Extraordinary Rendition

...is the term of the day. It sounds like something you might have been subjected to at the local karaoke bar, however it is, in fact, the US process of sending people they suspect to other countries where it may be easier to reach a desired result they cannot realistically achieve on US soil.

It appears we are talking imprisonment and torture - even murder. The Wikipedia entry looks fairly thorough and although details are sketchy, the fact this process exists is undisputed and there seems to be plenty of evidence.

The US government seem to be rather proud of it in fact, given that the detention camps at Guantanamo Bay are already such a gleaming beacon of out-sourcing illegal detention to foreign lands.

Now the big hoo-ha here in the UK seems not to be about telling the US to get a grip - at the risk of upsetting them I expect - rather that the planes carrying these people land here to re-fuel and whatnot en route to whatever country is performing the torture/murder.

Of course, the word torture is distasteful and very evocative - and I understand big hitters in the US, like US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, have already been using different words for what appears to be exactly that. I seem to remember Nazi Germany developed the same trick of giving much more 'pleasant' names to thoroughly reprehensible abuses of human rights.

By forcing democracy down people's throats with one hand, whilst playing fast and loose with it using the other, I can only assume the intention of the US is to thoroughly piss off as many people as possible. Because they can. Oh - and wait - it's good for business too! Makes you proud, doesn't it?