BLUE ON BLACK

EUROPE IS BLUE ON BLACK site prisons and extraordinary rendition.  Europe wakes today to a United States blind to the public relations and human rights disaster it sets on the table before the world.  The United State admitted and then stopped admitting mistakes plural yesterday.

If anything, relations are worse now. [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel irritated US officials by telling journalists after the meeting that the US government had admitted making a mistake in the case of Khaled al-Masri, a Lebanese-born German citizen who was abducted by the CIA and claims that he was tortured while held in secret custody.
"We discussed the one case which was accepted as a mistake by the government of the United States," Merkel told a joint news conference with Rice after their meeting on Tuesday. US officials later told journalists that Rice had done nothing of the sort. "We are not quite sure what was in her head," Reuters quoted a senior US official as saying.
US officials said the US government had informed the German government about al-Masri's case but had not admitted making mistakes. Rice had merely given assurances that any errors made by the CIA would be corrected as and when they arose, officials said.

WHAT OFFENDS the Germans is the offending party the United States now plays the offended party.  The world is upside down and the shake out will not be pretty.  The one mistake admitted by the United States is the five month long kidnapping of non terrorist German citizen Khaled al Masri.  Rice ironically was once instrumental in getting him released.  Al Masri was dumped in Macedonia, far from home.  You could call that a metaphor for United States policy now: headed toward decency, but not quite making it home.

SKEPTICISM RISES in Europe on Condoleezza Rice’s response.  Words don’t say what they mean, don’t mean what they say. It’s a wordy rapping hood reality.

"I think what she means is, 'We don't use it as an official way to do things, but we don't look at what is done in other countries,' " Monika Griefahn, a Social Democratic member of [the German] Parliament, said in regard to Ms. Rice's comment on torture. "And that's the problem for us."

A PROBLEM FOR EUROPE will be a problem for Washington if it doesn’t come clean on torture.  Reaction across the continent is harsh,
but you wouldn’t think it has crossover appeal in the White House.  While some say George Bush is the least poll driven President ever, the lastest word is perhaps Bush is hoping “ticking bomb” scenarios and a culture soaked by shows like 24 will let him wring out more than a draw in the polls on a policy just short of drawing and quartering.

In America, 61 percent of those surveyed agreed torture is justified at least on rare occasions. Almost nine in 10 in South Korea and just over half in France and Britain felt that way.

CONGRESS MAY STAND UP and while the White House may back down on the McCain ban on torture, it continues to fight a back battle on prosecution of CIA torturers.

. . . administration officials concede that Mr. McCain's provision, which would also require a uniform standard on how to interrogate detainees, stands a strong chance of becoming law, despite a White House threat to veto any legislation containing it. The measure has already passed the Senate, 90 to 9, and senior House Republican staff members say it would probably pass by a large margin in the House.
Faced with that reality, administration officials said, Mr. Hadley has now retreated to seeking narrower language that could make it harder to prosecute intelligence officers charged with violating torture standards.
Mr. Bush, speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, repeated his statement that "we do not torture."

BLACK IS WHITE White is black.  Black sites continue to make the Euros blue, but some will continue to see red.

PREVIOUS HERETIK POSTS on Rice and Extraordinary Rendition: Condi Must Be Tripping, Extraordinary BS 

ALSO The German Media Roundup

BEYOND THE PALE POLL Kathy at Liberty Street: Bush's "war on terror" has not changed the terrorist value system one iota. But it has changed our value system. Today, it would be far easier to find an American who thinks pulling out fingernails or delivering electric shocks to genitals is fine "if there's a good reason" than it would be to find a follower of Zarqawi who thinks religious pluralism is a fine thing.

THE HERETIK SHARES concern what now is most tortured is the American soul

Comments

[Night Bird]

United States policy now: headed toward decency, but not quite making it home.

Heretik, I don't know about that...in general I mean. Stating to the American People that the administration will start to bring troops home when enough Iraqi Soldiers are trained is good...but all the while we have started bombing the heck out of Syria.

Sounds like another Vietnam/Cambodia during the 1972 Election to me.

Just saying...

[stacy]

wow, great graphic heretik!