On December 9th, the U.S. Senate decided to declassify and release a detailed report on the findings of an investigation of the CIA’s “advanced interrogation techniques.” It was a report that went into detail about the interrogation techniques and treatments of detainees under CIA supervision in secret facilities. It goes on to describe the “atrocities” (I use that term loosely) that were conducted and how the CIA failed to report these instances. The release of the report was backed by the White House.

Surprise, surpise.

The question is, why does this report need to be released, especially when we understand the possible fallout from such a report?

If we thought that terrorist organizations were having a fun time recruiting before, think of the propaganda they can conjure up with this tidbit of information. People now have yet another reason to flock to these cults. People already hate us enough as is, but we now gave them another reason to attack our service members overseas that are trying to do their job.

Embassies and military installations were placed on high alert almost as soon as the report was released. We knew that this release might have a negative outcome, yet we decided to go forth and release the documents anyway. Did we really think it was worth it? If another Benghazi occurs with this information as the motivation for the attack, was it still worth it?

For whatever reason, we still think that we can reason with this ideology. The White House felt it needed to back this release because it would show that the U.S. could man up when it made a mistake. Do we not understand that our enemy lacks honor and doesn’t care if we admit to our mistakes? Do we not understand that this enemy will only use this information to influence young children to become future martyrs and take down innocent civilians while doing so? Trying to reason with our enemies today is like trying to reason with a rabid baboon. Only, you may have more luck with the baboon.

What bothers me most about all of this is the complete lack of loyalty to our warfighters. I remember back in Afghanistan, 2006, when one of our brothers in arms was being investigated for murder while doing his job as a warfighter. Some of you know what I am speaking of. I couldn’t believe it then, and I can’t believe it now. We asked these patriots to do what’s necessary to protect our way of life and hunt down these booger eaters.

Yet, here we are, years later, throwing them to the wolves. As much as something like this can increase the recruiting efforts of our enemies, it can damage all of ours. How many people will be lining up to fight our enemies knowing that in the future they may be brought up on charges and possibly ridiculed by the very people who asked them to fight?

The report was still released with not much to gain, but a ton to risk. Is this the work of a nation trying to amend its mistakes? Or is this the work of an administration trying to save its own reputation by placing blame on others?

(Featured Image Courtesy: NPR)