Waterboarding: The Best Defense

Okay, we've moved the ball a little bit on the subject of waterboarding. After an unseemly period of dodges and feints adding up to "We don't torture, so whatever we do isn't torture", CIA Chief Michael Hayden told a Senate committee on Tuesday that his agency had, indeed, used the "enhanced interrogation" practice on three detainees over a two-year period. But he had an excuse for this practice, which historically the United States had treated as a war crime when it was practiced by others:

"We used it against these three detainees because of the circumstances at the time," Hayden said. "There was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were inevitable. And we had limited knowledge about al-Qaida and its workings. Those two realities have changed."

So, the only reason we utilized a technique which we used to define as a war crime is because we thought we needed to. That defense is as rock-solid as that attributed to Willie Sutton when asked after his capture why he robbed banks: "because that's where the money is."

Comments

[fogbreath]

from the look of things, this already has gone down the memory hole.
a post with four(now five) comments surrounded by two with over sixty each.

[fogbreath]

just think, if the cia had waterboarded them a few more times they could have gotten them to confess to the lindberg kidnapping.
that would have solved an old mystery.
the islamofascists were probably behind the dissappearance of judge crater as well.

[LittleBrother]

Another pithy variation of this defense is, "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

The other shoe, though, is even more reprehensible and deplorable-- the prevailing response is, "Well, OK then!"

We the People, or at least a yahoo plurality, can't face the fact that the cabal of plutocrats in the Executive Office, and their enablers and supporters in the now-lesser branches of the federal government, are really, truly war criminals.

Instead of a roar of outrage from coast to coast, there is only a susurrus of throat-clearing, harrumphs, and muttered bumper-sticker rationalizations: "It's like an episode of '24'!"; "We gotta trust our leaders-- they know more than WE do!"; "Big deal! They oughta waterboard 'em all! Don't you know that the Islamofascist hordes are upon us?"

There is no end of speechifying, even elegant oratory, from the political class-- especially the candidates. But no one's passionately denouncing these heinous crimes. And trust me, if either the two anointed Democrats or, God help us, the revenant Maverick reaches the Oval Office, all of this goes right down the Memory Hole.

[LeftRight]

Yeah, I heard that on NPR yesterday. I'm gonna call B-S on this one. Only used 3 times? Just cause we didn't know any better? and We aren't doing it any more?

None of these add up!