AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF INTERROGATION TORTURE

America must not be confused about the question of, "How should we deal with captured terrorists?"

...The American torture debacle at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq

I find it interesting that some of the top editorial writers are taking a "So what are we supposed to do now?" attitude toward how to deal with captured extreme Muslim terrorists and insurgents.

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post seemed genuinely confused when he recently wrote about a fictional detainee he named Ishmael. In his recent article he wrote: "Call him a terrorist or a suicide bomber or anything else you want, but understand that he is willing -- no, anxious -- to give his life for his cause. Call him also a captive, and know that he works with others as part of a team, like the Sept. 11 hijackers, all of whom died, willingly."

He went on to say: "Now he is in American custody. What will happen? How do we get him to reveal his group's plans and the names of his colleagues? It will be hard. It will in fact, be harder than it used to be. He can no longer be waterboarded. He knows this. He cannot be deprived of more than a set amount of sleep. He cannot be beaten or thrown up against even a soft wall. He cannot be threatened with shooting or even frightened by the prospect of an electric drill. Nothing can really be threatened against his relatives – that they will be killed or sexually abused."

Apparently, Mr. Cohen thinks that torture actually works on detainees, so by stopping the "enhanced interrogation" he wonders, "what do we do now?"

Then I listened to former VP Dick Cheney and the far right California Congressman, Duncan Hunter on TV who says that "Waterboarding is not torture! We Waterboard our own soldiers and sailors during their basic training. Would we be ´torturing´ our own military personnel?"

Of course, Congressman Hunter fails to mention that the "Waterboarding" that is used in basic training is to demonstrate to the military personnel what may be done to them if they are captured. In addition, the soldiers and sailors know that they are not going to be killed, or Waterboarded for extended periods or multiple times and they understand that it is a training exercise.

And Mr. Cheney just basically says that we should do whatever we want with the detainees. Torture them any way we like. The hell with whatever treaties or agreements we have made. And for the enemy to torture our soldiers is just too bad for our guys in letting themselves get caught.

Of course, a "real" previous American prisoner of war, who´s been there and done that, Senator John McCain, feels that Waterboarding is torture and that it has only provided positive recruiting tools for al Qaeda and is a bad reflection to the rest of the world about American justice.

So, as the man said, "what do we do now?"

Well, for a country that is supposed to be a "nation of laws", that should be self-evident.

A "nation of laws", follows the rule of law, and the new US president has declared that, "America does not torture…………period!"

Ever since 9/11, there has been a large group of Americans that became very afraid, and that´s where they remain today. The GOP has also been using the "fear card" for years and for Bush´s 8 years, it was his and the GOP´s most effective support tool. "Forget that we are the strongest nation in the world, just stay being afraid."

Forget that our role has always been to show how civilized people should treat those that with which we have fought wars, and when it was all over, how we helped them and they eventually became our good friends. Just forget that past reality.

And forget that we have signed multiple treaties and agreements for how prisoners of war or insurgent detainees should be treated. Forget that most professional interrogators say that torture seldom produces good information or the enemy´s plans of attack. Forget that the enemy will also just say, "Well, they torture our soldiers, so it´s OK to torture theirs".

The US is a "nation of laws" and yes, we might be losing out on some information when the captured enemy knows that we won´t be able to make it rough on them. But does putting our laws and values aside for something that (according to the pros) has maybe a less than 10% chance of acquiring good data through the use of cruel techniques and for breaking the law?

It is becoming more and more obvious that the previous administration directed their Justice Department lawyers to re-write the "rules of engagement" for allowing the CIA interrogators to break the law and torture detainees. Even today, when talking to Muslim insurgents that were captured in Iraq and Afghanistan, they admit that the Bush Administration´s past attitude toward Waterboarding, torture and the pictures from the cruel treatment at Abu Ghraib Prison were the best insurgent recruiting tools. This was for both the al Qaeda in the middle east and in other parts of the world. (And it must be noted that the Muslims are the fastest growing religious & cultural group in the world.)

So, are we safer than we were after America stopped the torture? Probably not, but is safety the real issue?

When one looks at the problem, what came from the 9/11 attack was just proof that a small group of individuals, that decide to take on a major terrorist effort with no concern for their own safety, can be successful. So, how do you make yourself safe from that kind of threat? Had the Bush Administration taken the warnings serious about Osama bin Laden possibly attacking inside America, perhaps we would have prevented the attack, but even that´s not very likely. At least, not back then, as America as a nation was not prepared for that kind of attack.

What is more important is that, as with the Israelis, we now need to stay diligent in our information gathering efforts while not straying from our basic values of fairness and justice. We also need to stop providing positive recruiting tools for the enemy and we need to show we are a much better people than what the Muslim zealots continue preaching to their own people.

Unfortunately, since the Muslim extremists feel that the Muslim faith is the only religion there should be on earth, it´s probably irrelevant as to what we or any other non-Muslims do or say anyway.

With that in mind, we just need to keep our eyes and ears open, our alert systems always up-to-date, our intelligence efforts always on-line and our defenses always set on stand-by. But we must also continue to support our American value system, regardless of what the enemy does, or tries to do.

We must also strive to never again sink to their level of dishonesty and cruelty.

Copyright G.Ater 2009

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