many ways to skin a CAT

The U.S. administration has been under the gun since the Washington Post broke the story about secret U.S. prisons abroad. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Europe doing damage control for the Administration, clarifying contentious U.S. policy on torturing prisoners by alluding to the United Nation's Convention Against Torture treaty (CAT). U.S. policy on this matter and its actual application are relevant in light of the current U.S. program to kidnap foreign terrorism suspects abroad and send them to third countries for interrogations, termed "extraordinary rendition". All the while, the U.S. Administration continues to dodge official questions about the existence of secret and illegal U.S. prisons on foreign soils.

Read the New York Times article.

The U.S. appears to be sweeping up the crime scene, as indicated by the sudden U.S. acquisition of a suspicious Romanian military base likely to have been investigated, along with reports of the relocation of hidden prisoners to North Africa. If once the smoke clears there remains evidence of illegal activity, U.S. credibility, and that of any implicated nations, will be in further jeopardy. In concrete terms, this could mean more lawsuits and potential indictments on the homefront, internal European penalty, and an unlimited amount of distress to U.S. international relations---not to mention a possible incentive for terrorist retaliation. At that point, the Secretary of State may have to take tips from her predecessor, the other shamed black pawn of the Bush administration, Colin Powell, on how to eat her words in face of deceiving the nation and the world.