US: Excuse us, we didn’t really mean it; Germany: OK, we’ll look the other way

That’s the hot word on how the U.S. told Germany about the kidnapping and false imprisonment of German citizenKhaled el-Masri story says.

Of course, it’s nice to know that, after so fiercely opposing the war in Iraq on various grounds, the government of Gerhard Schroeder sat on this information for a full year.

Yes, al-Qaeda (this arrest was made related to al-Qaeda and operations in Afghanistan) was separate from the war in Iraq. But, as a result of the war and our own human rights abuses, we’ve taken a lot of grief from people in western Europe. Apparently they don’t have a lot of room to talk.

True, we don’t know what behind-the-scenes protest Schroeder’s government made to Washington, but it seems like Berlin was determined to sit on this issue for a variety of reasons. Perhaps Europeans are willing to let Americans do the dirty work on legitimate actions against al Qaeda and suffer the consequences as well.

Plus, what effect will this have, and its revelation at just this moment, on the CIA rendition flight stopovers in various European countries, above all, Germany?

For a basic summary of his kidnapping and imprisonment story, see here, including el-Masri’s claim he was visited by a German state security official while imprisoned in Afghanistan.

For a scientific sidebar about how hair analysis can uphold part of his claim, see here.

For a brief timeline of his time in Afghanistan, see here.