Germany lost an extraordinary amount of international credibility when earlier this year it abstained from a U.N. vote authorizing a no-flight zone over Libya.
In "Even united, Europe faces power drain" (Letter from Europe, Dec. 20), Judy Dempsey makes the unsupported assertion that "Germany lost an extraordinary amount of international credibility" when it abstained from the U.N. vote on the Libya no-fly resolution.
Clearly, a state that is responsible for such high-profile torture and abuses as took place at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, that regularly killed civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and that reserved for itself the right to kidnap people and send them to prisons in other countries to be tortured ("extraordinary rendition") has a credibility problem on human rights issues.
"House Backs Off on Condemning Turks' Killing of Armenians" (news article, Oct. 20) revealed an extraordinary setback for American diplomatic credibility.
He had the credibility of the founder, extraordinary instinct, vision and energy, and he could make things happen by sheer force of will.
The government's credibility was also the victim of an extraordinary own goal scored by Lord Freud, who moved an amendment after most of the crossbenchers had left the chamber overturning one of the changes they had voted for earlier.
Roberts didn't mind spirited disagreement on the merits of any case, but Souter's attack — an extraordinary, bridge-burning farewell to the Court — could damage the Court's credibility.
When society asks physicians to evaluate existential judgements that they are not trained to evaluate, the result is not only an extraordinary emotional burden for physicians, but also arguably a threat to the credibility of the moral and legal frameworks that govern physician-assisted dying.
Those who think Dolly Parton is just hawking country-flavoured cheese do the woman a disservice: Parton's gender and extraordinary beauty may have helped her secure success, but at a price of artistic credibility.
