Kabuki Theatre at Its Finest

The WP:

BRUSSELS, Dec. 8 -- European foreign ministers attempted to make peace with the United States Thursday over the controversy concerning treatment of terrorist suspects, with many saying they were satisfied with visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's explanations of U.S. policy.

"Secretary Rice has covered basically all of our concerns," Bot said, adding that if the secret prisons existed -- which he called "pure speculation" -- Rice "has made it quite clear" that United States did not violate international law in such facilities.

Translation: Rice offered a seemingly substantial but ultimately empty assurance on U.S. treatment of detainees. To which European leaders responded, Thanks! That's just the cover we needed!

UPDATE: Speak of the devil, from Newsweek's Web site:

Dec. 8, 2005 - European politicians demanding investigations into mysterious flights into their countries by suspected CIA-operated airplanes may find their own governments are as unenthusiastic about digging into the issue as top Bush administration officials.

According to current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials, some European governments were informed of at least some of the details of the CIA flight operations before or as they happened. Other European governments operated what one U.S. counterterror official acknowledged amounted to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding the CIA airplanes. In other words, the governments may have been aware that something was going on in their airspace with CIA aircraft, but they did not really want to know what was happening, did not ask too many (or perhaps any) questions about the agency’s activities, and the United States did not volunteer any answers. A CIA spokesman declined to comment.

Comments

[Alan Vanneman]

Eric,

I agree with everything but the grammar of the headline. The possessive of "it" is "its," not "it's." Your fifth-grade English teacher is spinning in her grave. Let her rest in peace!

[Eric Umansky]

Ha! Fixed.