In defending extraordinary rendition against a skeptical European audience, Condi Rice is using the Bush administration's trusty old scare tactic (along with a hefty dose of condescension). Gotta torture people in order to ensure your safety.
But I don't think that the Europeans are going to be as gullible to that sort of thing as the red-state Americans were.
From yesterday's New York Times:
-----
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chastised European leaders on Monday, saying that before they complain about secret jails for terror suspects in European nations, they should realize that interrogations of these suspects have produced information that helped "save European lives."
Her remarks were the Bush administration's official response to the reports of a network of secret detention centers in at least eight European nations, said to house dozens of terror suspects.
At the same time, she denied that the United States has moved suspects to these prisons to allow interrogators to use torture. "The United States," she said, "does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any circumstances." At another point, she said, "The United States does not transport and has not transported detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture."
Intelligence gathered from these interrogations, she said, "has stopped terrorist attacks and saved innocent lives in Europe as well as the United States." But she declined to offer examples or provide any specific information to support her assertions. She said any information related to the prisons was classified. Ms. Rice did not explicitly confirm the existence of the detention centers, first described in news reports early last month. But acknowledgment of them was implicit in her remarks. Without the debate over the covert jails, there would have been no reason for her statement.
[...]
"Democracies are going to debate these things," she said. "But they need to debate them not just on one side of the issue - that is, how the actual activities are being carried out." They should also consider, "are we doing everything we can to protect innocent lives?"
-----
[Read more.]
No comments:
Post a Comment