US FRANCHISED TORTURE REFUSES TO GO AWAY
01/18/06 "ICH" -- -- The ramifications of US franchised torture and street revolutions in Serbia, Georgia ,Ukraine , Kyrgyzstan et al are not going to go away . The recent fence-mending visit to Washington by the newly sworn in right wing German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overshadowed by human right violations and torture at US base in Guantanamo and rendition of terrorism suspects to prisons in Europe and elsewhere by CIA.
To it were added reports that German intelligence had fed America key information about military targets in Iraq before the US led 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq. The Iraq war was vehemently opposed by the government of Merkel's predecessor Gerhard Schröder of Social Democrat party, which is now in "grand coalition" with her party. The question of torture at secret prisons specially in East Europe had erupted following a clutch of media reports led by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel which reported US use of airports in Europe for CIA flights to transport terror suspects to a network of secret jails for questioning. One of the persons picked up for questioning as a suspected terrorist was a German citizen Khaled Masri , who was on holiday in Macedonia. He was flown out and tortured in Afghanistan for five months before being released on grounds of mistaken identity in 2004. During the last December visit of Ms Condoleeza Rice to Europe , Merkel had said that the United States had acknowledged responsibility. "The American government admitted its mistake," Merkel said. But Rice said she could not talk about the case specifically but added, "Any policy will sometimes result in errors, and when it happens we will do everything we can to rectify it." This had led to some confusion in Washington.
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