bump for later....
What if he is right? Of course he is right! And the next time it won’t be just a few thousand who die because of the insane hatred of us by the Jihadists.
When was 'the left' ever correct?
Hitler?
Stalin?
Mao?
Castro?
Ortega?
Chavez?
etc, etc, etc...
I’ve feared for a while now that we’re going to need to lose a city before we get serious about this.
Just give Cheney a 12 gauge and let him do what he does best
bttt
Here is my Op-Ed from the Eugene Register Guard
Popular voices to label as torture those legitimate steps a civilized society took to protect itself from catastrophe. Such arguments cloud public awareness of past and continuing threats to our security — threats without precedent in our nation’s history. When we become distracted from the enormity of these threats, we become complacent — and even begin to criminalize the acts of people who risk their own lives to counter enemies who are dissociated from country or culture, and deeply committed to butchery.
This current denunciation of supposed torture and torturers proceeds from believing that political capital and moral authority can be earned at a safe distance by berating people who put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf. To regard such actions as criminal requires asymmetrical morality, undefiled by any perception of danger to ourselves or others. Placating those who covet such a luxurious, dilemma-free type of morality forces us to ignore military and intelligence professionals who face shrewd, ruthless enemies in a conflict fraught with frightening uncertainties.
Terrorists never display the civility required by the Geneva Conventions. Terrorists are not insurgents or freedom fighters, and when they are captured, they certainly are not prisoners of war. These killers are not members of an organized resistance movement carrying arms openly, and they have no distinctive identifier. The Geneva Conventions describe terrorists as beyond the pale.
The framers of the Geneva Conventions were parents and grandparents of the Greatest Generation, and held powerful positions throughout the darkest times of our world. Their words synthesize brutal, durable morality, properly understood, from actions within the ultimate bloody deluges of the 20th century. The people writing the conventions intended to isolate terrorist forces, provide them minimal protections, and allow their destruction with any overwhelming furies needed to crush their abominations.
Terrorists earning degrees in physical or biological sciences will abandon the trivial killing of hundreds, turning instead to acts that will bring about the incalculable numbers of deaths made possible by 21th century technology. They will exploit a world in which nuclear technology becomes ubiquitously available, in which the diseases that once decimated Europe are one step away in the food chain, and in which the production of lethal toxins becomes a cottage industry.
Terrorists remain unresponsive to direct questioning and psychological gambits. Effective interrogation necessitates also applying all stress and coercion techniques — the same techniques our military encounters in survival schools. Effective interrogation requires combining these techniques within a continually confused and uncertain environment. If the only information obtained is a confession or an assumed desired answer, then incorrect questions have been asked. Intelligence acquired by these means remains as unreliable as that obtained from satellite surveillance or double agents. Independent verification still leaves intelligence officers lingering in a purgatory of distorted certitude with critical hazards only conquered through resolute leadership.
The unique unreliability for information obtained from torture is dispelled in contradicting Barack Obama’s statement Churchill abhorred, and did not condone torture. Churchill historian Richard M. Langworth says, “The word ‘torture’ appears 156 times in my digital transcript of Churchill’s 15 million published words (books, articles, speeches, papers) and 35 million words about him—but not once in the subject context (Obama’s speech)”. Other creditable WW II historians mention German spies caught by Great Britain were often allowed to choose between hanging and serving as double agents. Many chose to cooperate, and sixteen were still hanged after secret trials. The technique was effective for the D-Day deception, but would not coercion promising death be considered torture?
Rep. Peter DeFazio quoted to me 20 former Army interrogators saying that abuse and torture of prisoners and detainees should be avoided at all costs. I find that disturbing, because on Sept. 11, 2001, we were prepared to shoot down any civilian airliner that did not land immediately, regardless of its crew’s assertions.
There’s an incredible moral disconnect here: We were prepared to kill our own citizens on 9/11, but we’re forbidden to subject terrorists to severe discomfort that might prevent extravagant murder and destruction. At what point in the application of chemical, biological and atomic weapons to our society must we protect the American people “at all costs”?
For DeFazio and similar popular advocates, U.S. victory must be defined wholly within tranquil, self-created moral high ground, affirming an illusory national greatness. Islamic jihadists define victory as U.S. submission through elaborate and extensive slaughters. Jihadists win by their definition — but according to the increasingly popular assertions of those who redefine and condemn torture under any circumstances, we also win by our definition while perishing by thousands.