Be sure not to miss the story that Washington wants you to ignore.

Dick Marty, a Swiss senator working under the auspices of the Council of Europe, just released his 72-page report [PDF], his second in a year [first one here: PDF], that confirms that the CIA - yes, that's our folks - ran secret prisons in Europe to detain and torture suspected terrorists, the BBC reports. The CIA program of so-called "extraordinary rendition" sweeps up suspects (often without charges, warrants, or other requirements of U.S. and international law) and shuttles them off to countries where torture is both known and expected to happen. Conveniently, this allows our government officials to distance themselves from whatever unpleasantness may occur there.

Several European countries too, the report insists, are complicit in their transport and illegal treatment.

[Romania and Poland] did host secret detention centres under a special CIA programme established by the American administration in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 to “kill, capture and detain” terrorist suspects deemed to be of “high value”.

Today also marks the beginning of a trial for 26 (suspected) American CIA operatives accused of kidnapping a Muslim imam on the streets of Milan in broad daylight 4 1/2 years ago. None of the Americans are attending the trial and the U.S. government refuses to turn them over.

The imam, Abu Omar, says he was flown to Germany and then to his native Egypt where he was tortured. He has reportedly lost "70 percent of his hearing in both ears, has a lesion on his spine and suffers depression as a result of the torture he endured."

Dick Marty wants you to know that the U.S. is writing its own rules in the "War on Terror," rules that defy it's own constitution and laws, as well as European laws and global declarations against human rights abuse. So much for all that bullshit Thomas Jefferson fed us about individual liberties and democracy. We're eating crow now.

Labels: news, politics, terrorism

This entry was posted by Jeff, on Friday, June 08, 2007. You can leave your response.