Krauthammer On Pelosi: Utterly Contemptible
RealClearPolitics: WASHINGTON — Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent’s life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy. Even John McCain, the most admirable and estimable torture opponent, says openly that in such circumstances, “You do what you have to do.” And then take the responsibility.
Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you don’t entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation. It is similarly imprudent to have a person who would abjure torture in all circumstances making national security decisions upon which depends the protection of 300 million countrymen.
The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. This case lacks the black-and-white clarity of the ticking time bomb scenario. We know less about the length of the fuse or the nature of the next attack. But we do know the danger is great. We know we must act but have no idea where or how — and we can’t know that until we have information. Catch-22.
Under those circumstances, you do what you have to do. And that includes waterboarding.
Did it work? The current evidence is fairly compelling. George Tenet said that the “enhanced interrogation” program alone yielded more information than everything gotten from “the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together.”
Michael Hayden, CIA director after waterboarding had been discontinued, writes (with former Attorney General Michael Mukasey) that “as late as 2006 … fully half of the government’s knowledge about the structure and activities of al-Qaeda came from those interrogations.” Even Dennis Blair, Obama’s director of national intelligence, concurs that these interrogations yielded “high value information.” So much for the lazy, mindless assertion that torture never works.
Asserts Blair’s predecessor, Mike McConnell, “We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened.” Of course, the morality of torture hinges on whether at the time the information was important enough, the danger great enough and our blindness about the enemy’s plans severe enough to justify an exception to the moral injunction against torture.
Judging by Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress who were informed at the time, the answer seems to be yes. In December 2007, after a Washington Post report that she had knowledge of these procedures and did not object, she admitted that she’d been “briefed on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future.”
Today Pelosi protests “we were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.” She imagines that this distinction between past and present, Clintonian in its parsing, is exonerating.
On the contrary. It is self-indicting. If you are told about torture that has already occurred, you might justify silence on the grounds that what’s done is done and you are simply being used in a post-facto exercise to cover the CIA’s rear end. The time to protest torture, if you really are as outraged as you now pretend to be, is when the CIA tells you what it is planning to do “in the future.”
But Pelosi did nothing. No protest. No move to cut off funding. No letter to the president or the CIA chief or anyone else saying “Don’t do it.”
On the contrary, notes Porter Goss, then chairman of the House intelligence committee: The members briefed on these techniques did not just refrain from objecting, “on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.”
More support, mind you. Which makes the current spectacle of self-righteous condemnation not just cowardly but hollow. It is one thing to have disagreed at the time and said so. It is utterly contemptible, however, to have been silent then and to rise now “on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009″ (the words are Blair’s) to excoriate those who kept us safe these harrowing last eight years.
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Her actions are beyond sedition. She deserves to be frog marched to Gitmo in an orange jump suit, tried, convicted and shot dead as a traitor to this country. She has just forfeited her right to walk the streets, free, among Americans.
The penalty for treason is death, if convicted and the means of death is hanging. Why waste a bullet?
This.
There are sheeps and there are lions. I am not, nor is anyone who regulary visits this site a sheep. The sheep are the enemy, sheep like Pelosi, Reid, and the current CiC. I don’t know about the people in the middle, if they choose poorly from lack of common sense then they have done so from lack of information. If they had the information, the truth and chose to be sheep–then, they are the enemy.
WE HAVE A LOT OF ENEMY!
yea! free fire zones!
Line ‘em up.
Ammo anyone?
They aren’t sheep read, On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/172284.php
this one is better
http://www.soldiersperspective.us/2008/02/09/sheep-wolves-sheepdogs/
I believe, much like, LtCol Grossman, in wolves, sheep, and sheep dogs. If you haven’t read his article, you should make a point of it.
The main issue with publicizing our techniques and sticking to the Army manual is that detainees now know our exact playbook. Part of the difficulty in not revealing information for a detainee is that they do not know what is coming and what to prepare for…
Sigh…
I don’t understand the no torture argument of supposedly yielding bad information. If that is the case then why has nearly every nation-state on the planet going back thousands of years used it?
Sheep dog and proud of it!!! So many sheep to protect.
getten ready to rock the feild of fire,
Its not torture.
She supported it so she could use it as a tool. This POS cares none of human life only her political life and pocket book.
The dims supported this knowing they would be in power. If Bush was so wrong why did they not impeach him? They only spoke of it months before he was to leave and that was for campaign purposes to shape public opinion against the GOP.
Looking at her nasty face is torture enough for me!!
Torture indeed! Pesky Pelosi is starting to look like something CSI dragged out of the Nevada desert for an autopsy.
Her behavior is something some people might call “mere politics” but what I would certainly classify as treasonous. Death by hanging would be appropriate. As a side note, Muslims believe that hanging is reserved for immoral people not worthy of being beheaded - just thought I’d throw that out there.
When the world becomes a prey to itself..who can escape
Did Pelosi go overseas and meet with a foreign dictator against the wishes of the Administration? Whatever became of that?
The same thing when old Ted Kennedy was secretly meeting w/ the KGB during the cold war days trying to undermine Reagan, NOTHING!!!
Roger that BT
The Leftinistra are above the law and violating the Logan and Smith Acts means nothing to this vermin.
Fuck this. Every time I watch a show like 24 or a movie like Sword Fish, I think that the people that have to make a decision to save American lives will do what ever is necessary to do so. Now these fucking bitch ass liberals want to hinder these these heroes from doing so. What the fucking fuck is going on? Yes I am fucking drunk, yes I am fucking pissed and yes I want my fucking country back. Yes, I will do everyting I can to resolve this matter peacefully,…I will stop there because my Marine Corps trianing is so on the for front of my brain it is fucking scary.
I can understand how the radicals in San Francisco could vote Pelosi into office, but how in the world could the democrats in the house make her speaker.