Jamie

Weinstein

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April 28, 2009

Serious Techniques by a Humane Nation

Everyone that watches the hit TV show 24 thinks Jack Bauer has replaced Chuck Norris as the greatest American alive – even if Bauer is supposedly a fictional figure. This idolization of Bauer exists despite the fact that Bauer routinely engages in clear forms of torture in his quest to protect America.

In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the CIA sought authorization to use enhanced interrogation techniques on certain high-level detainees they were confident were withholding crucial information about future attacks against the American homeland. The techniques that were authorized were far less harsh then those employed by Mr. Bauer week in and week out. Yet critics of the interrogation program, many of them surely fans of Bauer, have focused on the most serious authorized technique, waterboarding, as the smoking gun to prove the Bush Administration authorized torture. 

According to previously classified memos recently released by the Obama Administration, we know of just three people that have been waterboarded: Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, high-ranking Al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, and USS Cole mastermind Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.  All three were captured in the aftermath of 9/11 and were believed by the CIA to be in possession of critical information about future attacks against America.
 

When I said we know the names of three people who have been waterboarded, I wasn’t fully honest. I personally know the names of five. We know the three that the CIA waterboarded (see above). Additionally, we know of two journalists who voluntarily submitted themselves to waterboarding by ex-military personal for publicity – provocative writer Christopher Hitchens and, most recently, Playboy writer Mike Guy. 

Did you get that? While left-wing critics are running around claiming America acted like the Nazis because we waterboarded three high-ranking terrorists to gain information to prevent another 9/11, we learn that some people get waterboarded for fun. Well, if not for fun, then for a story. To be fair, Hitchens still maintains it’s torture, but no long-lasting physical or psychological damage was done to him or any of the three terrorists the CIA waterboarded. If an overweight, near 60-year-old man can get waterboarded for kicks and giggles, then it is difficult for me to clearly put the interrogation technique in the torture category. 

Furthermore, the reason ex-military personnel were qualified to perform these freelance waterboards on volunteering journalists is not because they were trained to use the tactic on America’s enemies, but rather because they waterboard fellow soldiers as part of the U.S. military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) training.

It is obviously not exactly accurate to equate the waterboarding that our military performs as part of the SERE training to what the CIA did to three high ranking Al-Qaeda officials in 2002 and 2003 (as far as we know, no waterboarding has taken place since March 2003). The circumstances are surely different. But as one released memo reads, “Although there are obvious differences between training exercises and actual interrogations, the fact that the United States uses similar techniques on its own troops for training purposes strongly suggests that these techniques are not categorically beyond the pale.”

Reading all 100-plus pages of the four released memos – as I did this weekend – you don’t see how cruel America is as our critics suggest, but rather how humane we are. Operating in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in world history and with the threat that another grievous attack against our homeland could be imminent, our government authorized enhanced interrogations to get information to protect us. Even so, the memos clearly show a government that refuses to authorize anything that will cause long-lasting damage, either physically or psychologically, to the murderous thugs they have in custody. The techniques, the memo states, are “carefully limited to further a vital government interest and designed to avoid unnecessary or serious harm . . .”

This is not the mark of an inhumane government viciously seeking revenge against its enemies. It is the mark of an extraordinarily humane government seeking to protect its population at the same time struggling to uphold its values.

Of course, no one would even go so far to use these if they weren’t valuable. And on this question, you can find credible people on both sides of the debate. The CIA and others say the techniques are very effective and have, among other things, helped avert a “second wave” of attacks after 9/11 that would have targeted Los Angeles. Other serious people say that enhanced interrogation techniques are ineffective. What we need is a commission of non-partisan experts to evaluate the program and determine which side is right.

If it turns out, though, that enhanced interrogation techniques have saved lives and have the potential to save lives in the future, it would be irresponsible for any president to categorically rule out the use of such techniques, as President Obama has already done. 

What is beyond comprehension is that those who gave honest legal advice about the interrogation techniques and the Jack Bauers who used them to protect America would face any type of criminal prosecution. By declassifying the memos, President Obama has already harmed our national security in a number of ways. Political prosecutions would make matters all the worse.

I firmly believe that America is a shining city on a hill. Accordingly, I take what our government does in our name very seriously. The difficult decisions the Bush Administration made in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks do not make me question for one minute the humanity of our country and its position on that hill.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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