Europe Knew About CIA's Secret "Renditions" European Parliament Report Reveals

Yesterday a European Parliament report was released. Its subject is "extraordinary renditions" as the US administration prefers to call the CIA practice of transfers of terror suspects to secret prisons, often refered to as "black spots", in countries where investigative methods that includes torture are allowed. The report has its outset in an investigation conducted this June by Europe's human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe. In addition the report has spurred the US Senate armed services committee to carry out its own investigation, as it was revealed by chairman of the committee, the Democratic senator Carl Levin on November 14th. The parliament report states that at least 11 European countries were aware of some of a total of 1245 abductions to have gone through their airspace or listed stop-overs in its airports.



Washington Post broke the story last November and it has since been vigorously followed by European media.

The opening report appeared on November 4th "U.S. Faces Scrutiny Over Secret Prisons" telling that Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, "had obtained flight logs showing that a CIA-chartered aircraft had used airstrips in Poland and Romania in 2003, around the same time that the United States was transporting top al Qaeda prisoners from Afghanistan to other locations, including the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

On November 7th the scandal broke in full with case stories. Here is one of them:

washingtonpost.com

The preliminary report from June this year by the Council of Europe concluded:

news.bbc.co.uk

The heated debat over these pronounced atrocities of basic human rights has been going on ever since with much exposure in European mainstream media.
A conservative estimate sets the secret prioson scheme to hold 14000 prisoners in facilities of more than a dozen countries around the world.

The issue at display here and the topic to be debated is:

Can any country who claims ideals of liberty and freedom of the individual afford such practices without having to pay with their soul, so to speak?
What I mean, will this way of handling an external problem not affect the order of the internal as well?
By bending and outright breaking those fundamental rights The United States of America was founded on, won't those ideals seriously be at stake?
By applying abductions and confeinments without any charge, by practising torture and inhumane treatments?

The application of denial and lies on those practises only goes to show the lowest, the most despiteful of human behaviour. A reign of dark forces have forever changed the world's perception of the United States.

The Military Commission's Act of 17th of October this year only adds to the disgrace.
Remember to lower Stars'n Stripes every year on that day of shame.

Related News Links:
www.guardian.co.uk
news.bbc.co.uk
news.bbc.co.uk
news.bbc.co.uk

[edit on 28-11-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

[edit on 28-11-2006 by UM_Gazz]

Of course some European countries knew, they just didn't want to say or do anything about it, you scratch our back we etc... BTW, since when did Europe (continent) become one country, with a parliament no less? Did I miss something...

No offense meant, this old Tom Paxton song just sprung to my mind.

Well, since 1952 it had an assembly renamed in 1962 to European Parliament.
It is situated in Strausbourg at the border between France and Germany in a region where numerous of the bloody battles for the control of Europe has taken place.


Here's a picture of it.

You can read more about it in Wiki.

A wellknown physical fact is that the exposure to poisons administered below the leathal dose will create a degree of immunity and actually a still higher threshold. Psychological a similar mechanism applies. It is said, it's only hard to kill the first time. Like drugs, for some it can become an addiction. It holds especially true for power, it only takes the mind of a psychopath to enjoy it. And a little bit of a sadist to go along with it.

Why these reflections? Because I try to understand what makes people do what they do to eachother. But also in an attempt to understand how the general populace becomes immune to acts of horrendous dispositions - even when they are commited by their "own". Any atrocity becomes "normal" when enough repeated.

Now there's nothing new about secret CIA prisons, torture, abductions and humiliating treatments that goes against not just decency, but the letter of any law, treaty, and - addressing Americans - be it your very constitution.

And when any congressional or parliamentary report finally arrives it's bound to be old news, long gone. Yes, but it brings them from the realm of rumours, from possible fiction and myth to the realm of confirmed reality, to truth.

By then the general public are bound to already be numb by whatever fact they represent.

Well, this report in question today is the script of any horror movie worthy. Take this snippet from one of a dozen case stories it lists in detail. That it took place in Sweden only adds the disgrace of any system of power.

assembly.coe.int...
153. In short, the facts occurred in the following manner: on 18 December 2001, Mr Agiza and Mr Alzery, Egyptian citizens seeking asylum in Sweden, were the subject of a decision dismissing the asylum application and ordering their deportation on grounds of security, taken in the framework of a special procedure at ministerial level. An internal Säpo report seems to indicate that the American involvement was approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; persons who attended the meeting with the minister and were questioned by the ombudsman have no recollection that this was mentioned. In order to ensure that this decision could be executed that same day, the Swedish authorities accepted an American offer to place at their disposal an aircraft which enjoyed special overflight authorisations. Following their arrest by the Swedish police, the two men were taken to Bromma airport where they were subjected, with Swedish agreement, to a “security check” by hooded American agents.

154. The account of this “check” is especially interesting, as it corresponds in detail to the account given independently by other victims of “rendition”, including Mr El-Masri. The procedure adopted by the American team, described in this case by the Swedish police officers present at the scene, was evidently well rehearsed: the agents communicated with each other by gestures, not words. Owing to lack of space in the room made available to the Americans, the Swedish police were not able to observe everything. In particular, they did not see that (tranquillising) suppositories were administered and that diapers were affixed, as the detainees maintain, and as was done in other “renditions”. See the earlier section of this report on the ‘Human Impact of Renditions and Secret Detentions’. Acting very quickly, the agents cut Agiza’s and Alzery’s clothes off them using scissors, dressed them in tracksuits, examined every bodily aperture and hair minutely, handcuffed them and shackled their feet, and walked them to the aircraft barefoot.

....
156. According to the ombudsman’s findings, the Swedish officers, who were poorly led, lost control of the operation from the start of the American team’s intervention. They ought to have intervened to put an end to the degrading treatment of the detainees, which was not justified on security grounds since the Swedish police had already carried out a body search on the detainees at the time of arrest.

Säpo is the Swedish equivalent of CIA.

Sweden has, and had by the time of the incident a social-democratic government, is a welfare state and has a policy of giving asylyum to refuges, amongst the most liberal in the world.

It is/was considered the leading light against human rights abuse.

How long are we gonna stick up with this, folks?

Hear is another thred that talks about much of the same thing.

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