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U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations (washingtonpost.com)
In the multifaceted global war on terrorism waged by the Bush administration, one of the most opaque -- yet vital -- fronts is the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects.
This is a good article, but my initial response to it is "Yeah, so?"
It's important to remember who these people are (Al Qaeda operatives - aka terrorists - and Taliban commanders) and why we are after them to begin with. These aren't just ordinary people, or even regular soldiers. These are very evil people. We need their information to stop other very evil people from killing again and again, all over the world. Where will the next attack be? Paris? Berlin?
I suppose that the human rights organizations would be happier if we put the "detainees" up in the Ritz Carlton and politely interviewed them. "So, Mr. Mohammed ben Abdul al Raoul, do you wish to tell us anything today?" "Never, you American pig!" "Very well. I'll see you tomorrow. May I get you any refreshments before I leave?"
While the U.S. government publicly denounces the use of torture, each of the current national security officials interviewed for this article defended the use of violence against captives as just and necessary. They expressed confidence that the American public would back their view.
They have my backing, anyway. I am glad that we have people willing to do horrific things in order to protect innocent lives like the thousands that have died at terrorists' hands in New York, Washington DC, Bali, Kenya, and all the other places that have been attacked in the past few years. If we get our hands dirty in the process, then I'm not going to sanctimoniously denounce the fine men and women protecting the rest of us.
[Update 12/30: My response to Jonathan's comments is here.]
Posted by Robert at December 26, 2002 08:58 AM | TrackBackI'm not quite sure what right the US military think they have in torturing Al-Qaeda leaders, but what they are hoping to achieve is probably the more important question. Can anything apart from sado massochistic pleasure be achieved by torturing people that you have already arrested and placed in high security units anyway? Given the fact that half these people haven't been granted their human right of a proper trial yet, is it really necessary to lock them up and torture them? Granted, some of them have probably done lots of nasty things, but do the US government really want to add unecessary torture to their already weighty list of moral sins (ie. bombing developing countries, refusing to care for their environment, supporting Sharon, fiddling the elections, bombing developing countries, bombing developing countries, bombing more developing countries, etc.)?
Posted by: Hannah Laura on January 8, 2003 01:52 PMwhat they are hoping to achieve is probably the more important question
I think what they are trying to achieve is to get answers to questions. Questions such as "What other attacks are you planning?" "Where can we find other al-Qaeda members?" "Where does your funding come from?" This "torture" is in the context of interrogations. It's not punitive.