I see a problem here

A story in today's Washington Post is about an ex-CIA operative convicted in Italy in a rendition case. I'm making no judgement as to whether she was or was not involved, or should or should not have been protected by the US government, or should or should not have been convicted by the Italians. I'm concerned with the sentences I italicized below:

She needed to see her aging mother and tell her for the first time about all of it: The kidnapping of a radical Egyptian Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003. Her indictment in Italy in 2007 alleging that she had been involved in his disappearance. Her resignation from what she carefully describes as a “U.S. government job” in 2009.
“I have a problem. It’s a bit of a political thing,” De Sousa remembers explaining to her mom three years ago, as they sat in the family’s cliffside villa, with views of the ocean, in Goa. “There was an incident in Italy. It involved what the Italians consider a crime.”

The Italians consider it a crime? Darling, I guarandamntee you that if some Italians popped over to, say, Baltimore and grabbed somebody off the street and hauled him off to a secret prison, we'd consider it a crime, too, even if the Italians claimed he was a threat to Italy.

Our belief that our motives are so noble that we can do anything we like and be forgiven - hell, not even accused of evil in the first place, before we explain ourselves! - is one of the reasons our foreign policy is in such a shambles.