Ich bin ein [Texas-Born] Berliner

I can’t recall when I’ve read a recent news story quite so horrifying and disgusting as this one I found waiting from me when I came home from dinner this evening.  Its headline says it all: “No Justice for El-Masri” - and that summation applies to a country constantly harping so piously on “freedom and justice for all.”

You may perhaps recall the predicament of this poor devil, a German citizen (like me as of this month) whom thirteen CIA agents, by his account, kidnapped in Macedonia, flew to Afghanistan for the kind of “interrogation” specialized in there, and unceremoniously dumped on an Albanian roadside after belatedly realizing they’d abducted the wrong man.  Originally the German government took out after the USA on his behalf, but now they’ve shamefully caved in and cravenly reversed themselves - which brings us back to “no justice for El-Masri”.

I came across this shocker in the Anglophone version of the admirable Hamburg-based newsmagazine Der Spiegel, originally patterned after Time but long since far, far better than Time ever became.  I’ve made that entire horrifying Spiegel story available to anyone who clicks here.