US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have left Berlin, but her visit has left all sorts of bad tastes in the mouths of Germans. Nobody seems terribly convinced by her claim that America doesn’t torture.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have left Berlin, but her lightening visit on Tuesday is still splashed across the headlines on Wednesday. Nobody, of course, expected the issues raised by Rice’s visit to disappear as soon as she did.
For the Financial Times Deutschland, Rice’s visit to Berlin did little clear up the many questions surrounding American treatment of foreign terror suspects. “The ‘clarity’ in the debate over the secret CIA flights and prisons demanded by the Europeans remained absent,” the paper writes early in its lead Wednesday editorial. In particular, the paper focuses on US claims that it does not engage in torture. “It remains unclear exactly what definition Washington uses for torture.” Indeed, the UN definition of torture refers only to acts “by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental” occur. But other acts constituting “other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” are also prohibited, although they don’t fall under the definition of torture. The paper hypothesizes that the US operates within exactly this “gray zone.” And further, that by representing this position, Condoleezza Rice has lost the battle with the hardliners within the US government.
The debate over secret CIA flights and prisons shows how far Europe and the US have drifted apart since Sept. 11 when it comes to what methods are acceptable in waging war on terror. “Condoleezza Rice gave the best example of this by adopting what almost seemed like a blackmailing tone in saying that whoever discloses the work of their intelligence services would have to live with a higher threat of terror,” the paper writes. “American secret service information would only be available to allies that could keep silent about how that information was obtained. The message can also be translated thus: The end justifies the means, terrorism can be fought with borderline methods on the outer edges of legality.” The paper concludes:** “Rice came to Germany to begin a new era. She has resoundingly failed to do so.”**
“Do they not even pay any attention to the public statements of their negotiating partners?” After all, the American attitude has been made clear enough. “Everything that (the US) wants to do in the process of fighting terror, it is allowed to do,” has been the tenor of public comments on the issue by America, the paper writes. With regards to torture, the paper concludes, "nobody should say they couldn’t have known after the fact. It has been in the newspapers. For a long time.
Does Anyone Believe Condoleezza Rice or the US government on Torture?
So the Yankee terrorists indulge in torture not a new thing, they have done it many times in the past but to openly say the US does not do torture after they have places like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Gharib, Secret Torture Gulags in Europe shows how much they will lie to the world with bare faced lies!