Europe agrees to abductions, torture

So much for the pretense of the EU to be against what the U.S. is illegally doing. So now the EU is complicit in these abhorrent and illegal activities. And with that, the Geneva Conventions are also discarded. The ruling elites, who are the real powers to whom governments and economies answer, have now decided.

Now it's entirely up to the European People and perhaps the individual European countries whether they approve of this, for the EU has failed them, just as the US government has failed the American People. Do the People want continual war and rape in the world, and a police state at home or not? Only the People can stand up to the ruling elites now; their federal governments have failed them.
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European governments make their peace with Washington on abductions, torture.

European ministers have signalled an end to any pretence of opposing America’s practice of rendition, which involves shipping detainees abroad to be tortured—using European airports and even CIA bases located in eastern Europe.

Following a formal dinner in Brussels on December 7, in advance of the next day’s meeting of NATO foreign ministers, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium all proclaimed themselves satisfied with reassurances by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the US abides by the Geneva Convention in its treatment of prisoners.

“Secretary Rice promised that international agreements are not interpreted any differently in the United States than they are in Europe.”

The meeting was “very satisfactory for all of us,” he added.

Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said he left Wednesday night’s dinner “very satisfied” by Rice’s comments.

NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer was similarly effusive. Rice had “cleared the air. You will not see this discussion continuing.”

He was as good as his word. The next day NATO foreign ministers met to discuss increasing the organisation’s military presence in Afghanistan to allow Washington to reduce the number of US troops stationed there. The issue of covert prisons and detainee treatment was not even discussed.

Human rights groups rejected Rice’s reassurances.

It should also be noted that under international law, a country must allow the International Red Cross access to detention facilities, so as to check official claims about the treatment and condition of prisoners. The US has flatly denied the International Red Cross any information about, let alone access to, its secret prisons, and all but blocked the international body from inspecting known facilities such as Guantánamo Bay and prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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