CIA tries to silence EU governmental outcry on renditions

And it apparently worked

Once again, Germany and apparently other European Union nations stand accused in the docket of hypocrisy on human rights issues, and once again with good reason.

The Guardian is reporting the CIA offered to let Germany see a German national imprisoned in Morocco and suspected of al Qaeda links if it would then work to silence protests at home against CIA renditions of al Qaeda suspects to third countries for torture and “torture lite” interrogation.

And — it worked.

The nut grafs:

According to a secret intelligence report, the CIA offered to let Germany have access to one of its citizens, an al-Qaida suspect being held in a Moroccan cell. But the US secret agents demanded that in return, Berlin should cooperate and "avert pressure from EU" over human rights abuses in the north African country.

After the CIA offered a deal to Germany, EU countries adopted an almost universal policy of downplaying criticism of human rights records in countries where terrorist suspects have been held. They have also sidestepped questions about secret CIA flights partly because of growing evidence of their complicity.

This shouldn’t really surprise anybody who has followed the rendition issue closely. I blogged here early this spring that Schroeder’s German government had blood on its hands over the al Masri abduction.

I wonder how much more will have to come out before the left wing of the SPD — let alone the former Communist far left — erupts.

And, see a pattern here? Tony Blair’s Labor — New Left. U.S Democrats who supported the war (and are still less critical about it, or its means) — Democratic Leadership Council, the U.S. version of the New Left. Gerhard Schroeder’s revived Social Democratic Party? New Left.