INTERROGATING ENEMY COMBATANTS

The accompanying article celebrates the 'end of the Bush war on terror' that has come about as a direct result of the elimination of several of the interrogation techniques used during the war on terrorism. Although basically a bash Bush piece, it raises important issues to consider as we proceed with the War against Terrorism.

President Obama has dictated that going forward, the only such techniques to be utilized are those allowed by the Army Field Manual. In a high profile move intended to mollify his far left constituency, Obama is indicating that some methods used by the CIA in recent years can no longer be employed.

My best guess, this is pure political window dressing.

Let's recognize some hard realities right up front. The United States does not torture enemy combatants in the manner that was the case with, say, the North Vietnamese treatment of captured Americans. Or the Japanese with captured Americans during the Second World War. Or as was the case with the Iraqis under Saddam Hussein with both foreign and domestic prisoners. Or as is the case with the Iranians today, again with both foreign and domestic prisoners. America has never sanctioned that kind of brutal physical torture and murder.

As to water boarding, it is time to get a grip on reality. Once that technique was exposed as public information, it went away as a useful means of interrogation. It is hard to imagine anyone in the civilized world who is not aware of the fact that a prisoner does not drown and will emerge from being water boarded basically no worse for the wear physically. In other words, it is a waste of time to attempt to use it since it will not generate any worthwhile results. It has been rendered totally useless.

Obama is quoted in the following article from his inaugural address where he stated, "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals". A nice theory indeed but basically impractical in the ongoing fight against jihad. More notably, it is a theory not put into practice by any of his predcessors who were faced with the prospect of the destruction of our way of life, as is the case with the fight we are in today.

We know the examples from history of Lincoln suspending habeas corpus and FDR suspending the rights of both Americans of German ancestry and especially Americans of Japanese ancestry, among other actions both took. If given a circumstance where the defense of the letter of the Constitution would cost the lives of millions of Americans, the saftey and well being of the public comes first. Lincoln and FDR, arguably two of our better Presidents of all time, understood and practiced that concept. A Constitution that survived longer than the nation it was supposed to protect, would become a valueless document of no significance or importance thereafter.

President Obama is a smart man who knows that should any action of his put the nation at risk, an attack on the homeland that killed Americans would effectively end his Presidency and relegate his reputation to the outhouse of history.

Most certainly, leaders of our intelligence community have told him that he cannot allow for the emasculation of our intelligence professionals relative to their interrogation activities with enemy combatants. Obama knows that were he to fully and completely tie their hands, they will leave the service of the United States and our ability to gather intelligence would be permanently degraded, to our and especially his peril.

Thus there is a nuanced difference between the public declarations about "torture" and the behind the scenes reality of interrogation methods that are cleared to be utilized. Even the article below states that what Obama has eliminated are, "...the most controversial tools used by his predecessor...". Read between the lines. Controversial does not include all and may actually mean only a few.

Liberals like to believe all this will enhace our image in the international community. The truth is that even our allies want us to continue to gather intelligence in an effective and useful manner with the exception of some techniques such as the now abandoned water boarding. More to the point, our allies use the same techniques themselves and, the far left excepted, they do not think less of us for doing the same.

It is true that physical torture will often lead to the victim telling you whatever it is they think you want to hear, all in an effort to stop the pain. That is why physical torture is normally of little practical value.

Psychological interrogation techniques, on the other hand, have generated actionable intelligence. Things like sleep deprivation, sensory disorientation and prolonged interrogation sessions have led to both accidental and voluntary disclosure of valuable information that has allowed preemtory defensive action to be taken to prevent attack on both ourselves and our allies.

Given that our jihadist enemies are committed to killing Americans and destroying our way of life, the use of psychological interrogation that generate actual results without causing physical pain in the process is a reasonable trade off in preventing widespread death and disaster. Most notably, there are no workable alternatives.

Being forced by a brutal and evil jihad being waged against us to temporarily suspend a small aspect of our Constitution in order to effectively protect and defend innocent men, women and children is a reasonalbe option during a time of war. The perfect cannot be allowed to stand in the way of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Once jihad is defeated, American can and will return to the path to perfection. In the meantime we must do what works effectively.

Lincoln and FDR would agree. Obama would be wise to heed their example.



