Renditions Unto Caesar

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the fundamental charges made by the Council of Europe last week are accurate: that, since 2001, 14 European countries have, to varying degrees, been complicit with "extraordinary renditions," the cia's system of moving suspects to countries where they were, or may have been, tortured. Dick Marty, a Swiss parliamentarian who led the Council's investigation, slammed what he called a "reprehensible network" of European nations that, he said, allowed the cia to operate on their soil, provided stopover points for suspects en route to a torture location, or exchanged information with U.S. intelligence that eased the torture process. This system of enabling torture is, in Marty's view, "utterly alien to the European tradition and sensibility."

Numerous governments have denounced these charges as untrue; Marty himself admits that proof is wanting. But again, let's assume the allegations are basically sound. [an error occurred while processing this directive] What do they show, and what are the chances that this zealous investigation will reduce the practice of torture?

Much of the report rehashes old charges; it cites, for example, a "preponderance of indications" that Romania and Poland housed secret detention centers in which, presumably, terrorist suspects were kept en route to or from a country like Cuba or Afghanistan where they could be tortured with minimum legal interference. The involvement of such New European countries — although hotly denied — would not be wholly unexpected, since they were among the "coalition of the willing" that backed the Iraq invasion in 2003.

More surprising are the report's allegations that countries where the Iraq war was far more controversial have also colluded in the "spider's web" of U.S. torture. Germany, for example, refused to support America's adventures in Iraq when it was governed by Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats. Yet if the report is right, on at least two occasions, Germany allowed rendition operations to be staged at its airports. Italian prosecutors have concluded that their country, too, participated in that operation; a trial in Milan of 22 American alleged cia operatives may begin before the end of this year. The Marty report also alleges some degree of collusion from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Britain, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Macedonia, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. For a practice "utterly alien to the European tradition," an awful lot of European nations were apparently willing to help.

So is Europe serious about opposing torture? On paper, yes: Section I, Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." But torture is one of those areas where European reality is a bit messier than theory. In 2000, Amnesty International pointed to a troubling number of reports of ill treatment within Europe, many pertaining to the alleged abuse of asylum seekers. The implications of the Marty report are still more sobering. It's hard to escape the conclusion that some European governments, and law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, have decided that torture — when it's outsourced to countries that don't play nice — isn't their problem.

Or perhaps there's another explanation: Europe cooperates with — or at least tolerates — the cia's dark missions because it believes it needs to. Like the U.S., Europe's governments may have concluded that while torture is bad, terrorism is worse. The bombings in Madrid and London have put tremendous pressure on European governments to prevent another massive attack on their own soil — and that means coordinating efforts with U.S. intelligence. It may be a bogus choice, but if voters had to decide between letting a suspected terrorist run free, and sending him to a faraway place where a moral principle is violated in the hopes of getting information that might prevent a bombing, that's not much of a contest.

This may explain why public reaction to the Marty report has been relatively muted. Despite Spain's prominent role in the report, for example, only one of its national newspapers put the story on Page One. In Germany, the World Cup trumps just about anything. That's too bad. It could be productive to discuss publicly what is and isn't appropriate for U.S.-European cooperation. Is silent acquiescence in U.S.-directed torture the price that Europe must pay for cooperation with the war on terror? Or could Europe treat U.S. intelligence like a tapas menu — two of those, please, but none of that? How refreshing it would be for a European leader to initiate such a debate. But it won't happen until someone chooses to explain what really goes on and why.