US to EU: how DARE you question our illegal activities!

shooting the messenger... tried and true... if somebody catches you with the goods, impugn their credibility and threaten them with consequences... it works on the dems, why not the eu...?

A senior U.S. administration official on Wednesday warned that ongoing inquiries into secret CIA activities in the European Union may undermine intelligence cooperation between the United States and European nations.

[...]

John Bellinger, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, called the European Parliament report "unbalanced, inaccurate and unfair" and called on the EU governments to challenge the suggestion that Europeans need to be concerned about secret CIA flights.

"I can understand concerns about specific incidents but we should not somehow suggest that all intelligence activity is something illegal or suspicious," he said.

Germany, Italy and several other EU countries have been carrying out their own inquiries into secret CIA activities in Europe, probes Bellinger said "have not been helpful with respect to necessary cooperation between the United States and Europe."

"I do think these continuing investigations can harm intelligence cooperation, that's simply a fact of life," Bellinger told reporters after meeting legal advisers to EU governments in Brussels.

even though it was only a few posts ago that i dredged this up, let's revisit condi for just a moment, shall we...?

Rendition is a vital tool in combating transnational terrorism. [...] Renditions take terrorists out of action, and save lives. In conducting such renditions, it is the policy of the United States, and I presume of any other democracies who use this procedure, to comply with its laws and comply with its treaty obligations, including those under the Convention Against Torture.

pay particular attention to the part where she says, "i presume of any other democracies who use this procedure," implying, of course, eu cooperation in this illegal activity... oh, and, btw, it IS illegal...

"The practice of disappearing people -- keeping them in secret detention without any legal process -- is fundamentally illegal under international law," said Joanne Mariner, director of the terrorism program at Human Rights Watch in New York.

hmmmm... well, then...

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