Torturing the truth more than our enemies

On September 11, 2001, a date which certainly ought to "live in infamy," 19 violent enemies of the United States carried out vicious airliner attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 persons. This is known to all, of course. Yet the ruling party today is determined to deprive us of the necessary means to prevent more attacks by abandoning the policies which protected us for the last eight years. President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress profess to be horrified at the specific tactics which the Central Intelligence Agency used to elicit information from three"high-value" targets. These men were seized in our successful campaign against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that harbored the Al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the 9/11 and other acts of mayhem, such as the previous bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

I say "profess" because the "torture" to which these mass murderers were subjected did not elicit any outrage from Democrats when they were briefed on the techniques back in 2001. There appeared to be general agreement that no stone should be left unturned in the effort to gain whatever information that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri could provide.

Although Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi denies it now, others present with her at the briefings the Bush Administration gave to congressional leaders have said that she not only knew of the enhanced interrogation techniques but approved of them, even urging that the CIA go beyond them if necessary. She was responding then as virtually every other American would have in her circumstances, given the enormity of the evil inflicted upon us and the undeniable evidence that these three men were either directly responsible for or fully informed about the 9/11 outrage.

The most useful information obtained was that an airliner attack was planned for Los Angeles. Was thwarting that attack not worth the CIA’s best efforts?

Webster’s Dictionary defines torture as "the infliction of severe pain, as to force information or confession." While any definition is only as accurate as its correspondence to reality, and that depends upon the judgment of those who understand what it is, a dictionary provides an impartial reference point.

However, the Wikipedia definition of waterboarding, which is based upon the contributions of "editors" who may or may not be impartial, describes waterboarding as "a form of torture" which "consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passage." It adds: "In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water [the technique used in the Spanish Inquisition], waterboarding precipitates a gag reflex almost immediately. The technique does not inevitably cause lasting physical damage."

This is torture?

The rest of this story is that waterboarding has been used on American servicemen for years to prepare them for the abuse they will be subjected to should they be captured by enemy forces. There is no evidence that they have ever been subjected to the unspeakable methods favored by despotisms.

Few of us do not know that mutilation and decapitation have been resorted to by Islamist terrorists. It beggars belief that men who are that brutal will be inspired to change their ways by our refusal to use a harsh method that actually falls short of real torture.

Meanwhile, two Bush Administration legal advisors who thought through the constitutional and legal implications of enhanced interrogation techniques and wrote extensive memos about them, have been treated as evil men who provided cover for the government’s allegedly brutal policies. This is second-guessing at best and witch hunting at worst.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers, "A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people."

The first duty of the government is public safety which, if it is to be adequately provided for, cannot be restricted as to means unless those means are immoral. It is not clear that subjecting a highly select group of known terrorists to maximum discomfort amounts to torture. If our government actually shrinks from its duties, the torture for millions of people will be far worse than that on three al-Qaeda operatives.

Afghan War winnable & important

(Washington, May 10) As news from Iraq got progressively better in the last year the reflexive pessimists among us have shifted their focus to Afghanistan where they tell us portents of gloom and doom can be found in abundance. We hear of a resurgent Taliban advancing on several fronts, the capital of Kabul under siege, insurgents controlling ever more of the countryside, attacks and suicide bombings way up, the Pakistan border uncontrollable, and U.S. and civilian casualties increased dramatically.

Back in fashion are the words “quagmire” and of course “Viet Nam”. In fact a Newsweek cover story called Afghanistan “Obama’s Viet Nam”.

All these grim tidings, of course, lead to the inevitable advice that the U.S. should cut its losses, and escape this “graveyard of empires”, ASAP.

While most of the alarmist assertions cited above contain the proverbial grain of truth, collectively they represent a gross distortion of reality in Afghanistan.

A vital key to these misrepresentations is that increases in attacks or casualties are invariably reported as percentile increases over a previously established base number while failing to report how relatively tiny that number may be or offering any comparisons from similar conflicts (e.g. Iraq).

For example the Brookings Afghanistan Index reported a 48 % increase in attacks for 2008 in regional Command-Capital which includes Kabul and environs and has a population of over four million people. What is not reported is that the actual number of attacks went from just 106 to 157 for the entire year or that 157 was the average number of attacks that occurred in Baghdad every four days during the summer of 2006.

Similarly while civilian casualties are increasing in Afghanistan the total for 2008 represents only one sixteenth of the casualties in Iraq in the pre-surge year of 2006.

Thus when we hear as we do of late that attacks or casualties for a given week or month were greater in Afghanistan than Iraq this is much more a reflection of the dramatically improved situation in post-surge Iraq than any gross deterioration in Afghanistan.

In assessing the validity of comparing the two countries consider that Afghanistan ( 249,934 sq. miles) is a much larger country than Iraq ( 167,884 sq. miles) and its 30 million people exceed the population of Iraq as well.

In terms of results the Afghan war from the beginning has been a considerable success story despite being greatly “under resourced” when compared to Iraq. Today there are just 38,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and even with the recently authorized 17,000 increase the total will be barely one third the number in Iraq during the surge (160,000).

