Rice to EU on secret torture prisons: "Sit down and shut the f**k up"

For the last two weeks, the US government has been under fire over leaked revelations concerning secret torture prisons in Europe and Asia where detainees have been held without oversight. The pressure hasn't just been coming from the home front, either - European Union nations have recently been demanding information about activities going on in their back yards from the Bush administration. For a little while it looked as if we were going to come clean and start a discussion with them. According to this news report, we now know what the response will be. Bush is sending Condi out to tell them to "back off."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to give allies in Europe a response next week to their pressure over Washington's treatment of terrorism suspects: back off.

For almost a month, the United States has been on the defensive, refusing to deny or confirm media reports the United States has held prisoners in secret in Eastern Europe and transported detainees incommunicado across the continent.

But Rice will shift to offense when she visits Europe next week, in a strategy that has emerged in recent days and been tested by her spokesman in public and in her private meetings with European visitors.

She will remind allies they themselves have been cooperating in U.S. operations and tell them to do more to win over their publics as a way to deflect criticism directed at the United States, diplomats and U.S. officials said.

So apparently our strategy as to how we deal with our dwindling list of allies and supporters in Europe is to remain the same - "Our way or the highway." While it would never be realistic, I swear there are days when I wish Europeans could vote in American elections. Bush would not only be out of office, but probably be shackled in a basement someplace in a "stress position" with wires hooked up to his fingers. Is this really how we're going to deal with Europe? With the rest of the world? "Yes, we understand that you don't like the way we're conducting business in the 'war on terror,' but we're the United States. Now shut up and eat your gruel, peasants."

Apparently even Ireland (!) is getting in on the act.

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said Rice told him in Washington she expected allies to trust that America does not allow rights abuses -- a sign she will avoid giving Europe a detailed response on U.S. intelligence work.

And she refused to give Ahern a personal assurance Ireland has not been used for secret prisoner transfers, saying he had already heard that denial from the U.S. ambassador, a senior State Department official said.

Ireland is one of the few places in Europe where Bush still enjoys some measurable amount of public support. (for reasons which still escape most observers) So I suppose we may as well tick them off and make it unanimous, eh? I particularly like the way she refused to even deny it. That way we can lay it off on the Ambassador to Ireland when the Hague trials get under way.