State of the Art

Discovering the New Disappeared

By Gloria Cooper

Once again, the press has given proof to the proposition that the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. Bit by bit and piece by piece, individual news outlets, here and abroad, have added substantial layers to our knowledge of what the CIA daintily calls extraordinary rendition. The term, of course, refers to the policy by which the United States renders unto certain friendly countries (friendly, that is, to the practice of torture) suspected terrorists who would otherwise be protected by the laws of more civilized societies from such information-gathering techniques as having electrodes attached to their genitals or being bodily boiled.