The Euro press sniffs and clucks about American intelligence flights abusing -- please, sit down -- European air space, nay, the hallowed tarmacs, the very microbes of Europe itself for the filthy business of shuttling terrorists for interrogation and the possibility of certain torture.

'CIA PRISONS:' EU WARNS MEMBERS

BERLIN November 28, 2005 (AP) - EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini warned on Monday that any EU nation found to have operated secret CIA prisons could have their EU voting rights suspended.

"I would be obliged to propose to the Council (of EU Ministers) serious consequences, including the suspension of voting rights in the Council," Frattini said on the margins of a conference of EU defense experts.

Frattini, the EU's top justice official, said the voting rights suspension would be justified under the EU's treaty which stipulates that the bloc is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, and that a persistent breach of these principles can be punished.

Allegations that the CIA hid and interrogated key al-Qaida suspects at Soviet-era compounds in Eastern Europe were first reported in The Washington Post on November 2. [Ah, Europe comes by its scoop from investigative skimming of the Washington Post.] The paper did not name the countries involved. A day after the report appeared, Human Rights Watch said it had evidence indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania.

No, no,no, that won't do. Poland! Romania! Europa will not abide stooge nations of the CIA in the Euro clubhouse.

Uh oh, then this:

FRENCH STOPOVERS ADD TO 'TORTURE FLIGHT' EVIDENCE

PARIS December 2, 2005 (AFP) - Aircraft hired by the US Central Intelligence Agency possibly to transport Islamist prisoners have made at least two stopovers [200% more stopovers than Poland] in France, in 2002 and 2005, the daily Le Figaro reported Friday.*

So that leaves who -- Denmark? Austria? -- still eligible to vote in the EU?

Sure enough, the sharp-eyed folk at ¡No Pasarán! noticed that the story is now safely backpaged:

December 3, 2005 - In today's print edition of Libération PropagandaStaffel, those secret CIA flights that stopped over in Fwance get a one paragraph mention in a side column on page 11. This after a two page spread earlier in the week which displayed a huge world map with the comings and goings of said secret flights complete with incriminating pictograms to indicate landings in countries like Poland and Romania. The French intelligentsia are nothing but a bunch of lesson giving racaille scum.

Of course, Europeans only achieve their hallucinatory state of moral indignation when they can score the designer drug anti-Americanism:

EUROPE'S 'MORAL OUTRAGE'
The Continent Cares About "Human Rights" Only When It Can Bash America.

December 4, 2005 (WSJ) - Europe is enthralled by another American "torture scandal." ... The outrage on the Continent is deafening. ...

We'd be the first to applaud Europeans for finally concerning themselves with moral principles instead of commercial interests. Many of the Middle East's problems, including terrorism, would be easier solved if Europe were seriously concerned about morality. Europe would no longer be Iran's No. 1 trading partner, and its companies wouldn't be able to attend trade fairs in Sudan anymore. Unlike American companies--recently defamed in Germany as "(blood) suckers" and "locusts" by the former government--European firms are quite busy in Sudan. The chamber of commerce and industry in Stuttgart has enthused over what great opportunities Sudan's oil resources offer to German companies. Lest people think they are doing something morally reprehensible, the salesmen from Stuttgart prefer to describe the massacres of black Africans in Darfur as "political disturbances."

In much of Europe's public debate, the true meaning of human rights has degenerated into a tool that gives anti-Americanism an aura of legitimacy. The real, horrendous human-rights violations in the Middle East, North Korea, China, Cuba, etc., are largely ignored or relegated to news blurs on the back pages. For front-page coverage, you need an American angle. ... [T]ake the double standard about allegations that CIA planes have used European airports to bring terror suspects to third countries where they might be tortured. ... As recently as October, Amnesty International accused the Spanish government of violating the European Human Rights Convention for the mass expulsion of African migrants from the Spanish enclaves in Morocco. "Torture and bad treatment are endemic in Morocco," Esteban Beltran, the director of the Spanish Amnesty International section said.

Anti-Americanism is so prevalent in Europe that it has permeated almost all areas of public discourse--from arts to politics to economies. "American conditions" is a popular German slur against alleged social coldness in the U.S.--one that former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has "successfully" used to reject necessary economic reforms. And just as it has poisoned the economic debate in Europe, anti-Americanism also poisons the debate about how to deal with terrorism. Any measure that involves the U.S. is almost immediately tainted as being beyond the pale.

And what is the appropriate American response to the moral poseurs of Europa? Back off. Well said when said.

* The flight logs for clandestine torture flights courtesy of the secretive American Federal Aviation Administration. "While the logs show unprecedented CIA activity, they do not show which planes were involved in prisoner transfers."

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