The difference between a holding cell that destroys freedom and one that protects it

Traian Ungureanu (who has been fired by the best) may not speak for all Romanians, but he speaks for our dear friend Kit who translated a recent article of his.

"Are there ?secret? American prisons in Romania and Poland? One should hope so! Why? First of all, because it?s consistent with pro-American attitudes among Eastern Europeans who know what the inside of a Soviet prison-state looks like. Esteemed Strasbourg and dearest Bruxelles, allow us to use the only on-the-job training we?ve had in forty years of forced labor. We are experts in prison facilities and we have no problem in telling the difference between a holding cell that destroys freedom and a holding cell that protects it.
Second, because Romanians and the Poles have a great thirst for life and travel and they would like to combine the two without visas (thank you!) and without bomb-propulsion systems. [It?s a play-on-words. Something like ?transportation services powered by bombs?.]

But who?s asking? The answer is most enlightening: the Council of Europe, an institution born out of Winston Churchill?s vision, in 1949. Almost fifty years on, the great British Prime Minister would make an excellent subject of inquiry for this Council. Churchill was an unabashed advocate of freedom and force. The freedom to live one?s life under the principles of western democracy and the use of unlimited and not overly restrained trust to act against those who try to destroy it. Those who don?t care much for Churchill should know that they are missing both the wisdom of the past and the meaning of the present. Our times are much more treacherous than Churchill?s clear-cut fight. The enemies of the West are no longer waging an open war, they no longer have a flag or a government nor do they wear uniforms.

The Council of Europe, The Washington Post, Human Rights Watch and other American abuse-detectors want to know if there are secret prisons in Eastern Europe. They?re asking the wrong question and the enquiry will do nothing but harm Europe. These institutions which seem ever so ready to investigate, and have too much time on their hands, would do better to ask another question: are there secret terrorist networks in Western Europe? What is their purpose? Is it to disseminate Arab cuisine in Europe, or to destroy the West?s political system? Unless they choose to look into the prior, the aforementioned organizations might ask themselves this: how do we defeat such an enemy? In our case, victory is defined as nothing less than the right of each citizen inhabiting a space between Malmö and Birlad [a one-horse-town in Romania] to die as the Almighty wishes, and the Almighty?s right to retain His place and not be substituted by a foreign god, nor by the resentful motives of an anti-American part of Europe.

This continent, whose freedom is still guaranteed by the American military, has learned to be persnickety [I love that word!], like a homeowner who dismisses the fire fighters who come to put out the fire because their uniforms are not buttoned-up. Those who criticize American practices are counting planes in Timisoara, but they are unable to suggest a solution on how to make the members of a terrorist cell talk. Other than a utopian view of a terrorist who was busy chopping heads the other day turning into an eager conversationalist, America?s critics offer no alternative.

However, everything depends on the successful interrogation methods, from the opportunity to freely lambaste Americans, to the right of The Council of Europe to have a building as its headquarters, instead of a pile of ruins.

Interrogating terrorist prisoners cannot always be done by following the contemporary standards of Western justice. Investigating a suspect rests on all that comes with the territory of the rule of law, and on the sovereignty of a constitutional state. The investigators have access to accounts, to personal information, witnesses, friends, archives, private papers. A prisoner captured in Pakistan or in a Muslim neighborhood in Bruxelles has either no papers, or has too many. He is unable or unwilling to speak the language, he is not integrated into anything. There?s nothing the good old fashioned justice systems can do when faced with a suspect of this kind. It is inconceivable that the honorable Council of Europe is unaware of this fact. It is unthinkable that Human Rights Watch, which is in itself a huge log book of the lawlessness of Arab states, is oblivious in this respect. The source of their dogmatic distress is not a lack of information, but their hostility towards President?s Bush?s policies.
The way they see things, Romania and Poland are nothing but American enclaves inside the European Union, out of control territories that make perfect targets for retaliation in the guise of their concern.

This is their secret and ugly truth."

The article clearly speaks for itself.