CIA agents once played rough with possibly 30 terrorists, and maybe they shouldn’t have, but they saved American lives that way. And if you say no, no, a thousand times no to playing rough in the future, you may be saying yes to thousands of deaths.
Admit that, at least, says Michael Hayden, a former CIA director whose voice on the subject is one of the clearest, most reasonable and knowledgeable you’re likely to hear. If you are against harsh, coercive interrogation techniques under any and all circumstances, that may be an honorable, courageous stance, he says, but only if you concede there could be a cost in American fatalities.
In releasing previously classified documents on the treatment of terrorists, the Obama administration admitted no such thing, of course, and its cheerleaders are practically doing back-flips to make the opposite point – that tough-guy methods produce no useful information. That’s hokum.
As Hayden said on TV and wrote in a Wall Street Journal piece co-authored by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the questioning of these prisoners is a complicated, multi-faceted proceeding in which certain controversial techniques have helped produce facts crucial to protecting citizens.
The two noted that we have specific knowledge of how the techniques helped thwart murderous plots – there’s not a lot of guesswork necessary here. Any pretense otherwise is a disingenuous dodge, no matter how often we are piously instructed that “torture doesn’t work.”
Torture? That, of course, is the word du jour. But was it torture to deprive people of sleep or shove them against a wall engineered to cause no harm or to put a man fearful of insects in cramped quarters with a caterpillar? Frightening and unpleasant and even downright nasty, sure. But torture? These techniques are a large remove from how the word has been traditionally used and how it has been defined under law.
Waterboarding would seem to come closer, except that careful readers of the released documents note that varied precautions kept the technique much, much tamer than often described. President Bush repeatedly declared to officials that he would permit no torture, and there is ample evidence the Justice Department was extremely careful in allowing as legal only those techniques that avoided severe, lasting psychological or physical pain as best they could determine that.
Hayden and Mukasey make other points. Because of the released documents, enemies can prepare for these techniques if they are ever used again; Justice Department lawyers will be loath to sign onto anything that could cause them political castigation in the future, and CIA agents will know that they, too, may endure political second-guessing even if first assured they are acting within the law in aiming to secure information vital to our security.
Good enough, some commentators say, worrying in news outlets about our international image even as they wildly exaggerate what happened. Good enough, some Democrats say, wringing their hands about terrible George Bush even if congressional members of their own party knew exactly what was going on and raised no objections. Good enough, some other critics say, trying oh, so hard to show their human sensitivity even if their position will lessen safeguards against unthinkable atrocities committed against the innocent in their own country.
It is legitimate to want our government to observe civilized rules of conduct, but much of what we have seen on this issue is overstated accusations accompanied by determined evasion of consequences. The real question is whether tough techniques short of torture are justified in order to save lives. If you decide the answer is no, be prepared to explain that decision to relatives of victims.
Examiner columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He can be reached at: [email protected].
