Render / Rendition

I've been thinking about the verb render and its euphemistic use by 'intelligence' folks. Ionesco loved such words intended to obscure.

Render, when used in the context of extraordinary rendition, seemingly refers to the "provide to" sense of the verb.

I'm sure however that the "melt down" or "process carcass in order to extract protein" sense of render was the intended variant.

The same people that brought us the phrase terminate with extreme prejudice speak softly of extraordinary rendition and coercive techniques.

It turns out the extraordinary modifier to rendition was an exaggeration, for the actual policy was rather ordinary once the gloves came off

I'm impressed by the techniques suffix to "coercive interrogation techniques". It provides the weasel veneer of bureaucratic justification.

The gloves came off metaphor is of a piece with the reluctant avenger, cold warrior and cowboy rhetoric. Also the fighter pilot iconography.

As Gil Scott-Heron pointed out the metaphor is always "The man in the white hat", it's never "He died with his pants on". The B-movie Theory

They used techniques, after all, this wasn't done without thought. Techniques for God's sake. They had memos, they had a mandate. Techniques

They rendered enemy combatants. The analysts were security professionals, the lawyers wrote briefs, memos, and provided sober legal counsel

From the president on, everyone always meant well. We should never forget the pervasive fear of those times. We should never forget they say.

I'm confounded by Diane Feinstein's phrase in the Senate Committee's torture report: "the impulse to consider the use of every possible tool"

Render / Rendition

Render
Rendition
Techniques
Extraction
Intelligence
Determination
Coercive
Interrogation
"Color-coded threat"
"Stress position"

Agency
Authorization
Bureaucratic
Justification
"Pervasive fear"
Suffocation
"Every possible tool"
Mutilation
Truth
Fiction

Program
Detention
Committee
Conclusion
Values
Expectation
Evidence
Destruction
Executive
Classification

Concern
Abdication
Duress
Oppression
Detainee
Sanction
Mission
Completion
Indefinite
Incarceration

Reviews
Recommendation
Secrecy
Investigation
Findings
Decision
Medical
Precision
Battlefield
Condition

Field manual
Operation
Contractor
Delegation
Homeland
Representation
Unreleased
Section
"Enhanced"
[ Redaction ]

Wall
Collision
Sleep
Deprivation
Rectal!
Hydration?
Pain
Contortion
Linguistic
Distortion

Study
Revision
Wartime
Alienation
Constraints
Compulsion
Restraints
Revulsion
Enforcement
Intimidation

Outsourced
Situation
Professional
Affectation
Permanent
Condition
Blood
Repulsion
Sin
Confession

Delayed
Publication
Damage
Mitigation
Sullied
Reputation
Outrage
Attention
Necessity
Neglection

Statute
Limitation
Geneva
Convention
Liability
Litigation
Missing
Compensation
Accountability?
Desertion

Blustery
Pontification
Misleading
Compilation
Success?
Inflation
Platitudes
Comprehension
Ludicrous
Prevarication

Security
Protection
Treaties
Obligation
Counsel
Dissimulation
Impulse
Misdirection
Damning
Distraction

Extensive
Preparation
Confinement
Contraction
Liquid
Nutrition
Programmatic
Starvation
Behavior
Modification

Goodwill
Dissipation
Diplomacy
Complication
Reckless
Accommodation
Pride
Restriction
Shame
Inflection

Patriotic
Intention
Tenuous
Salvation
Absence
Redemption
Erasure
Restoration
Judicious
Diversion

Harmful
Friction
Living
Invention
Mournful
Adjudication
Dangerous
Subversion
Poverty
Imagination

Rhetorical
Congratulation
Obscene
Citation
Wicked
Implication
Doubtful
Mediation
Ignored
Submission

Imperial
Contention
Oblivious
Reaction
Systematic
Protestation
Ridicule
Reception
Artful
Omission

Inquiry
Condemnation
Worldwide
Suggestion
Reluctant
Identification
Faded
Admiration
Ongoing
Asphyxiation

Covert
Dispensation
Robust
Accumulation
Intentional
Concision
Captured
Regulation
Oversight?
Illusion

Implacable
Opposition
Sensible
Supervision
Remarkable
Dilution
Income
Distribution
Unearned
Remuneration

Ruthless
Organization
Policy
Gestation
Unwarranted
Invasion
Conflict
Adoption
Contemptuous
Communication

Western
Machination
Solipsistic
Absorption
Fragile
Adaptation
Cultural
Variation
Toothless
Negation

Rights
Suspension
Deleterious
Temptation
Funding
Indignation
Needless
Accusation
Pointless
Recrimination

Ordinary
Exaggeration
Unfortunate
Improvisation
Admitted
Deception
Managed
Perception
Mythical
Affirmation

Dishonorable
Introduction
Dungeon
Provision
Insomnia
Hallucination
Unbearable
Tradition
Uncivilized
Nation

Increasing
Frustration
Aggressive
Competition
Consistent
Anticipation
Unsanitary
Migration
Cold
Calculation

Forced
Digestion
Useless
Petition
Dismal
Donation
Media
Fixation
Footnote
Generation

Coffin-sized
Configuration
Water
Application
Simple
Combination
Damage
Deracination
Worthless
Information

Misguided
Collaboration
Crusade
Confrontation
Intellectual
Immiseration
Spurious
Distinction
Soulless
Association

Energetic
Manipulation
Democracy
Promotion?
Disappointing
Corruption
Misplaced
Compassion
Deferred
Conversation

Duty
Dereliction
Integrity
Renunciation
Scatological
Fascination
Childish
Obsession
Ignored
Objection

Youthful
Indiscretion
Mean
Regression
Sanctimonious
Suppression
Unmerited
Acclamation
Failed
Inhibition

Celebrity
Contribution
Suppository
Imposition
Prisoner
Supposition
Presidential
Prohibition
Poisoned
Succession

Formal
Deposition
Norm
Violation
Dubious
Potion
Patrimony
Dissipation
Naysayer
Vindication

Posture
Prostration
Sexual
Lubrication
Fitful
Ingestion
Religious
Desecration
Humanity
Constriction

Internee
Evaluation
Light
Attenuation
Restricted
Motion
Nasal
Irrigation
Liminal
Libation

Interpreter
Translation
Adverse
Selection
Bounty
Concession
Changing
Definition
Circumstantial
Conviction

Moral
Dimension
Topical
Digression
Selective
Indirection
Rogue
Procession
Warning
Obliteration

External
Location
Allied
Accession
Righteous
Recognition
Fatal
Indecision
Justice
Elision

Frustrated
Ambition
Clipped
Diction
Intense
Articulation
Procedure
Resurrection
Intentional
Vivisection

Arrogant
Arrogation
Perilous
Peregrination
Alarming
Imputation
Disputed
Observation
Choice
Abortion

Presumptuous
Appropriation
Amateur
Pronunciation
Illegible
Illustration
Execrable
Assumption
Waste
Elimination

Singular
Possession
Inevitable
Progression
Perfidious
Corporation
Currency
Devaluation
Greater
Recession

Multiple
Quotation
Target
Consultation
Civility
Vacation
Supreme
Toleration
Broken
Union

Limb
Extension
Faltering
Respiration
Exemplary
Pretension
Appearance
Abolition
Existential
Reversion

Choreographed
Transition
Saline
Infusion
Fluid
Intoxication
Psychologist
Intervention
Biological
Experimentation

Mental
Perversion
Panicked
Retrogression
Hunger
Humiliation
Extreme
Affliction
Grace
Castration

Deliberate
Obfuscation
Diffuse
Suspicion
Warrantless
Intrusion
Abuse
Adoration
Retinal
Dilation

Feigned
Concentration
Advice
Exclusion
Constant
Invocation
Imagined
Exception
Probity
Remission

Necessary
Interception
Fantasy
Creation
Stolen
Tribulation
Marginal
Implementation
Decency
Immigration

Extremity
Subtraction
Cavity
Insertion
Wound
Insemination
Artificial
Distinction
Probable
Extinction

Casual
Exploration
Depraved
Sensation
Particular
Illumination
Expected
Humiliation
Soul
Ruination

