U.S., Germany and U.K. Back CIA-linked Torturer in Egypt

As reported in this New York Times article, Hilary Clinton, Germany's Angela Merkel and Britain's David Cameron have spoken out in support of Omar Suleiman, whom Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak recently appointed as his vice president.

"The United States and leading European nations on Saturday threw their weight behind Egypt's vice president, Omar Suleiman, backing his attempt to defuse a popular uprising without immediately removing President Hosni Mubarak from power."

So, who is Omar Suleiman?

He's basically the Egyptian contact for the CIA's rendition program and, in that role, has overseen (and allegedly even participated in) the torture of people designated as "terror suspects" by the CIA.

That much is openly admitted in this ABC News story:

New Egyptian VP Ran Mubarak's Security Team, Oversaw Torture

Among Suleiman's "accomplishments" was to extract--by torture--"evidence" that was used to fabricate one of the pretexts for the invasion of Iraq, i.e. the lie that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda.

Makes you wonder why the West would want to prop up Mubarak in any way, considering the people of Egypt are making it abundantly clear that they want Mubarak (and presumably anyone else of his ilk) to be gone...

By oversaw torture you mean "ran an intelligence agency," right? By this definition, every CIA or military leader that has served in the past decade could be described as overseeing torture. Suleiman did what he had to do to keep this nation safe and, honestly, it's not like this doesn't happen in the West. It's just not that big a deal.hokies1313

Thats the excuse of every dictator out there.... Torture is not justifiable nor is it a effective tool of interogation what so ever.. I can't help but find this hypocritical.. Not targeting you but the people who are for torture.. Seem to be the exact same people who are against big government and afraid of the government taking over.... Which is ironic because torture is arguably the most powerful tool a government could have in incriminating the most innocent person out there through forced confession by torture.