According to Dick Marty’s report on secret CIA flights and prisons on the European continent, fourteen countries were complicit in either allowing or turning a blind eye to the CIA’s activities. That’s right, fourteen countries. Including the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Most of the important European Union countries. Interesting. Doesn’t sound like this “spider web” of illegality was really all that secret, huh?

Many of these countries have already acknowledged that they allowed flights to stop on their territory. A lot of this has been shown through cross-checking travel logs. The biggest accusation, however, is that some of these countries have allowed the transfer of detainees, and Romania and Poland have been singled out as actually having full-fledged prisons where torture was carried out. Every country has vehemently denied this.

That’s because the inquiry, in a total of 67 pages, presents absolutely no evidence proving their existence. Here is the most important paragraph:

Mr. Marty acknowledged that his evidence for the existence of secret C.I.A. prisons in Romania and Poland was circumstantial and that “proof in the classical meaning of the term, is not yet available.” But he said the evidence was strong enough to justify further investigation.

So what is so hard-hitting about this report again? There is no new evidence to ponder, and the report even plays down the number of flights suspected of carrying prisoners. If anything, the investigation into any possible wrongdoing is getting less and less incredible. European involvement in the CIA flights has been known and admitted to for awhile now, but Dick Marty only serves to diminish his own credibility by asserting the existence of CIA prisons while failing to provide any evidence “in the classival sense of the word” whatsoever. Anyone care to take a crack at what he means by that?