Stylistic
Innovation
Freelance
Rumination
Advanced
Automation
Telling
Indication
Resultant
Concussion

Drone
Explosion
Village
Commotion
Newspaper
Mention
Perfunctory
Expression
Population
Reduction

Latest
Edition
Perfidious
Caption
Final
Option
Ceremonial
Presentation
Complaisant
Facilitation

Background
Attribution
Sought
Cooperation
Site
Relocation
Distributed
Participation
Impotent
Injunction

Thoughtless
Instruction
Rule
Diffusion
Nebulous
Compartmentalization
Threat
Emission
Press
Domestication

Unpopular
Opinion
Cost
Trillion
Predicted
Contradiction
Peaceful
Liberation
Continuing
Education

Masculinity
Aggression
Adrenaline
Animation
Sad
Disposition
Estrogen
Disruption
Required
Reflection

Pervasive
Vandalization
Tactical
Generalization
Retrospective
Admission
Profound
Ossification
Importance
Cognition

Sinister
Specialization
Family
Co-option
Suborn
Deliberation
Hostage
Negotiation
Self
Preservation

Conscious
Simulation
Appropriate
Coordination
Surprising
Satisfaction
Activity
Customization
Influence
Conservation

Profit
Augmentation
Homogeneous
Composition
Resistance
Transformation
Tribal
Authentication
Ideological
Indoctrination

Ethical
Evolution
Arduous
Navigation
Conduct
Demonstration
Murderous
Standardization
Noxious
Revolution

Lost
Congregation
Principle
Minimization
Controversial
Interpretation
Philosophical
Question
Stolen
Election

Power
Centralization
Historical
Abstraction
Honesty
Aversion
Preferred
Version
Tissue
Rejection

Cowering
Caution
Shrieks
Exhaustion
Injury
Infliction
Wilful
Inaction
Derived
Fragmentation

Camp
Administration
Poetry
Confiscation
Literature
Munition
Human bodies
Ammunition?
Privilege
Revocation

Intolerable
Provocation
Impertinent
Recrimination
Cult-like
Indoctrination
No
Reconsideration
Cultural
Projection

Cell
Utilization
Anxiety
Elevation
Electrical
Stimulation
Genital
Incapacitation
Inspired
Abomination

Dishonest
Acquisition
Scandalous
Faction
Violent
Suction
Disgust
Urination
Legacy
Despoliation

Overseas
Destabilization
Blowback
Saturation
Foreign
Legion
Mercenary
Season
Bleeding
Lesion

Hidden
Installation
Policy
Persecution
Vindictive
Perpetration
Agony
Segregation
Criminal
Explanation

Rented
Mansion
Newfound
Vision
Rumored
Allegation
Implied
Sterilization
Potential
Circumcision

Mindless
Tabulation
Unusual
Exposition
Rapid
Transportation
Hubris
Enervation
Gutter
Gravitation

Legal
Abrogation
Effective
Cancellation
Inadequate
Transmission
Territorial
Expansion
Conscience
Evacuation

Claustrophobia
Congestion
Sensory
Encapsulation
Outlaw
Contagion
Inviolable
Constitution?
American
Predation

Advanced
Intuition
Pastoral
Repudiation
Exploited
Division
Troubled
Intersection
Embarrassing
Erection

Prolonged
Discussion
Mounting
Discrimination
Avoiding
Circumspection
Fuel
Ignition
Internal
Combustion

Chest
Compression
Air
Circulation
Flow
Obstruction
Ingredient
Addition
Drug
Addiction

Mislaid
Cushion
Welts
Contusion
Desired
Solution
Coarse
Confection
Quick
Execution

Lengthy
Seclusion
Organ
Occlusion
Lawsuit
Preclusion
Punishment
Recursion
Debarment
Prevention

Deployment
Rotation
Cynical
Politicization
Rationale
Implosion
Widespread
Derision
Nostalgia
Fashion

Belief
Proposition
Efficient
Collection
Course
Correction
Wink
Connotation
Dead
Complexion

