Barack Obama seems to agree with Michael. Obama just does it in such a nice way. Obama and his Democratic party have won, both the presidency and control of Congress as exemplified by the continuously embarrassing speakership of Nancy Pelosi in the House. Pelosi continues to insist that she is the only House member briefed on torture policy by the CIA during the Bush administration who was not told that it was happening. Pelosi's problem is that she has been insulated far too long in a weird congressional district that is geographically and socially apart from most of the rest of America.
Why do the Democrats insist on speaking in public about the prisoner and torture policy of Bush and Cheney after those two have left power? It's clear that Obama has no real plan for dealing with the war prisoners (I deliberately avoided the more specific phrase prisoners of war) who have been kept at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
More alarmingly Obama appears to be well defined by the Republican campaign phrase "dangerously naive". Nancy Pelosi is all that and delusional. Even Obama's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, implied this during the primary.
Especially irritating is the insinuation that Obama and those who agree with him are morally superior to those of us who are honest enough to admit that we understand the sad reality forced on us by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. There really is such a thing as evil and it cannot be fought exclusively by platitudes mistaken for our ideals.
Of course we oppose torture. We want our own prisoners of war to be treated according to the Geneva Conventions that the United States signed. The terrorists did not sign those or any agreements to behave in a civilized manner even in war. Most of us were embarrassed and concerned for members of the U.S. military when the prisoner abuses in Iraq came to light. We immediately thought of Senator John McCain who had been tortured as a prisoner in North Viet Nam forty years ago. We were concerned also because it seemed low level and pointless, torture just to torture. Americans oppose that.
However, we are realistic and any rational person can define circumstances in which torture would be used, not by sadistic criminals, but by reluctant citizens doing their duty to protect and defend the American people. To deny this is dishonest. Here are two examples.
1. Ticking time bomb. This has been presented by many others yet Obama and others continue to consider it an unrealistic example. It is a situation that calls for strict code of conduct to get information in an emergency to save lives. Suppose we capture Osama bin Laden and he tells us that his terrorists will begin a series of attacks on American civilians starting at noon the next day. Would President Obama authorize torture to make him divulge the information that could prevent those attacks? If this were all known and being covered by the media, would instant polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans approve torture in this specific case, not to punish bin Laden, but to get information that would save lives? How intense would the pressure be for President Obama to torture bin Laden after the first attack occured? After the second? The third?
2. Sasha, Obama's younger daughter, is kidnapped by four people, one of whom is captured. The world wide web soon begins to show a live web cam with the president's daughter and statements that body parts of the little girl would be cut off starting in one hour. Sasha is pleading: Daddy, please save me. How long would it take for Obama himself to torture the captured kidnapper to get the information to save Sasha?
Of course we have ideals. But we also deal with real world problems. Some of those problems cause conflict between our ideals and our actions. We can try to define circumstances when our ideals must be compromised, to limit the digression as best we can. Denying this dilemma does not help. It just makes for a more difficult time when the situation arises.
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