Where does the term "extraordinary rendition" come from?

[undeterred]

Its kind of bizarre.

[Totally Committed]

1. I could be wrong, but I always thought it was a term

coined as part of the Geneva Conventions.

TC

[rzemanfl]

2. Music reviews? n/t

[Totally Committed]

4. Extraordinary Rendition is when one country "renders"

a prisoner to another country in order that they are torured by the other country, keeping the first country "innocent" of prisoner abuse. I thought this came from the Geneva Conventions because it was denounced specifically in them.

I don't think the OP was talking about music, but.... could have been, I guess.

TC

[rzemanfl]

7. I know that. I think, though, that in simpler times music reviewers

might have said "...an extraordinary rendition of the tune...."

[undeterred]

3. from Wikipedia

Extraordinary rendition
This term is not yet defined in international law. Its use is often criticized as euphemistic. For example, a New York Times editorial mentions the "practice known in bureaucratese by the creepy euphemism 'extraordinary rendition.' " Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote: "an American policy that is known as extraordinary rendition. That's a euphemism. What it means is that the United States seizes individuals, presumably terror suspects, and sends them off without even a nod in the direction of due process to countries known to practice torture.". Gerard Baker of The Times commented that this "must rank as euphemism of the year. 2005 it became notorious as the term used by the US to describe what it does when it hands over terrorist suspects and other enemies to third countries that are rather less scrupulous about human rights than we are."

[annabanana]

5. I think that the OP is asking

Where did the term come from. Who used it first...?

[tanyev]

6. And what is "ordinary" rendition??

[Spazito]

8. Here is some info on it...

Extraordinary rendition

Meaning

A procedure whereby criminal suspects are sent for interrogation from one country to a second country, where less strict laws governing interrogation apply.

Origin

I'd like to tread carefully here and make it clear that this article is an examination of 'extraordinary rendition' from a linguistic point of view, not a political diatribe. It's difficult to discuss the phrase without referring to politics and this may cause those with strong views on US military policy one way or the other to assume bias on my part. I'll try, where referring to political events, to attempt to avoid opinion and stick to the facts.

The phrase became widely known during 2005 when newspaper articles began drawing attention to the fact the US Government was sending terrorist suspects, previously held in the USA, to countries that have less stringent laws against torture, and interrogating them there. It may have been used internally within US government circles before then, although there aren't any known hearsay reports of it prior to Sept 2001.

snip

Put together they don't appear to add up to much, and really that's the point. The phrase is in the long and ignoble tradition of doublespeak - appearing to communicate but in fact using bland or inoffensive language to draw a veil over real meaning.

more

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/130900.html

[Lars39]

9. It sounds like something Lawrence Welk would have said.

"And now for this extraordinary rendition of The Blue Danube on the accordian..."

[undeterred]

10. exactly!

Its an innocuous phrase used to describe the worst kind of lawlessness. But I'll bet it goes right by a lot of people because neither word in itself nor both together actually describe the crime.

[rzemanfl]

12. Thank you. It was the first thought that crossed my mind when I

saw this question too.

[ROakes1019]

11. rendition

To render meat is to remove the fat. I agree that the most common usage is to offer a rendition of something already established. But could it mean, more like the meat usage, to get rid of the offending part of a body? Maybe it's extraordinary because the offending part isn't just removed but sent far away. Every time I hear the term I think of rendering meat, maybe something only a cook would know. Why not google the term?

[Solly Mack]

13. mid-1990's,coined by the CIA, under a Presidential Directive (#39)

Rendition used as a legal term for extradiction...extraordinary rendition being where the extradition was done under less than legal means. (Under Bush the practice has gotten worse)

Moving suspects to a country that doesn't have laws against "aggressive (read torture) interrogations.

In the mid 1990's America would "catch" (read kidnap, swipe,snatch) a terrorism suspect and send them to Egypt (or Syria) to be "aggressively interrogated."

Bush sends them to several countries, as well as GTMO, and assorted camps in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1270541,00.html
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm

http://hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/canada/arar/2.htm

[undeterred]

14. Clinton.