Stentorian
Declaration
Proffered
Recompensation
Generational
Declension
Ingredient
Alteration
Abhorrent
Mutation

Forced
Constipation
Rape
Insinuation
Ceaseless
Vibration
Ominous
Intimation
Functional
Defenestration

Tooth
Excision
Surgical
Incision
Heat
Convection
Post-mortem
Dissection
Post modern
Explication

Blind
Devotion
Proof
Confirmation
Fact
Verification
Lacking
Substantiation
Invented
Corroboration

Message
Synchronization
Brand
Appreciation
Sublime
Persuasion
Enchanted
Population
Cattle
Appellation

Dogs
Domination
Slaps
Profusion
Hoods
Reclusion
Handcuffs
Ablution
Pacifist
Delusion

Sovereignty
Immunization
Amnesty
Vaccination
Stench
Consecration
Impunity
Desecration
Grief
Consolation

Suspect
Motivation
Vicious
Direction
Self-serving
Narration
Impossible
Reconciliation
Odious
Foundation

Immoral
Consideration
Deceitful
Conception
Repeated
Subjection
Physical
Deterioration
Disappearing
Documentation

In sober rooms, and without compunction,
With their white collars and red scribes,
They rejected a mere police action.

The resolved solution of their tribe:
Wounded flesh, revenge their intention.

Standing orders and compromised sources,
An own goal, these never-repudiated wars.
A course, instead, of military prosecutions,
Lies, and brutal interrogations.

Disgrace
Nepotism
Briefs
Criticisms
Wars
Terrorisms
Memos
Legalisms
Freedoms
Euphemisms

...

I've written about the game of the rough beast and I continue to wonder at its bureaucratic infrastructure. Who is writing the script?

For whatever reason, perhaps a keen sense of outrage, I've felt compelled to devise over a hundred variations on my initial scheme. Such is my asylum:

Wordplay as balm for disgust
Language as defense mechanism
Wit as refuge from despair
Poetry as exorcism

I'll follow the Via Negativa convention and tag the above under poems & poem-like things.

Sidenote: Twitter is a dangerous medium. In its immediacy, it takes just one fugitive thought about ostensibly serious-minded folks, and before you know it fifteen forty-five seventy minutes have passed.

File under: language, bureaucracy, torture, policy, USA, security, culture, erustication, CIA, rogues, politics, humour, satire, outrage, hatchet job, Extraordinary Rendition, poetry, The Rough Beast, Things Fall Apart, toli

Erustication and The Italian Job

• Erustication Defined
• The Italian Job
• An Erusticated Playlist

erustication n:

1. Extraordinary Rendition to Uzbekistan, Syria or similar by the US government for the purposes of torture and intelligence "extraction". This program was instituted by the CIA in the 1990s and pursued with increased vigour after September 11th
2. A lighter meaning: the sense of bewilderment, heartache and violation that comes from being subject to the capricious whims of a strongman who happens to have authority over you. Close synonym of The Full Bolton.

erusticated v.

1. being subject to erustication.

Most subjected to erustication turn out to have been entirely innocent and simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even those who are no choirboys are tainted; the evidence gathered through torture is rightly rejected in countries with laws, it goes against every sound principle of decency. One hopes that the intelligence gathered did indeed prevent ticking bombs but one should be skeptical about the effectiveness of the policy. Still the compromise of democratic and moral values that erustication implies, the cynicism it breeds in the body politic are heavy prices to pay. When your human rights record can be placed in the same company as Egypt's, how can you claim to lecture a rogue like Robert Mugabe?

I like erustication because like the dental extraction, waterboarding, electric shock therapy and worse that it presages, the word also sounds like the flagellation one would receive from a medieval instrument of torture something like The Rack (Iraq?) used in the Inquisitions of yore. And the effectiveness of the policy is similarly in question. Witchhunts of the Kingdoms of Heaven have a way of casting an unflattering light of hypocrisy on those who might consider themselves righteous puritans. The lessons from Salem to McCarthyism are all about hysteria and opportunism that debase the social fabric of the society. In such times, what was meant to be "extraordinary" becomes customary and a matter of rounding up The Usual Suspects ® and people of "little intelligence value" with results that we know.

