Recently, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to talk about the issue of waterboarding. As defined in one article, “Waterboarding simulates drowning though forced inhalation of water into the lungs and nasal passages.” The concept and practice of torture is a tremendously complex issue. While I tackle it I will be respectful as I can towards those on the opposite end of my argument. Just know that these opinions are strongly held and grounded in logic and reality. I support “aggressive interrogation” as well as the next step of torture of those who fight for the Jihad that is threatening our civilization. I shall explain below.
The word “torture” obviously has negative connotations, and for good reason. The act of torture has been used for thousands of years, typically by the forces of evil to indulge in their own desire to cause pain and suffering in others. The arguments against aggressive interrogation tactics and torture are typically the following:
(1) Morally Wrong
(2) We must not become what we are fighting against. If we do, then our enemy has won.
(3) Torture does not work
I will deal with these arguments one at a time.
MORALLY WRONG
As a general rule, I believe torture is morally wrong and is evil. Hence my outrage at the atrocities perpetuated by Islamic Fascists, Middle Eastern dictatorships, African dictatorships, Asian dictatorships, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, Communist China, North Korea, etc. The above governments torture and suppressed and continue to torture and suppress to do nothing more than expand and cement their hold on personal power, which they desire to hold at all costs. In lesser categories are countries like Venezuela and modern day Russia, where dissent is punished and controlled by en masse arrests.
When the United States tortured or aggressively interrogated (there is a difference, which I will explain) during the Cold War and the current war with Islamic Fascism, more often than not the greater good was the end goal. That it is a key difference between “us” and “them”. We use torture as a last resort when our backs are up against the wall; our enemies use it as their weapon of choice. They revel in causing pain and making their victim beg for a quick end to their suffering. Such an attitude is pure evil and must be treated as such.That said, when a country is facing a foe that recognizes no international law, the Geneva Convention, or even basic laws of human dignity, we cannot lose in our fight to them. This sets up my next argument.
FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE – USING YOUR ENEMIES TACTICS
Throughout the years of military conflicts, there has been an underlying sense of what is honorable in battle and what is not. I have often found this “honor” system interesting to study from a psychological standpoint; you could have generals, who without hesitation would order the sacking and burning of a city, decree the use of certain military tactics as “dishonorable”. For example, a large reason behind the dominance of the English in the Medieval Ages was the longbowmen. Massed bowmen, firing a powerful bow equipped with armor piercing tip, decimated all before them.
The French, among others, found this advantage to be “dishonorable” (mainly because they were on the losing end) and complained about dishonor of the English. The French took their frustrations out on captured English longbowmen, going as far as mutilation before summarily executing them.
Another example is the treatment of saboteurs; for the sake of being brief I’ll confine this to World War II. Agents of espionage were treated harshly; they were pumped for intelligence and then executed. Their “line of work” was viewed as more “dishonorable” than that of the ordinary soldier.But, I’ll lay out a scenario. A saboteur has a mission to destroy a damn; if the damn is destroyed, the valley will flood and the munitions and arms plants and surrounding town will be destroyed. He is caught and executed. Bomber pilots are ordered to destroy the same damn, which will achieve the same results. A bomber pilot is shot down while taking part in the mission, yet he is treated according to the Geneva Conventions. Do you see what I mean?
My point in all this is that we need to get away from antiquated and false notions of what constitutes honor, particularly in the no holds bar war we are currently fighting. Do not mistake me. I believe in “real” honor, so to speak and I believe in the need to wage war as morally as possible. But I also realize that some circumstance require that you must fight fire with fire. We can do that without becoming what we are fighting. Let me explain.
Some people believe that there is no difference between an air strike performed using an aircraft/drone and a suicide bomber. This is where real honor comes in. An air strike is a targeted attack on a specific individual, with the goal to kill the target and minimize civilians as much as possible. A suicide bomber has the opposite attitude. He/She has one thing on their mind and that is a body count; the more dead, the more maimed, the more shocked the better. They attack with they express purpose of killing, maiming, and putting fear into the hearts of as many innocent people as possible.