Similarly the Afghan National Army (ANA) which has performed most effectively and is universally regarded as the most trusted indigenous institution in the entire country numbers only 80,000 men. Even adding the 70,000 men of the far less effective Afghan National Police (ANP) 150,000 total security personnel is small when compared to the 500,000 men in Iraq’s army and police.

Finally we frequently hear that “primitive” Afghanistan can never be a real nation but only an aggregation of feuding tribes.

This ignores the fact that while highly tribal Iraq has been a nation for less than one hundred years (1919) Afghanistan has been an independent country since the 18th century with a history of strong monarchs ruling a reasonably stable country. The last of these- Mohammed Zahir Shah (1933-1973) – oversaw substantial economic and political progress including a fairly democratic written constitution. Only a 1978 Marxist coup and the subsequent Soviet invasion precipitated the tragic period of war and civil conflict that has characterized the last thirty years.

By no means should we minimize the very daunting challenges we face in Afghanistan or conceal the fact that only a strong multi-year U.S. commitment can assure success.

However neither should we minimize the severe price of failure.

Many critics including President Obama long derided Iraq as the “wrong” war and a distraction from Afghanistan which was the “right” war and the one we “had to win”. The 17,000 additional troops President Obama authorized are a commendable first step in backing that conviction with deeds. In continuing along this necessary road of many difficult steps he deserves our strongest support.

William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post.

Obama's harsh retribution

When the word retribution is talked about amongst friends, family, or co-workers, it does not have a positive connotation. According to Webster, retribution means something given or exacted in recompense. With all its harshness, this is the only word I can think of that does justice to what the Obama administration is doing by releasing very sensitive information from the CIA about interrogation techniques used on terrorists. I still have not heard a compelling reason as to why the Obama administration felt compelled to divulge this information.

To actually have the gumption to consider prosecuting former Bush administration officials is unprecedented. If this is such a forward looking administration why must they continue to look back on the “mistakes” of the past administration?

I wonder how Americans would feel if they knew these interrogation methods saved their lives from further attacks. Furthermore, what message does this send and what type of example does this set for future administrations?

But perhaps the most critical argument: how are people that are supposed to be working on keeping our country safe -- CIA agents, lawyers, etc. -- going to do their job effectively if they feel the constant threat of future retribution upon themselves?

'Suicide of West' imminent?

National Review listed James Burnham's "Suicide of the West" as one of the top 10 books that nudged America toward political conservatism in recent decades. (See rankings in their 50th anniversary edition.) Burnham was a young Trotskyite who turned against Communism and in his later years wrote for National Review. He wrote this book in 1964.

Burnham's thesis was that liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide.

For a young person unschooled in political thought, such as I was, this thesis was difficult to believe. Both JFK and LBJ were aggressive in their Cold War liberalism, which in those days included a strong pro-American component. Even the true believers on the Left assured us that they were pro-American, despite appearances to the contrary. Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs and I.F. Stone were all leftist idealists, they never actually betrayed their country. Or so we were endlessly and emphatically told in the mass media and in our classrooms.

Well, it turned out that Burnham and his fellow conservatives were correct, and we had been lied to on virtually all fronts. We now know that Hiss, the Rosenbergs, Stone and many others on the American Left spied for the Soviet Union for years.

The leftists were not only for collectivism, they were against America and most of what it stood for. Their virulent assaults against the free market, against a strong military and against traditional American values were all of a piece. They regarded liberal journalists and liberal officials in all three branches of government as "useful idiots" and as loose allies in the steady drip of daily propaganda and assaults against America.

By now we are much further along in this process. Some of the most prominent liberal journalists and liberal Democratic leaders in government are no longer acting as merely useful idiots. Some of them are at last revealing themselves to be more malevolent than that.

This is most clearly seen in their move to prosecute those in the Bush admininistration who authorized the enhanced interrogation techniques (which they falsely call "torture") against a few of our top terrorist enemies.

We should recall at this point that the laws of war and the Geneva Convention clearly distinguish between (1) conventional soldiers and (2) nonuniformed terrorists who hide among civilians and attack from schools, mosques and civilian residences. Conventional soldiers, when captured, must be treated humanely. Nonuniformed terrorists, when captured, may be summarily shot.

Unfortunately, instead of shooting these vicious predators on the spot, our government unwisely treated most of them better than we have ever treated prisoners of war. They get better food in prison than our schoolchildren get in school cafeterias. There have been strict limits even on the interrogation techniques.

In three highly supervised cases waterboarding was employed to get vital information that saved many innocent lives. (Many of our own soldiers and sailors undergo waterboarding as part of their training, hence it is absurd to deem it "torture".)

But now many voices are telling us that this was unacceptable, that America's leaders must be punished, rather than thanked and honored, for this great so-called evil. They quote the Constitution much as Satan quotes Scripture, and they pretend to defend both America and the Constitution. However, this new thrust is clearly intended to demoralize those who are defending the country and to reduce or destroy America's future effectiveness in fighting our enemies.