Ironically the milder form of erustication was a sentiment felt by quite a number of State Department, CIA and other intelligence analysts who had to deal with John Bolton. The notion that some of the mild-mannered people in the organizations that developed and instituted this practice, felt some of the psychological pressure and bewilderment of the practice tickles my mind. Thus, erusticated is a close synonym to that that other fine American neologism, boltoned.

e.g. "I was erusticated in the past 6 months at work" is a touch edgier and harsher than "I was boltoned by the new boss".

Being erusticated is obviously not for the faint of heart and the ordeal might leave you broken, an empty shell. You have to waste time trying to justify yourself and might even start to blame yourself for your predicament and confess to what "they" want to hear. Rendition also reminds one of the worst practices of the meat rendering industry which we know indubitably leads one down the path to Mad Cow Square. In literature, Kafka and Orwell have described the sense of alienation that than envelops you when in the trials of erustication (and would it they were rather in their "last throes" although per Dick Cheney, "if you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period"). If you're lucky you'll find some kind godfather to step in and defend you but, more often than not, you are alone in the tangled web in which a moral compass is optional and indeed frowned upon.

The lighter meaning, boltoned, is similarly discomfiting as unfortunately I can also attest. The vituperations and glee of those bullies who delight in giving you The Full Bolton treatment is also par-for-the-course. The small-mindedness of bullies is deeply rooted in playground impunity. Boltoned is onomatopoeic perfection in that it sounds like doors being thunderously slammed repeatedly on your fingernails for no reason. You want to say, "What have I done to deserve this? No Ingles! It wasn't me!". And on being boltoned, this article I came across a few months ago seemed quite serendipitous: Is your boss a psychopath?

Many have asked what countries like Egypt, Uzbekistan, Syria, Kazakhstan, Israel and Pakistan get from erustication and the answer is quite clear: the moral compromise lets the leaders of those countries carry on with often egregious domestic policies without fear of reprimand as we have seen repeatedly. Franklin D. Roosevelt's "He's our sonofabitch" quip applies to many of the leaders of the aforementioned countries and not just Karimov or Mubarak.

Michael Scheuer recently argued that the policy has actually been quite effective and I suppose he would be one of those close enough to judge the value of the "extracted information" living as he did in the shadowy world of the CIA. And there's one fairly famous case where the threat of being erusticated and "rendered to Israel and the hands of the Mossad" got startling results and broke a hardened terrorist into cooperation. I can understand threatening, but surely delivering someone to unbounded violence crosses some line. The kind of police cooperation which everyone agrees is needed in the action against nihilists that the entire world must confront is very different from winking at interrogation at the electric shocks and the institutionalized beatings of the Battle of Algiers. Even Scheuer however, must now admit now that, the application of the policy has been very far from judicious since 9/11 let alone extraordinary. I would contend that the logic of outsourcing "wet work" is a proverbial race to the bottom of the moral barrel.

On human rights I'm an absolutist, and I err on the side of preventing even the slightest collateral damage because the costs to the innocents and the concomitant debasement of the society in question are, in my judgment, a far too heavy burden. This issue is close to home for me because of the stories of both of my parents but that excursion into personal history deserves separate amplification...

Maher Arar's case is only the most prominent evidence of the living costs of erustication and the fear and cynicism engendered in a society: The true purpose of torture

In a rare public speech, Arar addressed this fear directly. He told the audience that an independent commissioner has been trying to gather evidence of law-enforcement officials breaking the rules when investigating Muslim Canadians. The commissioner has heard dozens of stories of threats, harassment and inappropriate home visits. But, Arar said, "not a single person made a public complaint. Fear prevented them from doing so." Fear of being the next Maher Arar. The fear is even thicker among Muslims in the United States, where the Patriot Act gives police the power to seize the records of any mosque, school, library or community group on mere suspicion of terrorist links. When this intense surveillance is paired with the ever-present threat of torture, the message is clear: you are being watched, your neighbour may be a spy, the government can find out anything about you. If you misstep, you could disappear on to a plane bound for Syria, or into "the deep dark hole that is Guantánamo Bay", to borrow a phrase from Michael Ratner, president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights. But this fear has to be finely calibrated. The people being intimidated need to know enough to be afraid but not so much that they demand justice.

