There is an elephant in the room when it comes to enhanced interrogation techniques, or - as some like to call it - torture. One question I haven’t heard anyone ask, until today, is: what if they detained Osama Bin Laden, and he wasn’t talking? I suppose the media won’t ask the question because President Obama may have to answer it, and the American people won’t like what they hear.
Americans should be clear on what Obama has done. In a breathtaking display of self-righteousness and intellectual arrogance, the president told Americans that his personal beliefs are more important than protecting their country, their homes and their families. The interrogation techniques in question, the president asserted, are a sign that Americans have lost their “moral compass,” a compliment similar to Attorney General Eric Holder’s identifying them as “moral cowards.” Mulling Obama’s claim, one can wonder what could be more moral for a president than doing all that is needed to defend America and its citizens? Or, asked another way, is it moral for the president of the United States to abandon intelligence tools that have saved the lives and property of Americans and their allies in favor of his own ideological beliefs?
I’ll say it again, ignorance is bliss, at least for a while.
So if the above worst-case scenario ever comes to pass, Americans will have at least two things from which to take solace, even after the loss of major cities and tens of thousands of countrymen. First, they will know that their president believes that those losses are a small price to pay for stopping interrogations and making foreign peoples like us more. And second, they will see Osama bin Laden’s shy smile turn into a calm and beautiful God-is-Great grin.
Let’s hope we avoid the worst case scenario. But hoping for the best is hardly sound national security policy.
Recent Comments