Speaking of Libya...

[the_archfiend]

I'm sure we can all agree that Muammar Qaddafi was an irredeemable monster incapable of producing anything resembling a single humanitarian thought in his read and was incapable of alliance with anyone from the West, right? Apparently Dubya thought otherwise according to a new Human Rights Watch report:

When rebel forces overtook Tripoli in August 2011, prison doors were opened and office
files exposed, revealing startling new information about Libya’s relations with other
countries. One such revelation, documented in this report, is the degree of involvement of
the United States government under the Bush administration in the arrest of opponents of
the former Libyan Leader, Muammar Gaddafi, living abroad, the subsequent torture and
other ill-treatment of many of them in US custody, and their forced transfer to back to Libya.

The United States played the most extensive role in the abuses, but other countries,
notably the United Kingdom, were also involved.

This is an important chapter in the larger story of the secret and abusive US detention
program established under the government of George W. Bush after the September 11,
2001 attacks, and the rendition of individuals to countries with known records of torture.

But Qaddafi became our new bestest buddy ever in northern Africa by then, which means it's okay. Not like those murderous scumbags in Syria, though. Or maybe not:

In 2002, the United States reportedly transferred Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, to Syria after having detained him in New York as he was en route from Tunisia to Montreal. On November 4 in Ottawa, Arar publicly asserted that, while held in Syrian prisons for 10 months, he was repeatedly tortured by being whipped with a thick electric cable and threatened with electric shocks. Human Rights Watch and other concerned groups are pressing the U.S. government to investigate Mr. Arar's case and the larger category of so-called "extraordinary renditions."

Let's face it; the first thing that disappears when a great power seeks allies among its former enemies is any sort of "human rights abuses" those former enemies committed in the past. It's just like members of the Politburo disappearing from Kremlin reviewing stand photos after a purge, except that these victims are far more liable to disappear off the map along with the old recriminations.