Dec 09, 2005 11:23 AM

Sweet Land of Liberty

What's become of our country?

How did we become the nation of mock executions, of secret prisons (the kind we shut down in former Eastern Bloc Europe, only to reopen in the deserts of North Africa), the country that, like the world's most notorious dictatorships, disappears suspected enemies of the state. As revealed yesterday by one of Condi Rice's deputies, we're now a country that hides detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross. As reported in the Thursday's LA Times we really are a nation that renders terror suspects to nations where torturers extract the information we desire.

It would all be bad enough if everyone we were capturing were guilty. But take this horrifying case of mistaken identity.

As The Washington Note recaps the story:

El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was kidnapped while vacationing by American intelligence agents. He was transported and 'questioned' -- allegedly roughly -- by American authorities in Afghanistan. Along the way, these investigators finally figured out he was innocent and reported back to CIA Director George Tenet. Tenet had him held ANYWAY for another two months. And then ... you might ask, could it get worse? Well, yes.

We dumped him blindfolded in the deep forest, mountainous triangle area between Albania, Serbia and Macedonia. He had to walk out with no money, no identification. He got to a border guard station -- and because of his inability to identify himself and because of how 'outlandish' his story sounded to the border guards he met, he feared that the entire process would begin again.

Are you kidding me? After torturing an innocent man for five months, we abandon him to the Albanian wolves? How did we become the evil we deplore?

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