The European Parliament has a new draft report on the rendition issue. It claims that at least 11 governments in the EU either passively or even actively cooperated with the CIA in its flights.

Moreover it says that, except Germany and Spain all the other member states showed a severe lack of cooperation. And even top EU officials are accused of having odd forms of amnesia and even stating not the full truth.

Here you can read more:
BBC NEWS | Europe | EU nations 'knew about CIA jails'





PS:
And here for fun, read what "News MAX" made out of the story. I rarely have read such a bad article before. It nearly seems they are reporting from something else than most of the papers around them.

EU Report Blasts U.S. Detainee Policy

The highlights:
"The anti-American tone of the draft report was stunning, even to close observers of the European investigation." (so extreme no other paper reckognized it, apart from the fact that this draft is in first line directed at the European politicians)

"Their draft report, released on Tuesday in Brussels, was a bald condemnation of the U.S.-led war on terror and of the European governments and officials who have assisted it." (see, critizing "renditions" and actions violating our laws is a "bald condemnation of the ... war on terror)

"In a throwback to the policies of the Clinton administration, the European report insisted that "terrorism must be fought by legal means," "
(Thats in fact ironic. Nasty Europeans insist to obey law once again )

I guess the question is not if we should feel sorry for them or not but that we well may end up in the devils kitchen ( to use a german saying ) if we allow our authorities to do that. A ban of torture has to complete or is irrelevant. Also I recall many people with experience in the field of intelligence agreeing that information obtained from tortured informers rarely turns out to be valuable.
Concerning certain european governements publicly denouncing the Bush administration and playing the "standing up to the cowboys card" to gain votes while secretly cooperating that is sadly not new but once again confirmed by this report...

Talking about touturing people with ties to terrorist? What about the Saudi royal family? They are related to Bin Laden, and where up to 9/11, business partners with George Bush. Hmmmmm. Fishy.

No, we dont have to dig that deep. Its about the question if we want to live under the rule of law or not. If we want the rule of law than illegal actions (what those CIA flights were in several aspects) have to be stopped, persecuted and prevented.

The alternative to the rule of the law is the rule of the stronger. Some might prefer that. But I can't see that in Europe you would find ever a majority for that, as long as our democracies prevail.

So whats the difference? Muslim people have been kidnapped, tortured with no right for no sense, and were set free in some desert. They survived, made it back to Europe and reported the media...

... what happened? Right, nothing, except some Americans shouting Terrorist sympathizers. Not even our own governments honestly care about it.


And thats legitimized just because this person happens to be muslim???

So what? Its a difference if some others do bad things, or if we are directly responsible for them.

Its easy, but nonetheless often necessary to point the finger at others. But you loose every credibility if you dont look into the mirror regularely. The report I wrote above about is such a mirror. But those in front of the mirror all close their eyes.

And not to forget, haven't the wester "civilized" countries once proclaimed to be better than sinister dictatorships when it comes to human rights? Or whats next to say Bin Laden kills innocents by purpose, so we shall too?