Thursday, September 30th, 2004

The Land of the Free

An provision in the 9-11 reform bill legalizes extraordinary rendition.

You’re walking to your car as you get off work—late, but finally caught up at last. The parking lot is dark, empty. As you fiddle for the right key, a charcoal grey cargo van pulls up alongside you. The windowless door slides open; two men in fatigues get out. One calls your name. You answer, confused, and the second man grabs your right wrist, twists it around your back, and slams you against your car. Your left arm grabbed and pinned, the tell-tale pinch of a plastic twist-tie against your wrists, and you are jerked backwards and pulled into the van. The door closes, and you are gone.

Your family calls your cell phone, but you never answer. In the morning, the police inspect your abandoned car: keys on the ground where you dropped them, no sign of a robbery, no signs at all. As they worry and wait for a ransom demand that will never come, you are taught the meaning of extraordinary rendition.

You lose track of how long they’ve been driving: long enough for them to search you, strip off your shoes and belt, put a black hood over your head, and pin you to the floor of the van until your right arm goes numb. The van finally slows and stops.

You’re dragged out of the van, shuffled down an endless hall, and thrown into a chair. A new voice asks you the strangest questions: how long have you attended your church? How devout are you? When was the last time you saw this person or that person? How often do you travel on “business”? Why did you check these books out of the library? Why did you rent those particular movies? Why were you taking pictures on your last vacation?

You ask what this is about—they laugh and don’t answer. You ask if you’re supposed to get a phone call—someone tips your chair over and sends you sprawling to the floor. You demand to talk to a lawyer—someone kicks you hard in the stomach. The questions come at you again, and this time you answer them.

Your answers aren’t good enough. You can tell from the increasing anger in the drilling voices. They want different answers. They know you have different answers. Finally, one of the voices sighs in frustration. You hear it tell the other voices to “render” you.

They drag you down the hall again, then outside. It’s day, you think, from the heat on your arms, but no sunlight can penetrate the hood. Then you hear the whine: high pitched and whistly at first, it quickly deepens into a roar.

Turbines.

They’re putting you on a plane.

You scream at them above the engines, demand that they tell you who they are, where they are taking you, what’s happened to your family, why they are doing this to you. But only the engines answer.

The noise abates as the doors close. The plane moves forward, slowly, then faster; you feel it pitch sharp incline, then level off before your ears finished popping.

You smell a whiff of tobacco, hear the relaxed, good-natured chatter of men on a break from work. One of them shoves your shoulder. “Should’ve told them what they wanted–” there’s a glib satisfaction in his voice– “now you get to go to Syria.”

You’re not entirely sure where Syria is. Vaguely in the Middle East, perhaps, or maybe North Africa. Somewhere “over there.” But you’ve heard stories: beatings, rape, torture–bad stories of a nasty place someone like you should avoid. But they’re taking you there. And based on the treatment you’ve had so far and the sick, giggling jokes of your captors, you probably won’t be coming back.

It has to be a dream, a nightmare. Any minute now, Superman is going to rip open the door of the plane and beat up your captors and carry you back to your waiting family in the name of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

But then you remember.

This is the American Way.

And you voted for it.

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