Rendition -- Review
Every nation has its dark side. It's the side of our national life we'd just not think about. We find it unsettling when someone brings it to our attention. Torture is one of those issues that we would rather not think about. We hear our President insist that America doesn't torture, but then won't define what he means by torture. Is, for instance, waterboarding torture? We have admitted to using this "technique" for information gathering.
But darker even than this is the practice that the CIA has used to sweep up suspects and send them off to "allies" whose governments are both adept at torture and have few qualms about using it. This practice is called rendition, and it is the subject of a movie now out on DVD by the same name.
Rendition (New Line Cinema, 2007) tells the story of an Egyptian national who had grown up in the US (played by Omar Metwally), had married into an American family (his pregnant wife is played by Reese Witherspoon), had a good job as a chemical engineer. But he is mistaken for an associate of a terrorist, is taken from the airport after flying home from a conference in South Africa, and sent off to a foreign country to be tortured.
The inexperienced CIA agent (Jake Gyleenaal) who oversees this process eventually realizes that the prisoner, Anwar El-Ibrahimi is innocent. Unfortunately, he can't get his superior (played by Meryl Streep) to end the "interrogations." Finally, he takes things into his own hands, frees Anwar and puts him on a boat heading for Spain and from there home to America. At the same time he reveals what happened to the press.
I am sure the film makers took some liberties here. But it has been acknowledged that the CIA has secret prisons and uses techniques that would be illegal in America. The justification for this is that America is under attack and that extraordinary measures are needed to protect the homeland. But is this true? Is torture even productive, let alone moral?
Rendition is a disturbing film. At times it is graphic. It tells the story from a variety of angles, including that of the family of the police head who oversees the torture in this North African nation, and the presence of Islamist attempts to assassinate him.
My hope is that if you watch this film you will at least raise questions about American efforts at dealing with terrorism. In this case, a law abiding legal resident was stripped of his rights (of habeus corpus) because he wasn't a citizen. He simply disappears. Is this the American way?
But darker even than this is the practice that the CIA has used to sweep up suspects and send them off to "allies" whose governments are both adept at torture and have few qualms about using it. This practice is called rendition, and it is the subject of a movie now out on DVD by the same name.
Rendition (New Line Cinema, 2007) tells the story of an Egyptian national who had grown up in the US (played by Omar Metwally), had married into an American family (his pregnant wife is played by Reese Witherspoon), had a good job as a chemical engineer. But he is mistaken for an associate of a terrorist, is taken from the airport after flying home from a conference in South Africa, and sent off to a foreign country to be tortured.
The inexperienced CIA agent (Jake Gyleenaal) who oversees this process eventually realizes that the prisoner, Anwar El-Ibrahimi is innocent. Unfortunately, he can't get his superior (played by Meryl Streep) to end the "interrogations." Finally, he takes things into his own hands, frees Anwar and puts him on a boat heading for Spain and from there home to America. At the same time he reveals what happened to the press.
I am sure the film makers took some liberties here. But it has been acknowledged that the CIA has secret prisons and uses techniques that would be illegal in America. The justification for this is that America is under attack and that extraordinary measures are needed to protect the homeland. But is this true? Is torture even productive, let alone moral?
Rendition is a disturbing film. At times it is graphic. It tells the story from a variety of angles, including that of the family of the police head who oversees the torture in this North African nation, and the presence of Islamist attempts to assassinate him.
My hope is that if you watch this film you will at least raise questions about American efforts at dealing with terrorism. In this case, a law abiding legal resident was stripped of his rights (of habeus corpus) because he wasn't a citizen. He simply disappears. Is this the American way?
Comments
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92584354
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92630942
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92675571
If Obama is right and McCain intends to continue the policies of the Bush administration, we must work very diligently to present a McCain victory
John
John