For the historical record, I coined the word erustication as an aside in PITTs: Naming an Aesthetic which was a typical sojourn in metaphorical excess to coin new buzzwords in the technology world. The slightly updated money quote came when I considered the concept of a Loyal Opposition:

In any case, as recent history, and the success of the Cheney, Rusmfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, Cambone, Generals Miller (Gitmo-lite) and Sanchez Axis of Righteous Neocon NefarIousnEss (ARNIE) has shown, being loyal oppositionists accounts for squat in these States. We might get tortured in Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu-Ghraib or get a little Extraordinary Rendition to Uzbekistan or Syria (ERUStication?) if we aren't careful.

I've since reconsidered ARNIE as Axis of Righteous Neocon Infamy and Excess but believe that erustication is of more lasting value for the language.

Erustication. Run with it. You heard it here first.

The Italian Job

I'm now promoting erustication to the English language because of one of those curious stories that the journalist in me wishes wouldn't get buried in wake of the events of the past week, namely The Italian Job.

To give some context, I am referring to the 13 to 19 CIA agents who kidnapped an Egyptian cleric, Abu Omar from Italy and took him to Egypt where "he was subjected to electroshock treatment" and "lost the hearing in one ear". In these days of "gloves coming off" this is a sadly all-too-common story: Italy Orders Arrest of 13 CIA Operatives.

But there are many twists to the tale, the Italian security services had this cleric under extensive surveillance and were building up a profile of his network, indeed they were likely to have arrested him and his affiliates in short order. Erustication ended all of that work and we are none the wiser about what, if anything, has been gained.

When I first read about this affair, In Italy, Anger at U.S. Tactics Colors Spy Case, the lead sentence was

The extraordinary decisions by an Italian judge to order the arrest of 13 people linked to the Central Intelligence Agency on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect here dramatizes a growing rift between American counterterrorism officials and their counterparts in Europe.

Apparently it is extraordinary to prosecute people who break the laws of your country. What cheek! Just because it's Americans who break the law they should not be prosecuted?

As someone intensely interested in strange bedfellows, I appreciate the way the story is playing out, you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Indeed the only other story that has got my journalistic juices flowing of late is the one quietly playing out in Chile, At Cult's Enclave In Chile, Guns And Intelligence Files, a story which very nicely packages apocalyptic religious cults, intelligence services, grim torture, Augusto Pinochet and crew, financial looteries, the School of Americas and ultimately Nixon, Kissinger, Reagan and Bush the Elder. I hope those Chilean prosecutors and journalists take their time and pursue the paper trail because I haven't seen such fertile soil in a long while to expose the unseemly side of global politics and nor indeed the outright criminality that prevails over bromides of bon mots.

The Italian Job is the kind of story that should steadily drip into the public's consciousness and arouse outrage and the headlines already tell the tale about the effect it is having in Italy - Italy seethes at US abduction of Imam. It really should have a larger impact in the USA as a case study about the direction of the country, that is if only it is reported by the media.

Unfortunately I don't speak Italian so I haven't gotten the full flavour of the revelations but others have stepped in and especially Robert's Stochastic Thoughts has more than adequately covered the various aspects of the case. Berlusconi who is the anti-choirboy personified knows that if the threads of these stories are pursued to their sleazy end it won't be pretty. So now there is no doubt that Italians will definitely be pulling out of Iraq as we heard. There was already pressure for a pull-out but this story broke the proverbial camel's back.

For the first time in a year I agree with a column by Jim Hoagland. This is a scary thing because Hoagland is normally a reliable indicator of exactly what not to believe. Indeed my political barometer has him calibrated as a polar opposite. I love to read people I disagree with if only to sharpen my arguments and to try to see things from their point of view. Still even he has come to see that erustication is no longer working, indeed he terms it Pricey Rendition:

Is this covert act really worth the likely consequences?

