Posted on 12/03/2005 7:03:13 PM PST by blam
Rice will take tough line with Europe on 'prison plane' flights
By Philip Sherwell and Kim Willsher in Paris
(Filed: 04/12/2005)
Condoleezza Rice, the United States Secretary of State, will urge European governments to back off in the continuing row over alleged secret terrorist detention camps in Eastern Europe and clandestine CIA "prison plane" flights.
Dr Rice, who begins a four-country European tour tomorrow, is preparing a "robust" defence of American treatment of terror suspects, as Washington belatedly comes out fighting on the controversy, senior European diplomats told the Sunday Telegraph.
Condoleezza Rice: No apologies for tactics
Although Dr Rice is keen to improve diplomatic relations with Europe, she will use her visit to argue that unorthodox tactics are needed to obtain information from detainees and to prevent terror attacks.
The US has been refusing to confirm or deny reports that it held suspected Islamic terrorists at secret bases in Poland and Romania. The European Union has launched an investigation and threatened punishment if any countries co-operated with the US on practices that are illegal in Europe, such as torture.
The furore has grown as details emerged of CIA-chartered aircraft - some believed to be ferrying detainees on so-called "rendition" flights - using airports across the Continent, including Britain, for stopovers and refuelling. Eight nations have launched investigations.
Yesterday, it emerged that two chartered jets involved in carrying Islamic suspects to the Guantanamo Bay base had used airports in France, one of the fiercest critics of the Iraq war.
With large swathes of European public opinion and many leading politicians hostile to US policy in Iraq, Dr Rice knew that the controversy would blight her trip to Germany, Romania, Ukraine and Belgium, and wanted to reshape the debate.
"Rice isn't going to be making any apologies and we don't expect any acknowledgement that the camps existed, a senior European official told the Sunday Telegraph.
"But she will emphasise that we need intelligence to save lives and that America and Europe are in this together. She will also urge European governments to help put this message across." Dr Rice will also state that the US respects international law and does not violate national sovereignty.
As America's closest ally, Britain is expected to accept her message. But as the Government holds the rotating EU presidency, it has fallen to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to convey the organisation's concerns to Washington.
The State Department is preparing its response to a letter from Mr Straw on behalf of the EU, seeking details about the alleged clandestine sites.
Dr Rice started to unveil the message to European visitors to Washington last week. She told Bertie Ahern, the Irish premier, that she expected allies to trust that America does not allow rights abuses - a sign she will avoid any detailed response on intelligence matters.
She's going to take Europeans on Prison Plane flights? Will there be cameras?
In fact it is extremely dangerous for countries like Romania to help the US in interrogating and arresting terrorists as long as they do not follow the European standarts of law. Inside the European Union (including the UK) the American practice, to interrogate and arrest suspect persons without any normal lawsuit is unlawful and not tolerated. The wider European public sees such attitudes (Gitmo, Abu Grahib) simply as barbarian and primitive. Therefore the central European powers like the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Poland or Germany are not able to tolerate foreign justice inside their zone of influence. If they would do, they had to face major trouble with their voting public. This is something they just can't afford.
Therefore it is very likely that the EU-membership of i.e. Romania would be set out if it comes out, that there where bigger CIA-prisons without any European legal norms. The EU did such punishment actions before i.e. with Austria, that elected the party of the extreme populist Jörg Haider (pro-nazi, pro-Saddam) into the gouvernment some years ago. Since there are many of the EU-establishment who are not amused about the membership of Romania anyway, they would take the chance to kick them out for sure. For Romania a rejection of its application to be a EU-member would end in a complete disaster. Since it is economically totally dependent on the EU, it needs the membership to solve the severe problems of its own economy. If they are to stay out they have no chance to increase their very low standart of living. This seems to be a extremely high price for some "illegal" prisons.
The US influence on this mechanism is very limited. For most of the Europeans you are the bad guys in the meantime. Therefore it would be helpful for countries like Romania to keep everything small and secret.
Personally I feel more than sick and disgusted about these facts, but as a European I have to live with it. There is for sure no space for political correctness when someone has to deal with ruthless criminals and terrorist like the US has to do. But - who asks me??!
