Our Long International Nightmare Continues

U.S. Doesn't Sign Ban on Disappearances

By JAMEY KEATEN

Associated Press

Updated: 9:28 p.m. ET Feb 6, 2007

PARIS - Nearly 60 countries signed a treaty on Tuesday that bans governments from holding people in secret detention, but the United States and some of its key European allies were not among them.

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State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined comment except to say that the United States helped draft the treaty, but that the final text "did not meet our expectations."

McCormack declined comment on whether the U.S. stance was influenced by the administration's policy of sending terrorism suspects to CIA-run prisons overseas, which Bush acknowledged in September.

Many other Western nations, including Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy, also did not sign the treaty. France introduced the convention at the U.N. General Assembly in November and it was adopted in December.

Many delegates expressed hope that other nations will sign by year-end. Some European nations have expressed support for the treaty, but face constitutional hurdles or require a full Cabinet debate before signing, French and U.N. officials said. (Read More)

This article sure makes Extraordinary Rendition sound innocuous. In reality, intelligence agents of the United States have kidnapped innocent civilians in European countries, and sent them to authoritarian regimes for torture and interrogation. Indeed, recently there were proceedings in Italy questioning whether to charge CIA officials with kidnapping in absentia.

In another generation, those now in power are going to have some serious questions to answer; and if there is any decency within them, more than a modicum of shame. Indeed, as our collective democracy represents our will as individuals, this is a burden that we must share as citizens. Because we allowed it to happen.

However, any European nation which has had its citizens suffer rendition at our hands is engaging in the greatest hypocrisy should they fail to sign as well.