Bush and Company: Shooting Western World in the Foot?The terrorism against Western societies cannot result in victory for the perpetrators, but the so-called war on terror can be lost offhandedly by the West itself. To no small degree, this prospect has been helped by U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to declare war on Islamist terror on the one hand and the decision to makes the laws of war inapplicable to terrorists on the other. Never before has an American administration cut such a swathe in the field of international law - an unlawful war of aggression was legitimized and confessions extracted through torture were deemed admissible in courts of law. And never before has an American administration fought a no-holds-barred battle, one without any rules - for democracy - that has turned so many democracies into accomplices. But instead of openly declaring their complicity, European governments have silently aided and abetted. This does not refer to tolerating secret CIA-agent flights in European airspace - though it is good to know that CIA agents are still unbridled in their movements. Rather, the complicity began with the knowledge that these agents were accompanying suspected terrorists on their way to European and non-European torture chambers. The justifiable suspicion exists that European governments not only knew of the torture, but that they also benefited from the coerced testimony so gathered. ... The War on Terror cannot be waged with terrorism. Not until European governments have grasped this, not until the next President of the United States of America also understands this, can accomplices once more become allies.
Never before has an American administration cut such a swathe in the field of international law - an unlawful war of aggression was legitimized and confessions extracted through torture were deemed admissible in courts of law. And never before has an American administration fought a no-holds-barred battle, one without any rules - for democracy - that has turned so many democracies into accomplices.
But instead of openly declaring their complicity, European governments have silently aided and abetted. This does not refer to tolerating secret CIA-agent flights in European airspace - though it is good to know that CIA agents are still unbridled in their movements. Rather, the complicity began with the knowledge that these agents were accompanying suspected terrorists on their way to European and non-European torture chambers. The justifiable suspicion exists that European governments not only knew of the torture, but that they also benefited from the coerced testimony so gathered.
... The War on Terror cannot be waged with terrorism. Not until European governments have grasped this, not until the next President of the United States of America also understands this, can accomplices once more become allies.
But instead of openly declaring their complicity, European governments have silently aided and abetted. (...) The justifiable suspicion exists that European governments not only knew of the torture, but that they also benefited from the coerced testimony so gathered.
(...)
The justifiable suspicion exists that European governments not only knew of the torture, but that they also benefited from the coerced testimony so gathered.
Yes. This needs to be said and repeated and they must pay for it. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Yet how can we (collectively US and Europe) make them all pay for it and realistically what can we do? "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within." Cicero
