Torture -- Or Bullshit on Stilts?
After much soul-searching (I have an enlarged soul) I have reached the conclusion that this whole far-leftist uproar over “torture” amounts to a house of marked cards built upon a foundation of bullshit. Do I sound over-the-top? Perhaps, but if you have nothing better to do, hear the truth.
Just as the far-left has fought mightily to expand the definition of rape to the point where it included a husband having sex with a wife who wasn’t “in the mood”; just as the far-left has fought mightily to expand the definition of child abuse to the point where it included a parent spanking their child -- these same do-gooders now seek to expand the definition of torture to the point where sleep deprivation, loud music, cold rooms, uncomfortable positions, etc. qualify. And, oh yes, also qualifying: scaring the crap out of somebody -- aka waterboarding.
Waterboarding, you might say, is the far-left's war “race card.” It is this ace – they believe – that trumps all torture debate and transforms the Bush administration into criminals who should be prosecuted. It is this prisoner abuse that, according to the NY Times’ Paul Krugman, has caused America to lose its “moral compass”. I assume people who behead their prisoners have lost both their moral compass and their moral canteen.
I sometimes wonder if this whole “torture” brouhaha would even be taking place if we’d never waterboarded. Alas, I suppose it would, because the Bush-despisers will never, ever be mollified. Even if all Bush administration officials were drawn and quartered, the far-left would still spend the next 100 years writing books, making movies and TV mini-series about how horrible it all was – that terrible roughing up and scaring the crap out of these poor devils who, after all, were only following their hearts in wanting to destroy our entire civilization.
OK. First, let me state unequivocally that should I ever be captured by any of our Islamist enemies, and the above methods were the extent to which I was “tortured”, I would be profoundly relieved and thankful. I might even weep for joy. I am dead serious when I say that.
Next, let’s examine this far-leftist bowels-in-an-uproar cry for Bush blood. It is two-pronged. Prong one is that the above methods absolutely are torture, and prong two is that torture doesn’t work. Of this they are boundlessly confident.
Regarding prong two (torture doesn't work), coward that I am, I like to think I might make it through these above-listed “tortures” without revealing information. However, once my guards started “real” torture, like pulling out my fingernails, I worry I might start blabbing. My sense of history and human nature also tells me that if “real” torture really didn’t work, kings, dictators, thugs and armies long before the Roman Empire bloomed would have quit wasting their time with it. Unfortunately, I believe “real” torture often does work and, deep down, I suspect you, reader, do too.
So . . . basically the far-left prefers to make no distinction between “harsh interrogation” and true torture. These starry-eyed idealists/dopes believe that our government can obtain any and all the intelligence it needs simply by treating terrorists with kindness and respectfully questioning them.
Talking the Talk; Walking the Walk; and the “Ticking Bomb”
Now we come to that big drag-of-an-obstacle that invariably derails leftist pipe dreams – reality. I urge you to take the following scenario seriously, for its possibility truly does loom in our near future.
So, here we are in the 20-teens and 9/11 seems ages ago and thanks to President Obama being so nice to everyone, leftists are quivering with the conviction that they don’t really have anything to worry about except bringing socialism to the masses, welcoming illegal immigrants with open arms, implementing race quotas in all walks of life except the NBA, normalizing gay marriage, and – priority #1 -- how to keep bashing the Bush administration.
This new triumphant Democratic Party is not all that alarmed that there are people working feverishly to acquire, say, nuclear or biological WMD’s and that these people have both the will and the money to do so – and will use them with relish on America. The righteous Dems have gotten rid of all that intrusive big-brother wire-tapping nonsense; they’ve taught the CIA that even in wartime, intelligence gathering must take a backseat to the kindly treatment of terrorists; they’ve even taught their own administration that timidity is the order of the day -- lest the next administration go back and criminalize their decisions. And, oh yeah – they’ve also taught the people who dream of slaughtering us that should they be captured, they needn't worry about having to give up any information.
But, guess what? Despite all Obama’s making nice, one day we wake up to another 9/11, only much worse. Simultaneous anthrax attacks are launched in D.C., New York, and (just to make every citizen terrified) some non-strategic target like Tucson, resulting in tens-of-thousands of deaths. Worse still, we believe further attacks are coming soon – maybe day after tomorrow. Our entire country is thrown into the worst possible panic and chaos.
Now guess what – we capture some of these rats and we strongly suspect they know what’s coming next. Unfortunately, what the Obama team wants to do with them has already been spelled out and the terrorists are quite familiar with it: They will be read their rights, get comfortable quarters and 3 squares a day, provided Korans, and, of course, lawyers – and then will be politely asked to reveal all their plans. But, being religious fanatics, they don’t care to comply and so a week later Los Angeles and Boston also get anthraxed. So, there you go -- we may have lost L.A. and Boston, but, by God, we sure-as-hell haven’t lost our moral compass.
Then days later . . . we capture a few more of these murderous rats. How’s that ol’ moral compass doing now? Is the administration still willing to be guided by it? What cities is it now willing to sacrifice on that compass’s behalf?
I ask you, reader, are you a complete jackass/fool? Do you not understand that there are times – wartimes -- times-that-try-men’s-souls -- when clinging fast to your peacetime rose-colored moral compass is the single most self-destructive mistake you can possibly make?
In the months after 9/11 we had such a time, and during that terribly uncertain period the Bush administration made the right decisions – decisions not based on what one does during peacetime -- but on what one does during a time of deadly serious war with an utterly unscrupulous and dedicated enemy – an enemy whose moral compass is set only skyward -- towards his heavenly reward for slaughtering American men, women, and children.
-- Below is an Op-Ed piece by Porter Goss.
From The Washington Post
Security Before Politics
By Porter J. Goss
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now.
A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.
Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.
Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:
-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.
-- We understood what the CIA was doing.
-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.
-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.
-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.
I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately -- to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser -- and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.
Circuses are not new in Washington, and I can see preparations being made for tents from the Capitol straight down Pennsylvania Avenue. The CIA has been pulled into the center ring before. The result this time will be the same: a hollowed-out service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear that in the years to come this refrain will be heard again: once a threat -- or God forbid, another successful attack -- captures our attention and sends the pendulum swinging back. There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous show: President Obama.
Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been done. It is certainly not trust that is fostered when intelligence officers are told one day "I have your back" only to learn a day later that a knife is being held to it. After the events of this week, morale at the CIA has been shaken to its foundation.
We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability to maintain secrecy as a reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist.
The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.
Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to non-state actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost.
The days of fortress America are gone. We are the world's superpower. We can sit on our hands or we can become engaged to improve global human conditions. The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good intelligence. Trading security for partisan political popularity will ensure that our secrets are not secret and that our intelligence is destined to fail us.
The writer, a Republican, was director of the CIA from September 2004 to May 2006 and was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004.