Indeed the erusticated Italian Job perfectly illuminates my Joy in Repetition prescription for opposing the rogues who currently govern the US simply repeat:

• The policy is wrong.
• It's not working. Indeed it's counter-productive, alienates friends and foes alike and worsens things.
• This is how we would change it.

It gets worse when you look closer, as Robert explains, the Italians "are stressing that the CIA has sabotaged the war against terror and that the CIA agents are totally incompetent and self indulgent."

See Italians Detail Lavish CIA Operation and also CIA Said to Leave Trail in Abduction

They ran up tabs of thousands of dollars at some of Milan's best hotels and restaurants. They chatted easily on their cellular telephones and gave out passport, frequent-flier and driver's license numbers when booking flights or renting cars.

And now they are fugitives...

The Milan crew seemed to have made little effort to keep a low profile. Although much of the information they provided may have been false, they seemed to have left a trail worthy of Hansel and Gretel.

Arriving individually or in pairs during the weeks leading up to Abu Omar's disappearance in February 2003, they checked into some of the city's finest hotels: the $450-a-night Prince of Savoy on Milan's grand Piazza della Repubblica, the Westin Palace, the Milan Hilton. They ate at good restaurants and rented cellphones and cars. They offered up their frequent-flier account numbers as well as their passports, Visa and Diner's Club credit cards and driver's licenses....

In hotel bills alone, the group ran up a tab of $150,000, the court papers indicate.

Once the rendition was completed, several of the agents traveled to Venice for a celebration, also at a luxurious five-star hotel, the court papers say. Four others took a vacation along the picturesque Mediterranean coast north of Tuscany.

Italian judicial officials say they are perhaps most angry with the American operation because it ruined their own efforts to crack the cell and arrest numerous terrorism suspects in Italy.

"Not only was Abu Omar's kidnapping illegal in having seriously violated Italian sovereignty, but it was also an inauspicious act that has contaminated the overall fight against terrorism," Judge Guido Salvini said in issuing a separate indictment on the Egyptian-born cleric.

And it gets worse, see Technical illiteracy at the CIA, it turns out that the agents used a pool cell phone from the US embassy which was then returned to the embassy and was later used by embassy staff. Such is the competence of those warriors who are defending you for whom we should curtail our freedoms.

The Italian Job is one of the best B-movies in the canon, a film full of wit and panache. As someone who loves heists, I have watched it more times than I can count. It has some of the best car chases and stunts that we have ever seen and what a heist. Michael Caine and Noel Coward are cheeky sods and simply brilliant. The flag-waving politics are skewered as is the British nationalism and self-importance.

Still we should also remember that Caine and crew were a bunch of Criminals And Thugs (Cats) and their motives are simply mercenary. At the end of the movie, Caine and crew have indeed pulled off their caper against the odds but all that loot is left dangling as the bus itself is perched precariously on a cliff. As the camera cuts away we know what to expect: the slightest wind or a even a bird dropping will push it over the edge strewing those dollars and lira all over those Alpine rocks:

Mission Accomplished

An Erusticated Playlist

The sounds of erustication are normally screams of agony or of gritted teeth. Still one has to find some music if only to oppose it. Thus I give you Live Erustication: The Concert, like Prince said,

"Put the right letters together and make a better day"

• The Jacksons - Torture

  It Was On A Street So Evil
  So Bad That Even Hell Disowned It
  Every Single Step Was Trouble
  For The Fool Who Stumbled On It
  Eyes Within The Dark Were Watching
  I Felt The Sudden Chill Of Danger
  Something Told Me Keep On Walking
  Told Me I Should Not Have Come There

  The sounds of whips, albeit propulsive and soulful whips, start out our erusticated musical journey. Ironically this wonderful song is the lead track of the Victory album which as we know in the case of erustication is always pyrrhic.
  
  
  
  
  I was going to nominate another track from the album, State of Shock the rocked out collaboration with Mick Jagger, but I thought the connection to electroshock might be a bit too much. For the more reflective, the Victory album also has one of the best ballads of all time, One More Chance, Randy Jackson's masterpiece and Michael Jackson's most heartfelt song, Be Not Always, with lonely, mournful acoustic guitar.
• The Supremes - Stop In The Name Of Love

  Before You Break My Heart.
  Think It O-Over.

  Please do Messers Bush and Cheney.
• Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me
  Paranoia has never been so sublime or soulful. And with Michael Jackson's chorus who can fault it?

  "I always feel like somebody's watching me"

• Full Circle - Workin' Up A Sweat
  It gives me great pause to deploy one of my all-time favourite club songs in the service of erustication but, well, it had to be done. This is one of those obscure hits in the Long Tail of Music that you can now only find on compilations in England even though it is by an American band that recorded for EMI America. Record companies are clueless. Full Circle were perhaps a one hit wonder but there is such wonder in this track.

  Working Up A Sweat
  Over You
  The Way You Make Me Feel
  You Know The Deal

• MC Hammer - Turn This Mutha Out
  I don't quite think that Hammer intended an extraordinary rendition remix of the song that that brought him to fame but this was a burst of energy that matched James Brown at his most fervent. Perhaps it is apt that what later transpired after this debut was B-movie ineptitude
• Massive Attack - Spying Glass
  From one of the top 10 albums of the 90s, Protection, comes this brilliant confection of trip hop dub. The Mad Professor remix is also essential but the lyrics tell the erusticated story.
  
  
  
  
  

  You Live In The City
  You Mind Your Own Business
  What You See, You Don't See
  But Some People, They Always See
  They Never Mind Their Own Business
  
  You Move To The Country
  You Live In The Hills
  You Think You're Far From The Wicked
  When You Check It, Them-a Use Spying Glass
  They Want To Know Rasta Business
  Spying Glass

• Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

  "I'll be anything you need"

  Well if a sledgehammer is your policy and the literal tool you're using against me, I'll confess to anything you need.

  This will be my testimony

• Michael Jackson - The Way You Make Me Feel
  I was going to use Scream or Leave Me Alone as MJ's erusticated contribution to the debate since he himself has been through quite a bit in recent months. But I think this soulful bad and funky track is just the right touch and one of my favourite songs of his.

  You knock me off my feet

• The Roots - Break you off (ft Musiq)

  We're coming to Break You Off

  Yep, erustication is in the realm of phrenology.
  
  


• Eugene McDaniel - Headless Heroes and Freedom Death Dance
  These two much sampled tracks off the Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse album are in the cut.

  Better Git It Together
  And See What's Happening
  We Are The Canon Fodder
  Nobody Knows Who The Enemy Is
  

  The Freedom Death Dance is bleaker as would befit the title.
• INXS - Never Tear Us Apart
  Let's hope they don't. I worry that the Australian authorities wouldn't be averse to some extraordinary rendition given the chance.
• Was (Not Was) - Spy in the house of love
  

  I'll Tap Your Phone
  You're Never Alone

• The Last Poets - This Is Madness
  A primal scream off the aptly named Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool album. We are all prisoners snatched away to be branded by red hot irons.
• United Future Organization - Spy's Spice (Mon Espionage)
  In the vein of a dark and dank world of derring-do and covert snatches this fits the bill.
• The Police - Every Breath You Take
  This more properly belongs in a Patriot Act soundtrack of surveillance but since we have that practice of waterboarding "in which a detainee is strapped down, dunked under water and made to believe that he might be drowned." and that is all about the loss of the breath of life, I suppose it deserves to be included to round off the infamy

And to conclude, let's be clear about what I'm talking about without euphemisms or snarky commentary, your taxes are paying for scenes like this, the only difference is that under erustication, the burly guards and dogs are not American unlike in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. The techniques might even be grimmer, if you can imagine that.

[Update] a little too shocking for some, hence a link... Dog and Prisoner See also:

• The Immoral Relativists of the Bush Administration
• On The Importance of Biting Satire

File under: erustication, Extraordinary Rendition, CIA, neocons, rogues, torture, policy, usa, CIA, politics, excess, waste, bolton, The Italian Job, neologism, human rights, Italy, B-movie, Berlusconi, Pinochet, grim, Chile, Strange Bedfellows, Nixon, Kissinger, toli