I've never heard of a trade catalogue "Hot places for Jihad this season" but I'm pretty sure deep in the underground of uneducated sexually frustrated Islamists it must be a real thing. I speculate that this month's issue will have an article claiming that there're "at least four places you didn't know that are to blame for our misery" where they would put countries such as Romania, Poland, Lithuania, and Thailand on the jihadists' vacation map.
All this just because a bunch careerist politicians in the United States' Senate decided to produce a report and capitalise on the misgiving of the CIA stimulated by the lunacy of the fundamentalists who used planes as a weapon on September 11. I don't have another reasonable motive for the release of report on torture practices by the interrogators. This cannot be for the sake of showing people that torture actually doesn't work. I've never met anyone who's genuinely pro-torture and believes in the efficiency of torturous interrogation. The closest thing to the latter are those claiming that torture is just a small price to pay for the security of the country, but I have also convened with people who think that getting rid of the one specific class, which happens to be wealthy, is fine because of "the common good."
We all know that "enhanced interrogation techniques" don't work. The magic word "enhanced" does nothing except enhances the unproductive evidence gathering practice of low-ranking terrorists whose main activity in the organisation probably was bringing expired British tea to Osama Bin Laden in the filth-ridden cave somewhere in Afghanistan. Yet, during the occasional session of water sprinkling on the clothed face, which simulates drowning sensation, an uneducated showered thug confesses being the mastermind of the terrorist organisation. As a result, the bureaucracy ticks its task notebook and jubilantly reports the success of torture.
The vast number of leaked memos on torture as a technique used by the CIA has reached peak in the 2009 and resulted Justice Department actually declassifying documents regarding the practice. This was enough for the United States to take the hit in prestige and its moral superiority that it often proclaimed. The recent report by the Senate group, I must note - led by the partisan faction, is providing nothing new on the torture itself. I've personally seen the horrendous images of Guantanamo Bay prisoners and the undignified treatment they underwent and no extra report is needed to verify that claim.
But the recent report distinguishes itself from the others by imprudently endangering friendly states such as Romania, Lithuania, Poland, and Thailand that hosted the CIA prisons. Before the report was released, I was quite sceptical of the likelihood jihad being waged in the latter countries, after all, why would the Jihadists have a beef with the Eastern Europe? The only issue with Poland and Lithuania radical Muslims could have is that some time ago, in the medieval era, the alliance between those two countries expelled Muslims from the continent. I reckon that the attitude could now shift. For the small-minded, the difference between countries that are separated by the pond won't make a difference anymore. In other words, jihad in Poland could be as important as in the United States. And this is a real threat to the security.
It's not only the four states that are now in possible threat. The chance that an ally of the US could be neutral seems to be vanishing. After lone wolf terrorist attacks in Canada, the public asked the question, "why us?" Apparently, Canada's problem was being located the north of the US. If that was a sufficient reason for fundamentalists to actually murder the citizens, how unreasonable is to speak about the security of Europe, which voluntarily hosted the prisons where interrogation was below standard?
Don't assume that jihadists are the only threat to the region now. On the larger international scale, this plays to the hands of other pariah states that now can point out the moral low. Russia, for instance, could start portraying the east of Europe as the "client states" of the US just in the midst of the information war, which main goal is to undermine and delegitimise Western political system. And there's a lot to undermine indeed - it's true that intelligence agencies of the West cooperated independently from the parliaments, elected officials, and laws passed - the definition of banana republic. What's worse, this dampens the trust between the states. What should the countries that participated in the secret prison program think about future arrangements, when they were assured this would be kept as a secret?
I'm absolutely convinced that the report has no value whatsoever. It just confirmed already confirmed allegations from 2009 and put multiple European and Asian partners in danger by the militant fundamentalists and aggressive states in general. There're already calls for retaliation by the former group, but will the report producers take responsibility when the level of threat actually facilitates and results in victims? I very much doubt so.