Don't drop the peanuts.
Something or the eastern Europe ping list.
Yup. We probably should have shot the SOB's on the plane.
Interesting post. I thought part of Condi's threat is to remind the pc euroweenies of their own hypocrisy (France et al). If they continue to act self-righteous and sanctimonius, the US will air their dirty covert action laundry as well.
Hope so.
Ho hum.
Fortunately for the world we do not take the EU as seriously as the EU takes itself.
Taking lessons in how to treat prisoners from the French is down right funny.
Taking lessons on how to treat murdering terrorists from Germans who murdered innocents by the millions a few generations ago is even more comical.
My suggestion to the EU is to choose a side.
Note that those with most first hand knowledge of totalitarian regimes seem to help us most.
Our biggest worry is just how much technology transfer there will be from "The EU" to North Korea, Iran, and China.
Maybe if EU foreign policy were not for sale to the highest bidder you might get some respect.
The problem is, that such poor countries like Romania are not able to defend themselves against economic pressure from western Europe at all. They are completely dependent and have to follow the policy in London, Berlin and Paris or they starve. Poland is much stronger than Romania, but it is for sure not in the interest of the Polish gouvernment to be treated like a pariah. It will be helpful that Schroeder is not in power anymore, so Merkel has the chance to play the whole thing down. The influence of Chirac is declining.
BTW - the European press is absolutely not interested in the dirty covert action laundry of the Frenchies. If you take the oil for food scandal for example - 99% of the European public do not even know aboout it. This is not a fair game.
Romania does take the EU serious. They have no other chance to do so since they would starve without western Europe. Over 51% of all Romanian exports go to Italy, Germany, France and the UK alone. The US play practically no economic role. That are simply the facts.
My suggestion to the EU is to choose a side.
The EU always chooses its own side. :-)
Maybe if EU foreign policy were not for sale to the highest bidder you might get some respect.
The EU leaders are not interested in respect from the US or elsewhere. They are simply interested in stable conditions and the possiblity of good business. Therefore there is little will on the old continent to opem up with the US too many new fronts. Sad but true.
Why do we have to fly these guys to Europe and deal with all this political flap.
Lets just fly-em to Kansas. I bet there's plenty of folks up there would interrogate them real good.
Cynically... Who's to say the whole europe thing isn't a diversion and they really are at the bottom of some unused missle silo hidden under a bogus straw pile behind some barn..........
I always find your comments interesting (and, by the way, that's a handsome ME 109.)I agree that Romania is very vulnerable. The new Polish government, on the other hand, depends on some minority parties that are at best Euro-skeptic, and in the case of Samoobrona (Self Defense), Euro-hostile. If Brussels pushes Poland too hard, there'll be a reaction. The EU should have learned a lesson from its action against Austria (re Haider)which didn't turn out very well.
Poland is of course in a much better position than Romania, but they can not afford a real confrontation either. If there would be a real Polish "reaction" the damage would be on Polands side. There are more than enough (it is sad but true - conservative) politicians in western Europe, who think that they can defend some BS-industries against the eastern competition with dumb protectionism. A stubborn political reaction from Poland in this case would give them exactly the munition they dream of. They could profile themselves as the saviours of humanity and kick the a** of the Poles in the same time. Since Poland's markets are all in western Europe they do not have real choices either.
People like me need the Poles to turn the EU into something better than this contemporary crap. They are the fresh voice to move something. Therefore I think that they (and we) simply need a intelligent US-reaction if this story would turn out to be true. If the US confront "old" Europe too much it will be quite likely that "new" Europe will have to pay a terrible price. In Germany we say that everyone has to keep the balls flat.
Thank you for the flowers!
:-)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4497006.stm
while its easy to bash the EU over this - the real problem lies with the US judicial system, which has been corrupted by the left. If we didn't have the US supreme court extending constitutional rights to terrorists all over the world, we would be able to maintain prisons for them at places like Diego Garcia. But we can't, we have to use these foreign jurisdictions to keep the US courts from granting these terrorists US constitutional rights.
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