Europe Rejects Bush World View

by DemFromCT

It's hard to imagine a more blunt story in a major US daily regarding Rice's European vacation:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did what was expected, many people in Europe said Tuesday, after her meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German officials. She gave reassurances that the United States would not tolerate torture and, while not admitting mistakes, promised to correct any that had been made.

She accompanied that with an impassioned argument for aggressive intelligence gathering, within the law, as an indispensable means of saving lives endangered by an unusually dangerous and unscrupulous foe.

Did anybody believe her on this continent, aroused as rarely before by a raft of reports about secret prisons, C.I.A. flights, allegations of torture and of "renditions," or transfers, of prisoners to third countries so they can be tortured there?

"Yes, I did," Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a conservative member of the German Parliament, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "The thing I believe is that the United States does obey international law, and Mrs. Merkel said that she believes it too."

Not everybody here is of that view, to say the least. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a more sudden and thorough tarnishing of the Bush administration's credibility than the one taking place here right now. There have been too many reports in the news media about renditions - including one involving an Lebanese-born German citizen, Khaled el- Masri, kidnapped in Macedonia in December 2003 and imprisoned in Afghanistan for several months on the mistaken assumption that he was an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers - for blanket disclaimers of torture to be widely believed.

Can you imagine this just a few short years ago?

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was pelted with questions on Tuesday about covert prisons and a mistaken, secret arrest, as she grappled with what has become an incendiary issue in Europe. She declined to answer most of them in two European capitals.

Reading the English language papers from Europe doesn't change the picture any.

From the Guardian:

Speaking after a meeting with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, Ms Rice again insisted that the US did not "condone" torture. "It is against US law," she said. But she appeared to concede for the first time that the Bush administration's uncompromising policy of "rendition" against terrorist suspects had sometimes gone wrong.

From the Telegraph:

The world's two most powerful women had probably been hoping for a more relaxed encounter yesterday, even if Catherine the Great stared down at them from a portrait.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, was on the defensive as never before since taking office.

From the Bush-friendly Times:

Despite the uproar in Europe over America’s “extraordinary rendition” of suspects to countries such as Afghanistan, and claims that secret CIA prisons are located in Romania and Poland, Dr Rice said that she expected American allies to co-operate and keep quiet about sensitive anti-terrorism operations.

Abandoning the emollient tone that she has adopted towards Europe during her 11 months in office, she pointedly reminded European governments that they had helped the US for years in a “lawful” policy of rendition — the removal of suspects to third countries for interrogation.

Apparently, we're not the only ones who have had it with outright lies and deceptions from this Administration. But torture is something that crosses all bounds of, at the risk of sounding downright European, civilized behavior. McCain is right. We lose more than we gain. How bad is it? Saddam's in the dock, a known dictator and human rights violator, lecturing the US (and the Arab world) during his trial about Abu Ghraib. It doesn't get much worse than that.

That's inevitably what happens when, like Cheney, Gonzales and Bush, you condone torture instead of condemning it. Oh, not by what Rice says, but rather by what the US does (and by what Cheney says). Well, Bush and his cronies including Rice have brought this on themselves. Why should Europe trust these people? Why should we?

 

Comments

[fubar]

U.S. statecraft has turned into the dismal science.

[jonnybutter]

Mrs. Merkel said at a news conference that Ms. Rice had admitted making a mistake when the United States abducted a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, on suspicions of terrorism and held him in detention for five months. But aides to Ms. Rice scrambled to deny that, saying instead that Ms. Rice had said only that if mistakes were made, they would be corrected.

That's the money graph for me. How fucking pathetic is that? The NYT piece cites 'two of the world's most powerful women'; yep, and one of them is a super-princess. Our gal, natch.

[Meteor Blades]

Even during the Nixon administration, which invented a new verb tense, the passive-aggressive, it was admitted that "Mistake were made."

Now we're down to passive-aggressive denial: IF mistakes were made ...

[slangwhanger-in-chief]

George W. Bush maliciously started an ill-timed and disastrous war by lying to the American people and to the Congress; he has run a budget surplus into a severe deficit; he has consistently and unconscionably favored the wealthy and corporations over the rights and needs of the population; he has destroyed trust and confidence in, and good will toward, the United States around the globe; he has ignored global warming to the world's detriment; he has wantonly broken our treaty obligations; he has condoned torture of prisoners; he has attempted to create a theocracy in the United States; he has appointed incompetent cronies to positions of vital national importance.

Would someone please get caught giving him a blow job so we can impeach him?

[Mimikatz]

Wasn't "mistakes were made" Ronald Reagan? As I recall, it originally referred to the Beirut bombing (1983). Did Nixon admit any mistakes?

[DemFromCT]

from the WaPo, late:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday the United States had banned all of its personnel from conducting cruel or inhumane interrogations of prisoners. Her statement appeared to mark a significant shift in U.S. policy.

"As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States' obligations under the CAT [U.N. Convention Against Torture], which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment -- those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States," Rice said during a news conference with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

[thorny1]

meteorblades--Your listing of Bush's failures is one of the best articulations of the many reasons that Bush is the worst president in the history of the U.S. Thanks. I feel like saving it and sending it to people who want to know why I think he's an idiot (euphemism). He and his ilk have taken a perfectly good country and completely ruined it.

[oregondave]

From MSNBC:

"Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, on Wednesday signalled a major policy shift by stating explicitly that US personnel were prohibited from using "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment of detainees as she weathered protests in Europe over secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons and alleged torture.

"Members of the US Congress, who had pressed for the change, and human rights activists welcomed the statement as a policy U-turn . . .

. . . But Scott McClellan, White House spokesman, insisted that Ms Rice's comments were a restatement of existing policy"

Translation of Scotty's statement: "Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia."

[DemFromCT]

from Sully.

What you find in Bolton is something democratically repulsive, but one that is very close to the view of Dick Cheney. That view is that the public should never second-guess its own government in the conduct of a war. I wish we didn't have to. But when you have bungled a war this badly, and committed war-crimes in the process, what would Bolton have us do? Trust, sadly, is no longer an option. It no longer became an option the minute looting broke out in Iraq and the secretary of defense, responsible for maintaining order in a country he had just invaded, shrugged his shoulders. From that moment of complete and proud dereliction of duty, we were on notice that these people couldn't be trusted.