Allies? There Are No Allies.

CIA deliberately lies to Italian secret services so that Italians cannot capture known terrorist:

The strategy worked for more than a year until Italian investigators learned that Nasr had not gone to the Balkans after all. Instead, prosecutors here have charged, he was abducted off a street in Milan by a team of CIA operatives who took him to two U.S. military bases in succession and then flew him to Egypt, where he was interrogated and allegedly tortured by Egyptian security agents before being released to house arrest.

(snip)

"The kidnapping of Abu Omar was not only a serious crime against Italian sovereignty and human rights, but it also seriously damaged counterterrorism efforts in Italy and Europe," said Armando Spataro, the lead prosecutor in Milan. "In fact, if Abu Omar had not been kidnapped, he would now be in prison, subject to a regular trial, and we would have probably identified his other accomplices."

First, can we stop using the phrase "Global War on Terror," b/c as far as this administration is concerned, this is our war. That train bombing in Madrid, those tube bombings in London? Pissant attacks. This is another symptom of the disease of exceptionality, the pride a college football player takes in playing injured, the pride a fencer takes in his facial scars. This is survivor's pride, and unlike survivor's remorse, pride leads to revenge, and revenge is not to be shared with those who were not similarly attacked, and since we're exceptional, nobody else was attacked like us.

Second, torture. The CIA wanted to torture Abu Omar and was afraid that the Italians, if they captured him first, wouldn't allow the Americans to torture him. A choice was made: lie to an alleged ally so that a man suspected of plotting against the United States could remain free to continue plotting until such a time that Italian sovereignty could best be violated in order to capture the man and illegally render him unto Egypt for torturing. Makes you proud, yes?

This is beyond moral imbecility. What if, in the interim between the possibility of Abu Omar's capture by the Italians and his capture by the CIA he had been highly responsible for a vicious attack anywhere, not just the US, which his capture by the Italians might have prevented? Since he was in Italy, perhaps he was plotting an attack there: the US decides it's more important to our interests that he go free until he can be picked up for torturing by us? Our right to expedite the torture of Abu Omar trumps treaties, international relations and obligations, national laws, and good faith.

Because this is our war. Ours, ours, ours. Because it's true: we are exceptional.