Extraordinary Rendition

What is "Extraordinary Rendition"? Does exist? Is it happening? And if so, is it ethical with regard to the "War on Terror"? What value conflicts are at issue here?

(Note: Get out your fallacy detector, kids. We're goin' huntin'!)

Extraordinary Rendition
"The administration is trying to have it both ways in its so-called war on terror. It claims to be fighting for freedom, democracy and the rule of law, and it condemns barbaric behavior whenever it is committed by someone else. At the same time, it is engaged in its own barbaric behavior, while going out of its way to keep that behavior concealed from the American public and the world at large."

The New Yorker
"The Bush Administration, however, has argued that the threat posed by stateless terrorists who draw no distinction between military and civilian targets is so dire that it requires tough new rules of engagement. This shift in perspective, labeled the New Paradigm in a memo written by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, “places a high premium on . . . the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians,” giving less weight to the rights of suspects. It also questions many international laws of war. Five days after Al Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vice-President Dick Cheney, reflecting the new outlook, argued, on “Meet the Press,” that the government needed to “work through, sort of, the dark side.” Cheney went on, “A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world these folks operate in. And so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”"

MSNBC - Aboard Air CIA

Thinking Right � This Is What He Thinks Of Us
"According to Herbert and Mayer “Extraordinary rendition” is a program where suspected terrorists are sent to countries that have no qualms about torture to be…. well…. questioned. This program has supposedly been named “extraordinary rendition” by the CIA. Of course, as far as I can tell, there is no concrete proof that this program exists. I googled “extraordinary rendition” and all mentions of the program were by either left of center journalists or un named sources inside the justice department or CIA. Call me skeptical, but I don’t trust un named sources as concrete proof that a program that makes no sense exists."