Secret prisons of CIA

There have been claims that CIA is using secret prisons not only in Afghanistan but also in Romania and Northern Poland - and maybe elsewhere - to torture the terror suspects. Both the U.S. as well as the Eastern European countries deny the accusations but it is not hard to imagine that the speculations are correct. There are good reasons to think that they should be correct.

My opinion is the following. This is a war on terror. I don't think that the terrorists deserve the same human rights as the innocent citizens of the democratic countries. Consequently, the comparison with innocent victims of the totalitarian regimes sounds outrageous to me. From a purely moral viewpoint, I think it is appropriate to treat them using the most efficient method that has the potential to disrupt the work of the international terrorist networks - and to indirectly save as many innocent human lives in the future as possible - as long as this method is legal.

Note added later: my sentence has obviously inspired Condi who just said that the US would use "every lawful weapon to defeat these terrorists", and said rendition "takes terrorists out of action and therefore saves lives".

And I admire the U.S. forces for being essentially the only group in NATO that is ready to invest money and effort for the future of the civilization of freedom.

It is my understanding that it is illegal to torture anyone at the U.S. territory, including the terrorists. Also, it is probably illegal for the citizens of most European countries to torture anyone else. Although it may be just a matter of my personal ignorance, I am not aware of similar laws that would prevent CIA from doing such things on the territory of Poland or Romania. And the law is definitely more important for me than the feelings of left-wing critics.

The people in the U.S. military and CIA have a pretty hard job and they face tough enemies. It is impossible to do their job with the naive attitude of the sissy liberals.

The people who have become radical advocates of the human rights of these (mostly) disgusting killers just irritate me - especially because I know very well that they would never do the same thing to defend my rights and the rights (or lives) of many other people I respect. They're just fighting the war on terror on the wrong side - they are primarily fighting against Bush, and they are fighting together with anyone else who is convenient, including Al Qaeda.

I am equally outraged by the assertion of a eurobureaucrat who has threatened Poland, Romania (a prospective EU member), or any other EU country that will be shown to have co-operated with CIA to revoke the country's voting rights in the European Union, among other threats. Can you imagine that? Someone in Poland allows CIA to kick 26 thugs - because he or she thinks, much like me, that it is not such a bad idea - and 30 million of people will lose their voting rights? Is it how the Eurepean supernational democracy is supposed to work?

As far as I know, such a decision would be completely unjustifiable by any existing laws. Also, such a decision would be rather devastating for the trans-Atlantic relations because it would mean that the European countries must be afraid of co-operation with the U.S. forces in any conflict one can imagine. Such a decision would mean that the anti-war fanatics in Europe - and lukewarm friends of Al Qaeda't thugs - suddenly have the right to do completely illegal decisions about whole countries of the EU.

I am sure that such a development would go against the current natural trend. Europe and America are getting closer right now. A female German archaeologist was kidnapped in Iraq which will be another hint for Germany to realize that the relative German passivity does not protect the country from the evil acts of the terrorists. The terrorists fight against the whole Western civilization. Angela Merkel, a physicist and the new German chancellor, probably realizes this fact pretty well. That's just one among many reasons to be optimistic.

The idea that our governments are torturing anyone is not a particularly attractive one; on the other hand, this limited attractivity does not mean that we can really survive without such unattractive acts.