German Chancellor Repairing Ties with U.S.
From a Reuters article on the "mistaken detention" of German Khaled el-Masri and a coverup by the German authorities at the request of the U.S.:
"The suggestion that a German minister and other members of Schroeder's government may have been involved in a cover-up to protect Washington from embarrassment comes at a sensitive time for the new chancellor, Angela Merkel.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Berlin late on Monday for talks with German and other European leaders where the topic of the CIA's treatment of prisoners is one of the main items to be discussed.
Merkel has been in office for less than two weeks at the head of a power-sharing "grand coalition" with her former rivals. She is trying hard to repair ties with Washington, which never forgave Schroeder for his vocal opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq."
Two things. One, Washington never forgave the head of Germany for not going along with the Iraq invasion, for following his assessment of the intelligence, his advice from his cabinet, his instinct and he turned out to be right. That is ridiculous.
Two, I take issue with the term "mistaken detention." You can't mistakenly detain. You can hold the wrong person for months and months, for years and years, without them seeing thwir family, having the right to a lawyer and in the case of extraordinary rendition, flown to secret prisons where the guards may not necessarily following Geneva Conventions and other safeguards against human rights abuse.
[Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1205-09.htm ]
posted by niteskolar @ 8:05 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home