I wonder if the Right will call
this a
sting operation too:
The CIA has conducted more than 1,000 clandestine flights in Europe since 2001, and some of them secretly took away terror suspects to countries where they could face torture, European Union lawmakers said Wednesday.
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. . . "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 . . ."
(Emphasis supplied.) When Mary McCarthy was fired for allegedly leaking classified information, the Right blogs went into fabulist mode and concocted the most ridiculous "government sting delusion" in recent memory, and were asserting there were no human rights violations by the United States in Europe. They even cited, due to some shoddy editing by the New York Times, that the EU and the Council of Europe had CLEARED the CIA of human rights violations. No doubt the New York Times is capable of altering this story as well, but facts are stubborn things. For example, the Secretary of State has consistently misled on the subject of extraordinary renditions in Europe:
[In December 2005], Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was charged with the task of lying about extraordinary rendition and torture:
In remarks at the start of a five-day trip to Europe, the U.S. Secretary of State mischaracterized the U.S. government's "rendition" of terrorist suspects to make it appear lawful, Human Rights Watch said today.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. government had not transported detainees to other countries "for the purpose" of interrogation using torture, but she failed to mention that the United States has transported detainees to countries such as Egypt and Syria where it knows torture is commonplace. The Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a party, outlaws such a practice.
(Emphasis supplied.) Liar:
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.
. . . U.S. officials previously said that as of late December, some 100 to 150 people had been seized in ''rendition'' operations involving detaining terror suspects in one country and flying them to their home country or another where they were wanted for a crime or questioning.
. . . Fava cited as one example of ''extraordinary rendition'' the case of an Egyptian cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, who allegedly was abducted by U.S. agents on a street in Milan, Italy, in 2003 and returned to his homeland, where he says he was tortured.
Another case involved German citizen Khalid al-Masri. Documents provided by Eurocontrol indicated he was taken to Afghanistan in 2004 by a plane that originated in Algeria and flew via Palma de Mallorca, Spain; Skopje, Macedonia; and Baghdad, Iraq.
(Emphasis supplied.) A pack of liars. Torturers. They have brought disgrace on our country. Story also discussed here.