Torture

“I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the City of Karachi, Pakistan.”
– Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, under interrogation by waterboarding

Well the torture report is out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Haven’t we been through this before?

I looked up a column of mine dated May, 2009, about the controversy surrounding Obama’s plan to release actual photos of “enhanced interrogation.”

“President Obama, announced he would authorize release of photos showing prisoners undergoing ‘enhanced interrogation.’ Right-wingers announced the imminent downfall of the American republic. Then he changed position and said he wouldn’t. Left-wingers announced the imminent downfall of the American republic. Reportedly, top US commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan personally told the President they opposed release, arguing it would make the US mission more difficult.”

What’s different about this time? Well for one, it goes into considerable detail.

The report is available online, and it’s pretty grim reading. Waterboarding we knew about. The report has details about cold water baths, extreme enemas, sleep deprivation, stress positions and hints at worse.

For another, the timing is suspicious. What does it accomplish now, what purpose does it serve?

What does it accomplish domestically?

It may be intended to discredit Republicans after their huge gains in the midterm election. If so, it’s going to take a lot of spin to accomplish that

From my 2009 column.
“Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the CIA didn’t tell her they would actually go out and do what they described in the briefings she attended. The minutes of the meetings show, to put it bluntly, that she’s lying her head off.”

There were an awful lot of Democrats on board with this after 9/11, and “renditions” (handing over captured terrorists to countries far less squeamish than we are) continued unabated during the Obama administration.

What it accomplished abroad was to allow an awful lot of countries to announce they are shocked, shocked that the U.S. would do such a thing! Including a few countries like France who are not known for being overly squeamish when it’s their own national interest at stake.

But perhaps this will force us to have a conversation we should have had a long time ago about a subject we don’t want to talk about.

Those of an idealistic bent claim we are losing the soul of our country.

Terry Strada, speaking for a group of 9/11 widows, said basically to hell with them. Her children are growing up without a father.

Sen. John McCain knows the reality of torture first hand, and is equally passionate that we should never torture under any circumstances.

Strada and McCain definitely have moral standing in the court of public opinion, but statesmen make or should make decisions based on our interests, not our emotions.

Journalist Michael Yon, former Special Forces vet of Iraq and Afghanistan, is concerned the fear of being tortured will make jihadists reluctant to surrender.

His argument has practical merit. However the jihadists do not reciprocate. They torture and kill American captives, not for information but from sheer sadistic glee and to send the message to us about how ruthless they are.

Another practical objection in the report claims torture is ineffective and has not resulted in useful intelligence, but only false leads given by subjects desperate to make it stop by saying anything.

Please, that’s been known forever and skillful interrogators take that into account. And if the interrogations are not producing useful intelligence, why didn’t somebody say, “We’re getting nothing from this, let’s try something else”?

A group of six former CIA directors and deputy directors claimed in a Wall Street Journal editorial that the report is politicized, error ridden, and that information from enhanced interrogations has saved lives and prevented further attacks.

They say they had leads on plans for further attacks, even the horrible possibility that the jidhadists were planning to acquire a nuke and sneak it into the country.

We really have to have that discussion, and we really have to be tough-minded about it beyond what we are comfortable with.

Those who say torture is a necessary tool to fight a ruthless enemy really need to explain how this is going to be limited to an emergency measure used only in extreme cases.

Those who say torture is never justified need to face the “ticking bomb” scenario realistically. So far they have evaded or ridiculed the issue.

Because the bottom line is this, in an age of loose nukes and cheap bioweapons, sooner or later circumstances will arise in which we may have to throw aside all of our scruples and act with utter ruthlessness.

When that day comes, and I believe it’s a “when” not an “if,” it would be best if we’d considered our options beforehand rather than flying blind into an unimaginable horror.