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Eastern Europe and CIA Black Sites

Judah Grunstein | Bio | 19 Nov 2009

More creepy allegations about former CIA black sites, this time in Lithuania. This is something to keep in mind regarding Eastern European concerns over U.S. commitment to the region, which is most often linked to the Obama administration's missile defense policy shift. But I suspect it also has to do with the very different apporach the Obama administration has taken toward counterterrorism compared to the Bush administration. You really get the sense of the shoe getting ready to drop here:

A lot of the relationship developed under the Bush administration with Eastern Europe involved integrating these countries into an American national security scheme in roles they might have done better to refuse. After all, talking about the importance of supporting democratic friends against autocratic neighbors doesn't sit very well with simultaneously offering up former Soviet-era prisons for use as rendition black sites.

That deal is now off, and the question is, What replaces it? With the Obama administration obviously focused on improving relations with Russia and walking back the excesses of the Bush adminsitration's war on terror, the answer for now seems to be, Not much.