italian language course: Europe's Nerve

Posted 6/7/2006

War On Terror: A European report charges 14 countries with "collusion" with the U.S. on the interrogation of terrorists. Is Europe so spineless that it considers waging war against the enemies of civilization a crime?

In the wake of the 9-11 attack, the Central Intelligence Agency reportedly established covert sites in Eastern Europe to interrogate dozens of major terrorism suspects.

The Council of Europe, which calls itself Europe's "human rights watchdog," says Cyprus, Germany, Spain and Turkey were used by the CIA as "staging posts." Britain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal, meanwhile, were utilized as "stop-off points." And Bosnia, Italy, Macedonia and Sweden allowed suspects residing in those countries to be seized.

The report's author admits that "proof, in the classical meaning of the term, is not as yet available" in regard to the report's allegations, and he concedes that "we are still far from having established the truth."

This is remarkable coming from a famed lawyer used to presenting watertight cases. As a prosecutor in the Italian-language southern region of Switzerland, Dick Marty busted a billion-dollar drug dealer-money laundering ring in the late 1980s, causing Switzerland's first female justice minister to resign.

Marty now chairs the council's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, but his view of human rights is rather qualified. In 2003, he drafted the Council of Europe's "Marty Report on Euthanasia," pushing for legally assisted suicide throughout Europe.

So while terrorists' human rights are of great concern to Marty, the mercy killing of Europeans is another matter.

Marty saves most of his ire for Poland and Romania, suspected of actually hosting the CIA facilities. Their governments deny the charges, but let's note for the record that the Polish and Romanians suffered greatly under Nazism and communism, in the Poles' case after being sold out by the Allies at Yalta.

Marty and his fellow Swiss, by contrast, were comfortably neutral in both world wars.

Today's terrorists are just as bloodthirsty as Hitler's and Stalin's henchmen. And finding a way to interrogate them without an ACLU lawyer standing watch has undoubtedly been a help in foiling some 10 or more al-Qaida plots since 9-11.

Europe's bureaucratic do-gooders want it both ways: to be protected from terrorists, but without getting their hands dirtied. As usual, the U.S. is doing the dirty work for them. The least Europe could do is say "thank you" and stop whining.


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