sirenianshores

The spotlight continues to be shed on Shannon airport’s role as a stopover for CIA-operated flights transporting detainees.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs has told a European Parliament Committee investigating CIA rendition flights there was no evidence that extraordinary rendition has occurred through Irish airports.

Dermot Ahern said that he had ’serious questions’ about the committee’s assertion that almost 150 ’suspicious flights’ passed through Irish airports since September 2002.

He also said the Irish Government was ‘extremely surprised’ that a draft report was in the public domain before it had a chance to put its position to the committee

Claims by our Minister for foreign affairs that there is ‘no evidence extraordinary rendition’ despite never having looked for any evidence seems rather disingenuous to me. Unless our government actually inspected the planes passing through, then they cannot make any concrete claims either way. Excepting at face value bland reassurances from the US government doesn’t count given the Bush Administration’s track record of dishonesty and lack of accountability when it comes to these matters.

Underlining all of this is fears of economic and political retaliation from the Bush administration against our country should we speak up too forcefully on matters of principle. Talking loudly about human rights is one thing. Acting on it, despite the consequences, is quite another.