Europe aided the CIA in deporting terror suspects

[Rodion Romanovich]

I doubt anyone disagrees with you on that Redleg. The governments have at the same time criticized and supported the phenomenon. Criticized it in open because it's worthy of criticism, but in secret been to afraid to stand up for their beliefs, and the beliefs of their people.

[Redleg]

I doubt anyone disagrees with you on that Redleg. The governments have at the same time criticized and supported the phenomenon. Criticized it in open because it's worthy of criticism, but in secret been to afraid to stand up for their beliefs, and the beliefs of their people.

I am afraid I believe that the hypocrisy does not come from a secert fear of standing up for what is right.

The hypocrisy comes from the fact that they support the taking of terror suspects because they want to remove them from their nations, and want someone else to do it for them, but they want to hide that fact from the people within their own nation.

[Hurin_Rules]

It's pretty shameless for European nations to criticize the US when they've been cooperating with them. I'm glad they've been called on it, and hope their cooperation with the US program will end.

[scooter_the_shooter]

I think the prisons are fine. I'd bet you all the money in the world every government that is a big player has them, you just don't know about them because they are secret. Or they are to much of a pansy to make their own and always beg the USA for information behind closed doors...

I'd imagine they get lots of useful info from them.

[Avicenna]

And earlier on in the Chinese "concentration camp" topics many people even thought that only China had them.

[Devastatin Dave]

Oh my, you mean that the righteous Euros, who constantly remind us of their morally superior and civilized society, which is beyond the realm of thought and concept we barbaric Americans could ever understand are naughty little fascists like every god damn country in the world? No, say it isn't so.
Can't wait to hear the arguments on how this is all the US's fault. This should be interesting. Of course Hurin hasn't disappointed, waiting for the rest of the usual suspects though.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Can't wait to hear the arguments on how this is all the US's fault. This should be interesting. Of course Hurin hasn't disappointed, waiting for the rest of the usual suspects though.

Sorry, they've all been locked up in a secret Syrian gaol.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I think the prisons are fine. I'd bet you all the money in the world every government that is a big player has them, you just don't know about them because they are secret. Or they are to much of a pansy to make their own and always beg the USA for information behind closed doors...

I'd imagine they get lots of useful info from them.

And earlier on in the Chinese "concentration camp" topics many people even thought that only China had them.

If my country had concentration camps for own citizens and it would leak out, I wouldn't hesitate to kill all government officials who had knowledge about it and had aided in hiding the information, and refused to resign. Most governments should know that there are millions of people in every country who would do the same thing. And eventually the existence of any hidden camp will leak out to the public. Oh, and accusing other countries of having camps is not making it justified for your own country to have concentration camps. Was Hitler's concentration camps allowed because Stalin had the gulag archipelago? Or the gulag archipelago allowed because Hitler had concentration camps? There are plenty of peaceful nations that don't use camps. Only countries that are both too large to overview, and with a rule so distant, centralized or dictatorial with scare tactics such as a very active secret police have a chance of hiding camps from their people - China, Soviet Union, modern Russia, the wartime nazi Germany with occupied enemy areas, USA. Whether all who have the possibility of hiding camps actually have it is another matter, but for countries who have a potential for hiding camps wouldn't hurt to allow constitutional changes that made it more difficult for any regime to hide camps, whatever those constitutional changes should be. But saying that "all nations have it" is just a form of denial of own problems. Like I said it's very difficult for most nations to actually hide such camps, and a leader might consider himself lucky if he isn't executed by a mob if they are discovered.

In this practical example, the CIA camps that were found aren't really concentration camps, not by far, but they aren't exactly following human rights either, and lately it has seemed that the conditions of such camps and similar institutions have gone gradually worse. The combination of bad current situation and a continual worsening is not a thing that gives hope for the future. What's also shocking is the fact that many of the crimes against the human rights declaration could have been avoided without adventuring the security of the nation in any way - there's simply no reason to treat several of the innocents, who have ended up in these places, so harshly. They could have waited with the harsh treatment until guilt was established. And as for extraction of information, a lot of worthless information gets mixed with real information when torture is used. Remember how many in history admitted they were witches when exposed to torture! And good intel mixed with wrong intel is one of the biggest problems a security agency can have - that was the very strategy behind Soviet maskirovka during the cold war, using defectors who weren't real defectors, and similar things. If the torturer is clever (usually not possible to be both clever and for torture at the same time), he asks control questions, which the victim must tell the truth about, or he will be discovered as lying. But if the victim knows which questions the opponents knows the answer of, it's easy to mix correct info there with fake info in other areas. That's what the fake defectors did - they too got control questions, which they answered truthfully, followed by heaps of false information which confused western intelligence immensely.

[Fragony]

God surprise surprise, did anyone ever actually doubt this? Of course they knew about it, planes comming planes leaving, how on earth could such a thing happen without the government knowing? We dutchies aren't mentioned for some reason but they have been here as well.

[rory_20_uk]

If it were the other way around the USA would be berating others for torture as they quietly get on with it. The nuclear issue in Iran is evidence of this: "do as we say, not as we do".

Both the USA and Europe are probably equal in this in terms of blame.

[drone]

It wasn't too long ago when European nations were involved in all sorts of direct actions, assassinating terrorists, midnight raids, blowing up Greenpeace boats , etc. Most Americans were usually horrified by this, with the usual "What about due process?" cries of outrage. Funny how things got all turned around.

I guess I have no point here, just saying.

[rory_20_uk]

And before that America was napalming commies in Greece, rigging elections in Italy...

Politicians seem to suffer from amnaesia in that even what they did yesterday is forgotten and all can be horrified at what some other country does.

And that the UK and USA are two of the bigest producers of weaponry in the world doesn't give us much of the moral highground.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I am afraid I believe that the hypocrisy does not come from a secert fear of standing up for what is right.

The hypocrisy comes from the fact that they support the taking of terror suspects because they want to remove them from their nations, and want someone else to do it for them, but they want to hide that fact from the people within their own nation.

Well said.