EU threatens sanctions for states operating secret CIA camps

"EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini has warned that any European Union nation found to have allowed secret CIA prison camps to operate on their soil could have their EU voting rights suspended."

There's not much more to this article, but it brings to my mind just how short-sighted our imperialist attitude is, especially in regards to the few friends we have left. We still seem to be treating Europe as if the second world war has recently ended, and continue to using it as a staging ground for a fight against an 'Evil Empire', whether they like it or not. The world has changed and this is not how you treat countries who have united to become a union of their own. It's one thing to deal with individual States, when they're independant of one another, but this is no longer the case in Europe.

At this point, the EU is still in it's infancy, but that will change. In time, it will continue to coalesce and become a single world power to rival that of the US. Even if the member States that harbor our secret bases gave their consent, it goes against the ideals and laws of the Union itself (not to mention ours). We can no longer afford to ignore the budding Union in favor of illegal secret deals.

Though it's very possible that the EU itself knew of, and helped hide these operations, it would be one of those deals where they only allowed it, as long as it was kept a secret. But now they have to disavow it, not only because the operations violate internal and international laws as well as EU rules, they also violate their own publics' trust. Of course, their prior knowledge and complicity is just speculation on my part.

Either way, we need to begin treating their Union the same way we would have others treat ours; as a whole, and not as individual States. We can't wait until they grow up, because by then they will be fully united, and have absolutely no tolerance for our meddling. They will wield power that rivals that of the US, if we're lucky. They could conceivably surpass us on practically every level, so should we really be grooming our current allies to become our future ememy.

This is yet more damage that must be repaired, after our nation regains it's sanity.