· MEPs' report says member states knew of abductions
· Documents show 'strange routes' and stopoversRichard Norton-Taylor
Thursday April 27, 2006
The Guardian
The CIA has operated more than 1,000 secret flights over EU territory in the past five years, some to transfer terror suspects in a practice known as "extraordinary rendition", an investigation by the European parliament said yesterday.
The figure is significantly higher than previously thought. EU parliamentarians who conducted the investigation concluded that incidents when terror suspects were handed over to US agents did not appear to be isolated. They said the suspects were often transported around Europe on the same planes by agents whose names repeatedly came up in their investigation.
They accused the CIA of kidnapping terror suspects and said those responsible for monitoring air safety regulations revealed unusual flight paths to and from European airports. The report's author, Italian MEP Claudio Fava, suggested some EU governments knew about the flights.
EU Issues Stinging Condemnation of CIA on Renditions
From the NYT:
Legislators selected to look into allegations of questionable CIA activities in Europe said flight data showed a pattern of hidden operations by American agents, and they accused some European governments of knowing about it but remaining silent.
Cases of terror suspects being secretly handed over to U.S. agents did not appear to be isolated, the lawmakers said in a preliminary report on their inquiry. European human rights treaties prohibit sending suspects to states known to torture prisoners.
''The committee deplores the fact that, as established during the committee's investigation, the CIA has used aircraft registered under fictitious company names or with private companies to secretly transfer terror suspects to other countries including Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Afghanistan,'' according to a copy of the report obtained by The Associated Press.
[snip]
The report said that on a number of occasions the CIA was clearly responsible for detaining terror suspects on European territory and transferring them to countries where they could face torture.
4 comments:
This kind of thing doesn't bother me at all. Most (if not all) of the 9-11 terrorists became radicals while studying in Europe.
So what if a Jordanian living in France is swooped up by the CIA and taken to Jordan? To me, these operations are the real war on terror, not the mess in Iraq.
I guess you have to break a few skulls...err...eggs, huh? There has been report after report of innocent people swooped up by the CIA and sent to a country where they are tortured for months on end. In that time, their families have no idea where they are. We know about it mainly from the ones who have been released because even their torturers have not found them to be guilty.
No trial.
No lawyer.
Kidnapped.
Beaten.
Tortured.
At OUR behest.
Would you have a problem with it if it happened to you or yours?
Of course you would, but s'ok if it's someone else.
How does that not make us any better than the terrorists?
Besides being morally reprehensible, torture is ineffective for gaining accurate intel.
The real world isn't like "24" or other action entertainment.
Patrick, do you think that all of the torture done in these countries is ok? Or is it just ok for them to torture the people sent there by America?
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No, I don't believe that torture produces accurate information.
That being said, do you have any accurate information that these 1200 flights involved the evenutal torture of anyone? [and how was that information produced? :)]
The facts are that almost no country on earth protects criminal suspects like the US (look at Aruba and Holland, for example). To hold Jordan and Egypt to our standard of criminal procedure is silly.
And if we have that much of a problem with it, what's the solution? Regime change? Not me - I certainly didn't like what Sadaam did in Iraq, but I was completely at ease with the idea of NOT invading and installing a puppet regime, even if that meant the continued torture, abuse and murder of his subjects.
So Jordan, Egypt and other middle eastern states are brutal - no shit. They always have been, and we aren't going to do a damn thing about it, are we? Wait, we could impose sanctions...
Does it make us morally superior to not ATIVELY assist in the rough treatment of foreign criminal suspects, while at the same time not trying to stop these middle eastern states from being rough on their own people? Sins of omission, anyone?
Sure, I'm a hypocrite just like Maria and Auntie roo: I would have a serious problem if the US handed over an American to those states - we have a responsiblity to protect our own. But since the people involved are from these countries in the first place, I'm not going to cry a river.
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