CIA Admits to Illegal Operations; United States Now a Pariah

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Did you hear?  The United Kingdom has decided that maybe, just maybe, it shouldn’t be subservient to the United States anymore.

Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee said the government should be “less deferential” toward the Americans and take a more realistic view of the relationship. In a report published Sunday, the committee said that, while ties with America remain close, it is important to recognize that Britain is just one of many countries with important U.S. links.

It’s not hard to see why the UK may be feeling this way since they were unable to squelch investigations into complicity in the torture of detainees, a program started by the Bush administration.  Now, politicians and government officials in Britain are trying their best to run from that complicity.

The government protested to the US over the torture of terror suspects, the former head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller revealed last night.

She also said the Americans concealed from Britain the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 2001 attacks.

“The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing,” Lady Manningham-Buller told a meeting at the House of Lords.

She also admitted MI5 were slow to recognise that the US was torturing detainees. Asked if Britain protested, she replied: “We did lodge a protest.” She declined to elaborate but it is believed that the protests were made at ministerial level.

Yes. We PROTESTED the use of torture, but, didn’t do anything to actually STOP it.  Yet, NOW that it is all coming out, British politicians are worried they are seen as America’s “poodle”.

“The perception that the British government was a subservient ‘poodle’ to the U.S. administration leading up to the period of the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath is widespread both among the British public and overseas,” the report said. “This perception, whatever its relation to reality, is deeply damaging to the reputation and interests of the U.K.”

Actually, what has damaged Britain’s reputation isn’t perception, but, the facts that are now emerging; Tony Blair DID follow George W. Bush into war with Iraq and the torture of detainees.  He turned Britain INTO America’s poodle.

 

The United States has, over the past nine years, become seen as a pariah to be shunned by the world.  No longer do we hold the political dominance we had over other governments.  

Italy convicted 23 CIA agents for kidnapping and rendition.

MILAN – In a landmark ruling, an Italian judge on Wednesday convicted a base chief for the Central Intelligence Agency and 22 other Americans, almost all C.I.A. operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003.

Despite the belief that this didn’t harm the relationship between the United States and Italy, the message was clearly sent by the Italian courts; we will not bow to political pressure when the United States commits such heinous crimes in our country.  I hasn’t helped that Mr. Lady, the CIA Station Chief in Milan, stated in an interview:

In June, Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by the brother of Mr. Berlusconi, published an interview that it said it had conducted via Skype with Mr. Lady, the former C.I.A. base chief in Milan, whose whereabouts are unknown. In the interview, he said of Abu Omar’s abduction: “Of course it was an illegal operation. But that’s our job. We’re at war against terrorism.”

Imagine that, a CIA official stating that their job is to perform illegal operations around the world.  

Germany denied having any role in the U.S. torture of detainees.  However, the Council of Europe documented a different picture.

14 February 2007:  In a report, the European Parliament comes to similar conclusions to Mr Marty, saying EU countries “turned a blind eye” to extraordinary renditions across their territory and airspace.

In a copied official response (.pdf), Germany’s complicity is all but established.

Foreign agencies and their officials may carry out activities on German territory only with the approval of the Federal Government.  In so doing they are subject to the German legal system.  They possess no sovereign powers of their own.

It goes on to state that German police officials will accompany foreign agents while inside of German borders, and, that this is done during legal operations.  Of course, as shown above, the CIA (Mr. Lady) admitted that the kidnapping of an individual for the purpose of transporting them to another country is an illegal operation.

Germany also investigated the illegal practice.

A parliamentary inquiry into the detention of two Muslims from Germany at a US prison in Afghanistan found after two years no conclusive evidence that German intelligence agents of the BND assisted the extraordinary rendition of prisoners by the US administration of president George W Bush. However, a group of opposition parties went already to the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe in May 2007 to complain that ministers refused to answer questions about operation of the BND or refused to hand over certain documents.

Spain is still trying to bring charges against Bush administration lawyers.

PARIS – Spain’s attorney general on Thursday strongly criticized steps to open a criminal investigation in Madrid into allegations that six former Bush administration officials authorized the torture of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Cándido Conde-Pumpido, the attorney general, said at a breakfast meeting with journalists in Madrid that he would oppose any legal action in Spain because the proper forum would be an American court and that any investigation should focus on those who actually mistreated detainees.

But in Spain, the attorney general does not have the last word; an investigating judge decides whether a case will proceed. Lawyers familiar with the case said that the stage had now apparently been set for a struggle between judges and politicians.

Israel, America’s closest ally, has their own problems with actions being considered as war crimes.

(CBS/AP)   The Palestinians called Wednesday for global action to punish Israel for alleged war crimes during its military assault on Gaza last winter, warning that the credibility of the United Nations and international human rights law was at stake.

The demand was based on the findings of a commission headed by former South African judge Richard Goldstone that accused both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during their Dec. 27-Jan. 18 war.

Who knew that the “beacon of the free world” would be seen as a lawless pariah to now be dismissed by other nations?