Is there any depth to your assertion? Or is it just a passive-aggressive swipe to denigrate Europe(ans) while derailing deeper discussion about critiques of the United States?

I will give you credit for acknowledging the "backward"/"modern" difference. The most important difference is that in the European "client regimes" (to use your language), they at least purport to maintain a semblance of democracy and human rights standards for their constituents. In that respect, call the convergent evolution towards the American-style government policy, a "client" or "vassal" state type of relationship if you'd like, but at least it's one in which (at a minimum) a superficial level of fairness is maintained (i.e., in contrast to sharia law countries).

See this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-hi...

Poland jumped to my mind as well, but at least there is some public pushback on the issue within European states and in the European Union. [1] The United States government itself, and the Middle Eastern countries that are on their "friends list" have been quiet about it, as far as I've seen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#Europe...