The US is using terror tactics and attempting to bully Europeans

AN editorial this week in the Wall Street Journal provided a frightening insight into US thinking about the behaviour of European governments in relation to extraordinary rendition.

On February 16, an Italian court indicted 25 CIA agents, a US Air Force officer and five Italian security officials on charges of kidnapping Egyptian cleric and suspected terrorist Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr in February 2003.

Nasr, who is also known as Abu Omar, had been under Italian surveillance since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Working with Italian military intelligence, the CIA is accused of seizing Nasr on a Milan street and whisking him to Egypt as part of its practice of extraordinary rendition.