Article XIX “Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to ‘Black Sites’ Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known To Practice Torture” of H.Res.1258 “RESOLUTION Impeaching George W. Bush, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors”: “… The president has publicly admitted that since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the U.S. has been kidnapping and transporting against the will of the subject (renditioning) in its so-called ‘war’ on terror—even people captured by U.S. personnel in friendly nations like Sweden, Germany, Macedonia and Italy–and ferrying them to places like Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and to prisons operated in Eastern European countries, African countries and Middle Eastern countries where security forces are known to practice torture.
These people are captured and held indefinitely, without any charges being filed, and are held without being identified to the Red Cross, or to their families. Many are clearly innocent, and several cases, including one in Canada and one in Germany, have demonstrably been shown subsequently to have been in error, because of a similarity of names or because of misinformation provided to U.S. authorities.
Such a policy is in clear violation of U.S. and International Law, and has placed the United States in the position of a pariah state. The CIA has no law enforcement authority, and cannot legally arrest or detain anyone. The program of “extraordinary rendition” authorized by the president is the substantial equivalent of the policies of ‘disappearing’ people, practices widely practiced and universally condemned in the military dictatorships of Latin America during the late 20th Century.
The administration has claimed that prior administrations have practiced extraordinary rendition, but, while this is technically true, earlier renditions were used only to capture people with outstanding arrest warrants or convictions who were outside in order to deliver them to stand trial or serve their sentences in the U.S. The president has refused to divulge how many people have been subject to extraordinary rendition since September, 2001. …
Hundreds of flights of CIA-chartered planes have been documented as having passed through European countries on extraordinary rendition missions like that involving Maher Arar, but the administration refuses to state how many people have been subjects of this illegal program.
The same U.S. laws prohibiting aiding and abetting torture also prohibit sending someone to a country where there is a substantial likelihood they may be tortured. Article 3 of CAT prohibits forced return where there is a ‘substantial likelihood’ that an individual ‘may be in danger of’ torture, and has been implemented by Federal statute. Article 7 of the ICCPR prohibits return to country of origin where individuals may be “at risk” of either torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Under international Human Rights law, transferring a POW to any nation where he or she is likely to be tortured or inhumanely treated violates article 12 of the Third Geneva Convention, and transferring any civilian who is a protected person under the Fourth Geneva Convention is a grave breach and a criminal act.
In situations of armed conflict, both international human rights law and humanitarian law apply. A person captured in the zone of military hostilities ‘must have some status under international law; he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, [or] a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. … There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law.’ Although the state is obligated to repatriate prisoners of war as soon as hostilities cease, the ICRC’s commentary on the 1949 Conventions states that prisoners should not be repatriated where there are serious reasons for fearing that repatriating the individual would be contrary to general principles of established international law for the protection of human beings. Thus, all of the Guantanamo detainees as well as renditioned captives are protected by international human rights protections and humanitarian law.
By his actions as outlined above, the President has abused his power, broken the law, deceived the American people, and placed American military personnel, and indeed all Americans–especially those who may travel or live abroad–at risk of similar treatment. Furthermore, in the eyes of the rest of the world, the President has made the U.S., once a model of respect for human rights and respect for the rule of law, into a state where international law is neither respected nor upheld.
In all of these actions and decisions in violation of United States and International law, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.”
– Article XIX “Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to ‘Black Sites’ Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known To Practice Torture” of H.Res.1258 “RESOLUTION Impeaching George W. Bush, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors,” introduced by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH-10), June 10, 2008, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary June 11, 2008, Congress.gov