As if we needed more instruments of division to get in Pres. Obama’s way (see video). Oh, and please ignore that CIA case over rendition too.
House Res. opposing the Goldstone report passes overwhelmingly.
Meanwhile, an Italian court convicts 23 Americans in rendition case. Oh, didn’t hear about that?
An Italian court on Wednesday convicted 22 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force colonel of orchestrating the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric here in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he said he was tortured.
In rendering the verdict, the judge in the case, Oscar Magi, acquitted three other Americans, including the former Rome station chief for the CIA, saying they were covered by diplomatic immunity.
The Americans were all tried in absentia but were represented throughout the trial by defense attorneys, most of them court-appointed. The U.S. defendants who were convicted each received a five-year prison sentence, with the exception of Robert Seldon Lady, the CIA’s former chief in Milan, who was sentenced to eight years for overseeing the kidnapping plot. …
As Clinton finishes up her trip, in Cairo, the Egyptians weigh in on negotiations:
…Egypt’s Gheit said while Egypt does not accept any continued Israeli settlement activity, it supports the Obama administration’s push to get Israel Palestinian peace talks restarted sooner than later. “The Americans did not change their positions about refusing settlement expansion,” Gheit said Clinton explained to Egyptian leaders. “But the Americans are now asking all parties to start the negotiations. The Egyptian response to that is that it is the Israeli side that is impeding the process and it is clear that the Israelis are putting conditions to the negotiations by holding on to settlement expansion even if limited. Because the Secretary of State believes there is progress in Israel’s position on the issue of freezing settlement activity even if incomplete or not satisfactory. What the Eyptians think is should focus on the end game and not hold on to this or that issue on the way to negotiations.”
The Obama administration is not weighing in on the rendition convictions. Another Bush hot potato they won’t touch or clean up. This is just embarrassing, especially for spooks, who have obviously been watching too much James Bond:
According to Italian investigators, the CIA operatives failed to cover their tracks as several of them gabbed on unsecured cellphones, showed their passports to hotel desk clerks and went on vacation in Italian resorts after the kidnapping.
Lady, the CIA’s chief in Milan, also left incriminating evidence on a computer seized from his Italian villa by investigators, including flight schedules to Egypt and a draft road map of the route used by the kidnappers to whisk Nasr out of Milan.
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