I confess that I have dreaded the revealing of the interrogation techniques used by CIA and military interrogators - always refered to as “torture” - by the liberal left.
I fully expected a pantheon of horrors, worse even than the shameful behavior at Abu Ghraib: finger and toe nails ripped out; digits and limbs dislocated; body burns from cigarettes or soldering irons; hands, skulls and kneecaps run through with electric drills; testicles scarred by electric terminals and perhaps even the severing of limbs - hands, feet or heads sawed off while the victim still lived.
But, to my great relief, those ghastly activities remain the provence of our real enemies: terrorists and warlords in the Middle East and Asia, and drug cartels south of our borders.
What then, is it, that has the left, liberals, some democrats and the ACLU chomping at the bit?
What criminal horrors were visited on captured terrorists by America’s interrogators?
Leaving aside the yet to be uncovered procedures used by foreign interrogators in places like Poland and Egypt - professionals hired to question terrorists secretly transported by the Clinton Administration during his Rendition program - we now know what our own people did during the Bush years.
As revealed thus far, prisoners were threatened with unloaded pistols held to their heads. Some were shown electric drills, but never touched by them. At least one was subjected to a theatrical ‘execution’ in an adjoining room. Several were told that their daughters or mothers would be raped before thier eyes. Routinely, suspects were body-slammed against a special flexible wall; always with a rolled towel behind the neck to prevent real injury. Pressure on the carotid artery would be applied to make prisoners pass out.
In other words, terrorist prisoners were almost always subjected by our CIA and military to intense psychological stress. Intensly unpleasant but devoid of physical trauma.
I suspect many people are going to say, “That’s it?”
I know that our enemies in foreign places will gain valuable insight into how to train their fanatic agents to better withstand our brand of “torture”.
The Left? They will gain another minute in the sun, another Bush-Bogeyman diversion, while real people - our clandestine, dedicated agents - will find themselves facing the real torture of congressional hearings and shattering headlines intended to divert America’s attention and leading inevitably to the ruination of their lives and careers.
No one - right or left - can be naive about the timing of this “investigation”. Much of the Obama administration’s programs and popularity is unravelling. Public displeasure is palpable and measurable. A protracted inquisition dredging up the Iraq War again could well linger into 2010… an election year… and benefit nervous democrats.
Barring more shocking revelations, the American people are far more likely to see this media circus for what it is - a cynical effort to resurrect the Bush demon and thus exorcise Obama’s own haunting problems.
Let the games begin!
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