When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife?

Poor Ireland's in trouble again. Our friend Dick Marty, the Swiss politician who heads the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, has pointed the accusing finger at the Emerald Isle and proclaimed that the Republic is complicit in the whole rendition flights business. Sort of like the joke, about asking an innocent man when he stopped beating his wife. How do you answer a false accusation that implies you're guilty of something you never did?

Earlier Dick said that the USA was guilty of rendition flights, based entirely on the evidence of his personal opinion that it was so. The very planes that the CIA used for thousands of flights did make stops at Shannon Airport to refuel, therefore, the Irish participated in the evil scheme. All right, so there was that flight that he thought was rendition related but it was the head of the FBI come to call on his Irish colleagues. And the flights with diplomats and government officials, yes, but it was the same plane, you see, so, well, there you have it.

Where did Ireland go wrong, exactly? Well, when they asked the US government if they were using Shannon as a stopover on rendition flights, the US said no. Absolutely not. Swear to God. And so, to quote the report from the Irish Times:

Ireland colluded in this by invoking the "principle of trust" when pushed to investigate claims that US planes were using Shannon to facilitate the transfer of prisoners, the report found.

You can't trust the USA, that's Dick Marty's dogma. You have to trust Dick Marty and his certainty that America is in cahoots with the world. He knows. He just knows. Who needs evidence? Isn't the word of Dick Marty enough to get the Garda Siochana to inspect US planes at Shannon? How dare the Irish government not bend the knee to Dick Marty!

Meanwhile, in Canada, they're unraveling a plot to blow up buildings and execute government officials to revenge Canada's presence in Afghanistan. That would be the pro-Taliban crowd fighting against democracy, Dick. Sorry, lad, but I think the rest of the world's a little preoccupied these days to pay you much heed.