The Bushies And Enhanced Interrogation

by John Hawkins | April 14, 2008 7:30 am

The Left is still buzzing over this story[1], which broke last week,

U.S. President George W. Bush’s most senior advisers approved “enhanced interrogation techniques” of top al Qaeda suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency, ABC News reported on Wednesday, citing sources it did not name.

ABC reported that the so-called “principals” discussed interrogation details in dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House.

Then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by a select group of senior officials or their deputies, ABC said.

“Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding,” ABC reported.

In addition to Rice, the principals at the time included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the report said.

Just to clear a few things up, it’s unknown whether this story is true or not, since it’s based on unnamed sources, but even if it is, this story isn’t troubling because…

#1) Neither slapping, pushing, sleep deprivation, nor water boarding constitutes “torture.” Moreover, the idea that we’ve used these techniques on the terrorists we have confined at Gitmo isn’t the least bit disturbing, especially given that the enemy is murdering our captured troops with power tools.

#2) Foreigners held at Gitmo have no constitutional rights and absolutely do not belong in our legal system. Quite frankly, I’d rather line them all up and shoot them rather than bring them back to the US and give them lawyers — which incidentally, is exactly what we often did to non-uniformed combatants who attacked our troops during WW2.

#3) The Left can pout that we’re being “too mean” to terrorists who want to murder Americans all day long and the only thing it will do is enforce the stereotype — which is absolutely correct by the way — that the average liberal is far more sympathetic to members of Al-Qaeda than the Americans they’ve murdered or, as they’re known in liberal parlance, “Little Eichmanns.”