When facing an enemy that has no regard for their own life, much less any regard for innocent bystanders, our rules should become more flexible. Aggressive interrogation and torture should be options on the table for Jihadists captured alive, for several reasons. One, jihadist have the ability to inflict mass death and fear using few resources and a relatively small cell of individuals. Two, they do not value their own life and for the hardcore Jihadist, there is nothing you can offer them in return for their cooperation. They only wish for martyrdom in the name of Allah.
Three, due to the fact that so many Muslims are willing to commit suicide bombings against civilian populations, it could become politically popular (it already is in some countries) to give in to the demands of the Jihadists, rather than fight them. Capitulation would mean the end of Western Civilization as know it and Shar’ia would take the place of Western Law based on Christian-Judeo vales. To see some of what Shar’ia would entail for the non-Muslim, to say nothing of the oppression against women, see my column about Jihad.
Seeing what a bleak future that would be, we must realize that we cannot afford to lose against such a barbaric foe, for the cost of losing would result in greater evil than what we would commit to defend ourselves. Take the news that Al Qaida in Iraq used mentally retarded women as suicide bombers and detonated them by remote, or the video of children being used to make propaganda films. This level of evil in a foe means we cannot restrict ourselves to reading them their Miranda rights, or give them a fair trial. We must aggressively interrogate and yes, even torture and enemy this committed to out destruction. Just so we are clear, I am not advocating barbaric torture methods, but am certainly supporting such methods as waterboarding, which has made even Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the top Al Qaida masterminds of Jihad, talk.
Islamic Jihadists take “the end justifies the means” to its very limit, removing the caveats and restrictions that Machiavelli placed on his theory. Realizing this, we would do well to heed some of Machiavelli’s other words:
“There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others”
“One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”
“You must know there are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts; but because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second.”
“A prince must do his best to follow good, but when necessary he must know to follow evil”
TORTURE DOESN’T WORK
Another popular opinion is that torture doesn’t work. The people who peddle this theory could not be more wrong. I’m going to give just a sample list of the techniques our enemies (past and present) have used in war, than I shall list ours.
World War II – Imperial Japan
· Using civilians and POWs as bayonet practice. Individual would be tied to a stake, and then be stabbed repeatedly with a bayonet.
· Water Torture. A house is threaded down the victim’s throat, and the spigot turned on. As the stomach fills, it becomes distended. Japanese soldiers would use metal rods to beat the stomach until it ruptured.
· Cigarette burnings
· Beatings
· Mutilation
World War II – Nazi Germany
· Burnings
· Beatings
· Pulling Fingernails
· Various Form of Water Torture
World War II – Fascist Italy
· Sticking pins through men’s penises
· Burnings
· Beatings
· Various Forms of Water Torture
Jihad – Al Qaida in Iraq (to name one Jihadist Organization)
· Decapitation
· Mutilation
· Driving Nails through Joints
· Using a Power Drill on knees, elbow, hands, etc.
· Burnings
I skipped over Vietnam and the Korean War only because I have not studied those wars in great detail yet. But, we all have heard of the Hanoi Hilton, and such. Heck, I didn’t even cover the USSR or China. If you doubt my list, Google Al Qaida Torture Houses, read “The Day of Battle”, “1942”, “Flyboys”, “In the Shadows of War”, “The Burma Road”, and watch WWII documentaries. In all honesty, I can say that just reading through this last makes me afraid. I can honestly say that I would never have let myself been taken alive, had I been fighting any of the above foes our country has faced and continued to face. I can also assure that those methods did work on a good number of their victims.
Instead of torturing, the United States “aggressively interrogates”. Some of you may scoff and denounce it as double speak, but I ask you, what is the next worst thing the US has been accused of after waterboarding? Just sleep deprivation, playing loud music, sensory deprivation (which is physiological), and just sitting down and talking to people. Wow, we really are the bad guys aren’t we? So next time someone says the US is evil for suspending Habeas Corpus, for waterboarding, and for Guantanamo Bay, just keep in mind who the real bad guys are.
Mike Grant – Samnite Gladiator
