[Peace-discuss] news gazette editorial defends torture.

[E. Wayne Johnson]

    Torture debate lacking in context


            Thursday April 23, 2009

Those appalled by how the CIA questioned some high-level terror suspects 
are forgetting that war is a nasty business.

During the presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama repeatedly 
chastised the Bush administration for its anti-terrorism policies that 
he asserted had made the country less safe, including the so-called 
"enhanced interrogation techniques" used to compel top-level prisoners 
to provide information on past or future terror attacks.

Last week, Obama put the icing on this political cake by releasing U.S. 
Justice Department memos that advised CIA interrogators on just how far 
they could go in their efforts to gain information. The memos approved 
some pretty rough stuff, including water-boarding and sleep deprivation, 
that prompted director of national intelligence Dennis Blair to remind 
the public that they were written in the post-9/11 atmosphere.

"Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear 
graphic and disturbing," said Blair.

So now the country is "safe," said Obama's director of national 
intelligence, even though his boss repeatedly has said it is less safe 
because of tactics like those disclosed in the justice department memos.

That is just one of the disconnects the debate over the tactics of 
torture has produced in the transition from the Bush to the Obama 
administration.

Here's another. One of the torture techniques some profess to find so 
appalling involved placing a bug in a box containing a prisoner who 
feared bugs. That's torture? It sounds more like a junior high school stunt.

It's easy to understand why people are uncomfortable not only with the 
aggressive questioning but with the clinical legal advice on its 
constitutional limits. But let's put this issue in context and try to 
ignore the faux outrage so common on the cable talk shows.

These tactics were aimed at securing information from people who took 
pride in killing thousands of innocent civilians by flying airplanes 
into buildings. They took pride in sawing the heads off of prisoners in 
front of video cameras. They are the product of a culture of death, and 
they're waging war on the civilized world.

These dedicated, determined, well-trained killers are intent on striking 
again, and they have to be stopped before they can do so. That can 
sometimes -- emphasize sometimes -- require getting down and dirty.

Is water-boarding torture? Sure, even though it does no permanent 
physical harm. It's designed to induce a sense of dread and, as a 
result, cooperation, and it does the job. Former Vice President Cheney, 
who obviously disagrees with President Obama on the issue, suggests that 
since Obama released the memos that are producing so much condemnation 
he also should release additional memos detailing the information these 
tactics produced.

That sounds reasonable. More importantly, it would present the public 
with the same balancing test government officials faced when making 
decisions about harsh questioning.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and CIA Director Michael Hayden 
wrote a persuasive commentary in the Wall Street Journal last week 
condemning the release of the memos and defending the tactics they 
outlined. They noted that high-level prisoners are trained to resist 
interrogation, but they argued that skillful questioning combined with 
the tactics outlined in the memos can produce valuable results.

"... confessions aren't the point. Intelligence is," they wrote, noting 
that questioning of one al-Qaida leader had produced a domino-effect of 
taking senior al-Qaida leaders into custody.

Questions about issues like torture depend on the mood the country. How 
many people recall the fearful post-9/11 atmosphere during which members 
of Congress demanded to know how al-Qaida could have pulled off such an 
audacious attack and how the U.S. military would stop the next one. 
Flash forward eight years and many of the same members of Congress are 
asking how military and intelligence could dare get so rough with those 
who could prevent the next one.

Context is everything. If the U.S. is hit again, if more Americans die 
at the hands of al-Qaida, the public will demand to know why everything 
wasn't done to ensure the security of this country. Until then, as Blair 
said, it's a "bright, sunny, safe day" just perfect for political 
recriminations.

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