Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says that Europeans are doing a bit of pot-calling-the-kettle-black on the latest “controversy,” namely the row over “rendition of terror suspects:”

But Gen Powell was dismissive of the furore in Europe.

“There’s a little bit of the movie Casablanca in this, where, you know, the inspector says ‘I’m shocked, shocked that this kind of thing takes place’.

“Well, most of our European friends cannot be shocked that this kind of thing takes place… The fact that we have, over the years, had procedures in place that would deal with people who are responsible for terrorist activities, or suspected of terrorist activities, and so the thing that is called rendition is not something that is new or unknown to my European friends.”

Hmmm… If the Europeans want to play hardball, we could start by bringing up France’s bombing of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior…