Posted by
RME KRNL on Thursday, April 30, 2009 12:43:21 PM
Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post recently wrote an article entitled "Torture Is Illegal." Aside from selecting as his title what would appear to be a BGO (blinding glimpse of the obvious), what Mr. Robinson and liberals in general insist on doing about the "we don't torture" issue is conflate that "we don't torture" with the statement that "waterboarding is torture" and therefore make the argument that we waterboarded, so that means we tortured.
Not so fast. While President Obama's Attorney General Eric "Americans are cowards about race" Holder has stated that, in his opinion, waterboarding is torture (and there are obviously others who agree with him), there are still other legal experts and scholars who disagree.
Evidently among them were the lawyers who drew up the very narrow and specific guidelines for waterboarding which the Bush administration followed, as well as briefing Congress on (Republicans AND Democrats alike) about 30 different times along the way. So, if lawyers who rendered their legal opinions can be prosecuted, surely so also can Congressional members who were briefed on what was going on and who not only did not object but agreed to and approved of such methods being used (Democrat House Speaker Pelosi's somewhat conflicting protestations notwithstanding).
I mean, illegal and morally wrong is illegal and morally wrong, right? Er, correct? And whether you made the pie or just stuck your finger in it is all merely a matter of degree, correct? Or in another context, if you and I rob a store and you shoot and kill the clerk although I didn't even know you had a gun, we both can be tried for murder. Anything less is comparable to the less-than-credible "I voted against the war before I voted for it."
So, if there is rational disagreement that waterboarding is torture, it's hardly ipso facto that we waterboarded, therefore we tortured. We did perform waterboarding, on three high value terrorists, it was done by professionals, it was done under extremely controlled and medically safe conditions, and we got valuable intelligence as a result. So, yes, we waterboarded and if waterboarding is torture, then we tortured. But if it's not, then we didn't torture anyone.
Aside from all of the legalese and ideologically and politically motivated arguments currently flying around, it is beyond me how something like waterboarding, to which many of our own troops have been subjected as part of their training to resist enemy interrogation (under much less medically controlled conditions than those provided for the three murdering terrorists responsible for killing thousands of Americans and others), can be considered torture. If so, lock up those un-American military instructors who conducted that training!
And this is all beside the fact that some college hazings also involve a type of waterboarding, usually without ANY safeguards. Is that torture? Then, lock up those monstrous, un-American upper classmen!
Oh, and for those of you astute enough to argue that, well, our troops and the college kids had a choice about undergoing waterboarding or not but the terrorists did not, here's a reality check for you. Sure, if the troops wanted to fail their training, they could have said no, and, sure, if the college kids didn't want to be accepted, they could have also. But then, so also could the terrorists -- by just giving up the intel before they were waterboarded. Everybody has choices, well, except unfortunate people like journalist Daniel Pearl who was brutally beheaded on video by cowardly, mask-wearing, sword-wielding terrorist thugs even after cooperating with his captors in making the video for their propaganda purposes.
Instead of disingenuous bleeding heart liberals saying they want to "restore America's image in the world" by protecting the "rights" of murderous terrorists not to be tortured (oh, and, secondarily of course, finally find a way to "get" George Bush in the process if at all possible), they should focus on people in the hands of our terrorist enemies, to often include many of their own -- now, THERE'S someone who's been tortured!