somewhat mixed signals

[waider]

Seems to be a wide spectrum of stuff going on in the latest on those secret CIA prisons/flights. From the linked article, I have learned the following:

• Condi's going on the offensive over the whole thing to basically tell us You-Ro-Peons to stop asking awkward questions.
• An unnamed offical in a quote to the WaPo said, effectively, "we're all in this together, so shut up".
• Scott McLellan, who I can't imagine anybody believes these days ("no seriously, Scott, what colour is the sky? don't give me this "blue" crap") , says that the US is the world leader in human rights (ha!) and blah blah blah. In essence, a resounding "no, there are no secret flights/jails".
• Our own minister for the appropriate department says that Condi expects "allies to trust that America does not allow rights abuses". Note, he's not saying that he actually believes Condi on this one, which is extraordinarily spineful for a sitting Irish politician being asked awkward questions about the US
• And (I already knew this, but I'm putting it in for completeness) the main instigator of this fuss from the EU side of things is, well, the UK. You know, "special relationship between our countries" and all that.

I'm sure Condi's actual statement (due before her visit to the EU on Monday, apparently) will shed light on all of these diverse views.

Comments

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

I think Scott McLellan's answer would be, "We are not prepared to comment on the colour of the sky, while it is the subect of an ongoing investigation."

As I understand it, the UK isn't the main instigator, but some of the other EU countries more or less said, "Can you talk to Washington for us. They might listen to you, a little." So Jack Straw wrote the letter asking for clarification...

Condi's approach strikes me as a classic example of that whole, "You're either with us or you're against us!" philosophy which Shrub came out with around the time when the US invaded Afghanistan. Computer geeks should be pleased: they are attempting to impose digital conditions on the analogue mess of international relations.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

The way I heard Condi's statements phrased last night (via blogs, backed by conventional news summaries this morning, which means I may still be hearing misrepresentations) was, 'We've been tainting your soil and skies with our Geneva Convention violations for some time now. If you make too much noise about it, we're going to begin naming which of you explicitly permitted us to do whatever we're doing in your countries. Whether you knew it at the time or not.'

I apologise to the rest of you, inasmuch as I failed to work sufficiently hard against Bush's elections.