Here at last the Left is taking a position that is so clearly anti-American that there is very little room at the margin for "useful idiots". Some Democrats on my "lunatic" list claim that foreign terrorists captured on the battlefield should be treated as if they were American citizens with Constitutional protections, but even for them that level of imbecility is not credible. Political maneuvering aside, their position can be seriously maintained for long only by the actual enemies of the United States.

For benefit of the lawyers and other confused citizens, let us apply the Left's argument in mirror image so that everyone can see just how bonkers it really is.

The FDR administration put more than one hundred thousand Japanese American citizens in concentration camps during World War II. This was clearly a much more heinous crime against humanity than waterboarding three Al-Qaeda terrorists. We should therefore prosecute all those Democrats still alive who had anything to do with perpetrating that great injustice. Correct?

The LBJ administration entered the Viet Nam conflict on the false and exaggerated claim of being attacked near the Gulf of Tonkin. This resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers and sailors and of millions of Asians. We should therefore prosecute all those Democrats who had anything to do with perpetrating and acting on that falsehood. Correct?

The Reagan administration's retributive attack across Libya's "line of death" in 1986 happened to kill Gaddafi's innocent young daughter. We should therefore prosecute all the Republicans who had anything to do with that attack. Correct?

The Obama administration's attacks on Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists using Predator drones and other means also produce collateral damage, killing innocent children and others, without benefit of legal hearing or trial by jury. Also the suspects are not even given their Miranda warnings. We should therefore (as Ted Olson has recommended in a recent thought experiment) prosecute everyone in the Obama administration who has anything to do with these attacks whenever they occur. Correct?

No, of course these assertions are clearly not correct. The concept is intended to be used only against the "evil" Bush administration, which in fact was trying with the best of intentions to protect America in a legally acceptable manner.

However, war is not police work, never has been, and never can be. The concept of prosecuting actions like this, if taken seriously, would degrade or destroy our ability to defend ourselves. But that is the whole idea. Our domestic enemies will now have another powerful new tool to weaken us, if we have become so confused and lacking in will as to allow it.

In summary, James Burnham was both correct and extremely prescient. Liberalism is indeed the ideology of Western suicide. We will see this in spades during the next four years.

Where have you gone, Tony Blair?

Tony Blair gave a speech yesterday to the Council on Global Affairs. Almost to the day ten years previously,in April 1999, Blair spoke to the same group and laid out his ideas on "liberal interventionism". At the time you may remember, NATO was actively engaged in deposing Slobodan Milosoevic in the former Yugoslavia.  The attacks on 9/11 and the war in Iraq were still to come, of course, but Blair understood then -- as he does now -- that there are cases when military intervention is necessary to defend our interests. His concept of interventionism was the basis for Blair's steadfast support of the war in Iraq in 2003, and remains a key concept in his morally-centered vision of foreign policy. In a foreign policy establishment that has recently been taken over by idealists and apologists, Blair's view reminds me of how much I miss this courageous statesman on the world's stage. It is worth reading some of Blair's speech yesterday -- courtesy of the Wall Street Journal. It lays out clearly a view of the threat of Islamic radicalism that I completely agree with, and the importance of being resolute in combating it.  It is also the antithesis of Barack Obama's personality-driven foreign policy, where the power of Obama's simple presence is supposed to tame dictators and despots into "seeing the light".

"President Obama's reaching out to the Muslim world at the start of a new American administration is welcome, smart, and can play a big part in defeating the threat we face. It disarms those who want to say we made these enemies, that if we had been less confrontational they would have been different. It pulls potential moderates away from extremism.

But it will expose, too, the delusion of believing that there is any alternative to waging this struggle to its conclusion. The ideology we are fighting is not based on justice. That is a cause we can understand. And world-wide these groups are adept, certainly, at using causes that indeed are about justice, like Palestine. Their cause, at its core, however, is not about the pursuit of values that we can relate to; but in pursuit of values that directly contradict our way of life. They don't believe in democracy, equality or freedom. They will espouse, tactically, any of these values if necessary. But at heart what they want is a society and state run on their view of Islam. They are not pluralists. They are the antithesis of pluralism. And they don't think that only their own community or state should be like that. They think the world should be governed like that.

In other words, there may well be groups, or even Governments, that can be treated with, and with whom we can reach an accommodation. Negotiation and persuasion can work and should be our first resort. If they do, that's great, which is why if Hamas were to accept the principle of a peaceful two state solution, they could be part of the process agreeing it [sic]. But the ideology, as a movement within Islam, has to be defeated. It is incompatible not with "the West" but with any society of open and tolerant people and that in particular means the many open and tolerant Muslims."

This should be required reading in the salons of Europe, the halls of the UN and the corridors of the White House. It is critical for our security that we are able to speak openly and honestly about the nature of the threats arrayed against us. Diplomacy has its place, but comes with very real limits when interests, values and ideology are diametrically opposed. And while the left may believe that we can find some "rapport" and "accommodation" with Islamic radicals who seek to create an Islamic world, the reality is that this is a clash of civilizations that will have only one winner.

It is "us" or "them". This Blair understands. Pity that our president doesn't get it.