American Views Abroad

 
Secret US camps in Europe is a hot issue in the news here. The leading headline in today's IHT reads: EU warns members on secret US camps at www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/28/news/cia.php. The article quotes the director of Europe Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations:

'The broader question of US treatment of prisoners has been one of the most politically volatile issues affecting trans-Atlantic relations. Most Europeans were against the war to begin with, and then adding fuel to the flames has been Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and now the alleged prison camps in EU countries.'

An interesting analysis of this is Black Sites or Red Herring - Is news of black sites in Eastern Europe nothing more than a smoke screen? by John Horvath at www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21444/1.html in English. He writes:

.....'What is worrying about all this is not only the extent to which the CIA operates clandestine flights, but the fact that these flights have been making regular stopovers in Europe....'


....'Ironically, the EU's action of now looking into these flights comes a little late, as do the actions of individual member states.... Whether or not these flights were connected to secret CIA prisons within Europe or not is beside the point. According to international law, nations are obliged to investigate any substantiated human rights violations committed on their territory or using their airspace.....'

.....'Instead, media speculation over where the black sites are seem to be covering up the real issue at hand, which is the fact that some EU member states are already guilty of aiding and abetting the US in its use of torture, an act which contravenes the UN Convention Against Torture.'
- posted by Gloria @ 3:18 PM