush in February 2002, the Geneva Conventions are not applying concerning the treatment of the detainees. Moreover, Washington has determined that Geneva Conventions are not applying on war terrorism though there was a draft memo by Justice Department which authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to render terrorism suspects out of Iraq to foreign countries for interrogation.

Therefore, the Central Intelligence Agency was offered authority to act autonomously through classified presidential directives signed after 9/11. The controversy related to the practice of rendering and interrogating terrorist suspects led to a significant discomfort in Europe due to Bush administration approach aimed at countering terrorism. In fact, the experts have raised issues related to clandestine prison and secret flight stem from broader issues affecting transatlantic relation. Moreover, Europe has been relentless with unwillingness of Washington to offer the due process to terror suspects whereby they are expected to assure suspects that their human rights will not be violated in the process of abusive interrogation.

In addition, experts claim that the due process is alleged to apply torture thus creating a contradiction with European norms on human rights. The allegations torture in U.S. practice of rendering and interrogating has been putting significant pressure on the European government. This made the EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini issue a warning which states that any member of EU found guilty due to involvement in CIA’s practices of interrogation would lose the voting rights.

Nevertheless, this threat has been dismissed since there are secrets involved in violation of European Convention of Human Rights. On the other hand, the European human right groups and other parties are seeking assurance for the government that officials will not be involved in secret the U.S. practice of rendering and interrogating. Therefore, the media and other foreign countries are seeking opportunities to criticize the government; in fact, there are prison reports opposing the American practice of rendering and interrogating.

In this case, the issues concerning the U.S. operations in Europe contributed to significant fears concerning the Bush administration. The opponents of the allegations against the United States have remained speculative whereby there are experts claiming that Europe has been supportive, but the population has been opposed by the American actions. In fact, these practices have been contributing significantly to the process of sharing intelligence since the attacks on 9/11. Therefore, despite the political discord concerning the unpopular war in Iraq, there are substantial political hindrances in the future operations of collaborative intelligence.

In addition, the nature and frequency of the U.S. practice of rendering and interrogating has insignificant publicity though there are some of the politicized cases, such as Lebanese national Khaled el-Masri, and a German citizen who made allegations of being pick up by Macedonian authorities and handed over to the U.S. officials in Afghanistan (Crane, 2005). In conclusion, U.S.A officials accepted the mistake of wrongfully detaining the German for five months, and this led to an investigation by prosecutors about the involvement of a former German interior minister Otto Schily.

Moreover, the fallout in Italian politics, Sweden and Germany has increased difficulty in cooperation of the counties in counterterrorism operations with the U.S. intelligence. However, the extent of the drawback on intelligence and law enforcement front have been making the parties more reluctant to share information.   References Crane, M. (2005, Dec. 6). U.S. Treatment of Terror Suspects and U.S.-EU Relations. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from http://www.cfr.org/terrorism-and-the-law/us-treatment-terror-suspects-us-eu-relations/p9350