Michael J. Kelly [Creighton University School of Law]: "President Bush recently acknowledged the existence of the long-suspected C.I.A. detention facilities that the U.S. has used to interrogate and possibly torture high-value foreign members of al Qaeda captured abroad. This acknowledgement, even as the facilities are being shut down in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, has renewed efforts by the European Parliament to find out exactly which European countries were involved in the system in direct violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. So far, they've drawn up a list of 14 states, three of whom are candidates to join the European Union: Romania, Macedonia, and Turkey. These countries, especially Romania and Turkey, have undertaken massive economic, political and legal reforms to get their respective societies in shape to be considered E.U. states (like eradicating banking corruption, abstaining from the death penalty, ensuring religious freedoms, and increasing protection for the rights of women). Participation in President Bush's secret C.I.A. detention and interrogation program will significantly mar those laudable records. While other E.U. countries, like Germany and Poland, are suspected to have been participants as well, they are safely in the club. Unanimous consent from the 25 E.U. states is required for a country to join. It only takes an upset Denmark or Sweden to kill the candidacy of any applicant. So Romania, Macedonia and Turkey must rethink how far they are willing to follow George W. Bush on his misguided quest. Is it worth endangering their E.U. candidacies? To be sure, the War on Terror must be fought; but it needn't be fought at the expense of perpetrating human rights violations – that makes us in the West just as bad as the jihadists."