ABC TORTURE "EXPERT" NO EXPERT

The ABC's The World Today has a segment titled "Expert documents counter-terrorism torture tactics" featuring journalist Stephen Grey, author of extraordinary rendition exposé Ghost Plane -- he's on tour promoting the book.

Here's an excerpt from Eleanor Hall's introduction:

Stephen Grey is an investigative journalist whose meticulous research tracking secret CIA flights around the world helped expose the US practice of outsourcing the interrogation of terrorism suspects, and the involvement of countries like Sweden and the United Kingdom.

He documents how suspects were kept in cells the size of coffins, tortured with razor blades, dogs and electric shocks and interrogated by some of the most brutal regimes in the world.

Grey is simply a journalist who has investigated the U.S. handling of terrorist suspects. The ABC nominates him an expert to add cachet to Grey's undocumented suppositions.

During the interview Grey has a bit of a rave about the abduction from Kennedy airport of Canadian Maher Arar, failing to note that Arar was most likely seized and detained at the behest of the Canadian government.

It's also interesting to note that even though Grey is billed as an expert on extraordinary rendition, detention and torture, he admits the program is "being conducted completely in secret". He hopes to damn Americans as cowards for running a secret program but in the process discredits himself -- if the program is completely secret how does he know all about it?

Regardless, the interview works out well for both Grey and the ABC: Grey will sell a few more books; the ABC will score a few more political points with its true believer audience.