We're Becoming Hated Even Among Our Friends - Consider This

Besides news this week that in surveys, people in other countries find a place like China far more ethical and sane to deal with than the U.S. under the Bushies, here's this from The Times about an Italian judge ordering CIA operatives arrested:

MILAN, June 24 - An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency accused of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street two years ago and sending him to a prison in Egypt for questioning, Italian prosecutors and investigators said today.

Judge Chiara Nobili of Milan signed the arrest warrants on Thursday for 13 people the documents identified as C.I.A. operatives suspected of seizing the radical imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, as he walked to his mosque here for noon prayers on Feb. 17, 2003.

His family says that he has been tortured by his Egyptian captors.

Investigators said the court documents, which remain under seal, identify the 13 operatives by their real names as well as their cover names. In the warrants, Judge Nobili said that all 13 suspects were linked to the C.I.A. and that several served as diplomats at the United States Consulate in Milan, investigators said.

The judge's action represents the first time that American operatives face prosecution by a foreign criminal justice system for carrying out the C.I.A.'s policy of "extraordinary rendition," the legal term for the agency's practice of seizing terror suspects in one country and delivering them to be detained in another, including countries that routinely engage in torture. Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 100 terrorism suspects have been transferred by the United States to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and other countries, where some former captives have said they were tortured.

C.I.A. officials have declined to discuss details of such cases, but senior officials have defended the practice, which began a decade ago, as a legal way to thwart terrorist activities. The C.I.A. usually carries out such renditions with the backing of foreign governments, but the Italian authorities said they knew of no such agreement between Italy and the United States in the case of Mr. Nasr.

Remember, Italy was one of our "Coalition of the Bullied" friends.