The latest findings of the Council of Europe’s Marty Commission into the “extraordinary CIA rendition” activities of Al-Qaeda suspects make very grim reading. A year after his first report, Swiss lawyer Dick Marty’s investigation, benefiting from leaks within the CIA itself, now concludes that the CIA definitely operated “black sites” in both Poland and Romania where naked detainees were interrogated and tortured. The highest-value suspects were dealt with in Poland and the others in Romania.
Other countries may also have had similar prisons but Marty reports he has insufficient evidence to name them. While the CIA has characterized the latest revelations as “biased and distorted,” the Polish and Romanian governments have again issued angry denials. But in each case, the form of denial has been significant. In both Warsaw and Bucharest, spokesmen have said that their governments “knew nothing about” any secret CIA prisons. This strongly suggests that they did not want to know and great care was taken to avoid any formal record of what the CIA was doing. Besides, these camps may not have needed any sort of political sanction. In the murky world of intelligence, the cooperation of local spy chiefs may have been all that was needed in order to allow these grotesque human rights abuses to take place.
In Italy public prosecutors are actually proceeding with the trial of 26 Americans and eight Italians for the kidnap of Abu Omar of Al-Qaeda, and his “rendition” to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured to gain intelligence. The Italian government, while not actually denying that the crime took place, is deeply opposed to the trial and is backing defense lawyers. On Friday the judge hearing the case rejected a defense submission that the trial take place in camera because of the secret nature of the evidence. Now the government is appealing to Italy’s constitutional court on the basis that the proceedings will breach state secrecy and jeopardize relations with Washington and the CIA.
It is curious that any country’s government which, upon taking office, swears to uphold the rule of law and follow a constitution guaranteeing human rights, should be prepared to countenance such serious crimes for purely political considerations. It demonstrates clearly the evil delusion that swept America after 9/11 — the delusion that in combating Al-Qaeda’s wicked attacks, American laws and freedoms — the selfsame laws and freedoms — should be abandoned without any serious consideration of the consequences for Americans or US standing in the world.
Those consequences have been devastating. The crime of 9/11 brought the world surging to America’s defense. A million Iranians took to the streets of Tehran to protest the attack. The fund of good will was immense but it was soon dissipated. Now, as we approach the sixth anniversary of 9/11, not a shred of that sympathetic good will and support remains. Bin Laden could not have hoped for more.
