I only had to read a few sentences of the Council of Europe's report (pdf) on "Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states" to know that the people who wrote this are full of themselves. This is not a serious attempt to understand the terrorist threat and how we should deal with it and whether policies such as rendition have any role to play.
The first two paragraphs tell us that September 11 was a "tragedy" and, essentially, America's first taste of terrorism. The "Old World" has known terrorism for a long time and always retained its commitment to justice, but the US reacted to this first taste of terrorism with wild disregard for human rights and the precepts of justice. (I haven't had such an urge to issue a stream of expletives in a long time.)
Well, there have been very few terrorist attacks in Europe that match the scale of carnage that Oklahoma City experienced in 1995. And, the first World Trade Center bombing, like Sep 11, was an attempt to kill tens of thousands. That the attack failed was more good fortune than anything else. And, there have been dozens of terrorist attacks on American targets abroad. As a kid I lived near La Guardia Airport in NY. It was the scene of a terrorist attack - by Croatian nationalists - in 1975. Eleven people were killed.
So, cut the high and mighty, "we know best" crap. It's one thing when Europeans pull this stuff when the topic is art or film, it's another entirely when we're talking about terrorism and the proper response of the state.
All democratic states make compromises in their commitment to justice and human rights when the threat is great enough. I'd love to know how these committee members would react if they had just lost a big chunk of one of their cities and thousands of their fellow citizens had been killed.
Oh yeah, one more thing. Rendition is about interdiction, not justice. I don't for one minute believe that they don't understand this. You want to discuss the merits and demerits of various approaches - fine. But, stuff your lectures.
