An article by Rod Nordland in today's New York Times reports that CIA agents in
an effort to contain Al Qaida suspects delivered those suspects into the hands
of Muammar Qaddafi's security apparatus ("Files Note Close C.I.A. Ties to
Qaddafi Spy Unit", http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/world/africa/03libya.html),
and that some of these same suspects now have been fighting with the Libyan
rebellion which the United States and other NATO nations are supporting.

You can't have it both ways:  Either you practise the principles of justice and
fairness that the United States professes, or you don't.  What do you think it
does to the United States' image abroad when with one hand you are supporting
rendition and torture (for Qaddafi's security agents surely did practise
torture), and with the other hand supporting a democratic rebellion led by
some of the same people who were tortured?

This two-faced strategy is, alas, likely to lead to the same sort of animosity
and "blowback" against the United States that was produced by other historical
evolutions of the same nature, such as the US's anti-democratic support for the
shah of Iran which culminated decades later in the Islamic revolution and
hostage-taking, and the US's hamfisted support for the anti-Soviet Afghan
mujahadeen which later played into the hands of the Taliban.  Now, it seems,
your government has been making the same mistake over again in North Africa.

There is one and only one way to assure long-term security for the United
States and the world, and that way is to take the high road, to make certain
that every action of the government of the United States embodies and
instantiates the principles of justice, fairness, and human rights on which the
United States was founded.  This is not an easy path to tread.  It's a path
containing many pitfalls and opportunities for others to take unfair advantage
and to cause destruction and loss of property and life.  But in the long term
it is the only way.

I urge you, therefore, to apologise for the failure of due process in the
treatment of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and other subjects of rendition, and to
commit to abstaining from this extrajudicial process in future.