Bush's 'War' On Terror Comes to a Sudden End
By Dana Priest

Washington Post Staff Writer

President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the "war on terror," as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless.

While Obama says he has no plans to diminish counterterrorism operations abroad, the notion that a president can circumvent long-standing U.S. laws simply by declaring war was halted by executive order in the Oval Office.

Key components of the secret structure developed under Bush are being swept away: The military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, where the rights of habeas corpus and due process had been denied detainees, will close, and the CIA is now prohibited from maintaining its own overseas prisons. And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration's lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.

It was a swift and sudden end to an era that was slowly drawing to a close anyway, as public sentiment grew against perceived abuses of government power. The feisty debate over the tactics employed against al-Qaeda began more than six years ago as whispers among confidants with access to the nation's most tightly held secrets. At the time, there was consensus in Congress and among the public that the United States would be attacked again and that government should do what was necessary to thwart the threat.

The CIA, which had taken the lead on counterterrorism operations worldwide, asked intelligence contacts around the globe to help its teams of covert operatives and clandestine military units identify, kill or capture terrorism suspects. They set up their first interrogation center in a compound walled off by black canvas at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, and more at tiny bases throughout that country, where detainees could be questioned outside military rules and the protocols of the Geneva Conventions, which lay out the standards for treatment of prisoners of war.

As the CIA recruited young case officers, polygraphers and medical personnel to work on interrogation teams, the agency's leaders asked its allies in Thailand and Eastern Europe to set up secret prisons where people such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh could be held in isolation and subjected to extreme sleep and sensory deprivation, waterboarding and sexual humiliation. These tactics are not permitted under military rules or the Geneva Conventions.

Over time, a tiny circle of federal employees outside these teams got access to some of the reports of interrogations. Some were pleased by the new aggressiveness. Others were horrified. They began to push back gingerly, as did an even smaller number of congressional officials briefed on the reports.

Eventually their worries reached a handful of reporters trying to confirm rumors of people who seemed to have disappeared: a Pakistani microbiologist spirited away in the dead of night in Indonesia. An Afghan prisoner frozen to death at a base code-named the Salt Pit. A German citizen who did not get back on his bus at a border crossing in Macedonia.

Front companies and fictitious people were used to hide a system of aircraft that carried terrorism suspects to "undisclosed locations" and to third countries under a little-known practice called rendition.

Unlike the federal employees, who could go to jail for disclosing the classified program, the reporters and their news outlets were protected by the Constitution -- but not from government pressure. Then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss and, later, Bush summoned top editors of The Washington Post to press their case against disclosing the existence of the secret prison network.

The published reports in The Post and elsewhere earned the news media sharp recriminations from the administration, the Republican leadership in Congress and the public. Government leak investigations were launched. Bush administration officials argued that such methods and operations were necessary to effectively thwart terrorism, noting to this day that there have been no major attacks since 2001.

If there were dissenters back then, they were largely silent.

But in Europe, the reports set off a firestorm of criticism and government investigations in nearly every capital. Washington was pressured to move prisoners out of the secret jails. U.S. government officials scattered throughout the national security and foreign policy agencies scrambled to learn more about operations they knew little about. A growing chorus within the CIA and the State Department began to question how long the secret system of detention and interrogation could survive, and drew up plans for an alternative.

By then, the color-coded terrorist alerts had ended. Police disappeared from roadblocks around the Capitol. Washington the fortress drew millions of visitors again. Some Democratic members of Congress replaced the "war on terror" phraseology with language indicating vigilance and persistence, but not unending combat and military-only options.

On Sept. 6, 2006, Bush announced the transfer of 14 "high-value detainees" from secret prisons to Guantanamo. He suspended the CIA program, but defended its utility and reserved the right to reopen it. The secret was officially out.

Over the next 2 1/2 years, as Democrats gained power in Congress, as the violence in Iraq sapped public support for the president and as the fear of another terrorist attack receded, the debate over secret prisons, renditions and harsh interrogations grew louder. Presidential candidates felt comfortable to include these sensitive subjects in the debate on the efficiency of Bush's war against terrorists, and even on the notion that it was still a war.

During his campaign and again in his inaugural address Tuesday, Obama used a different lexicon to describe operations to defeat terrorists. "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals," he said. ". . . And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

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