Last week, after President Obama laid a wreath in honor of the 9/11 victims at Ground Zero, he met with several family members of those who died on that dark day. One of those family members confronted the president and asked him whether he would now change his stance on enhanced interrogation of suspected terrorists. It was clear at that point that the information we gleaned from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during waterboarding helped lead us to bin Laden's courier, which in turn led us to bin Laden himself. Specifically, she wanted to know if the president would ask Eric Holder to stop investigating CIA agents who had carried out enhanced interrogation in compliance with the orders that were given to them. Obama responded with a curt "I won't" before turning his back on her and walking away.
Clearly, the president was not at all interested in having this discussion. And one could hardly blame him, since his position has now been shown to be indefensible. Moreover, he appears more hypocritical now than at any other time during his presidency. Considering how he has changed positions on everything from Gitmo to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to trying suspected terrorists in military tribunals, that is saying an awful lot.
Here is why he's hypocritical. He sent our most elite special forces unit into a sovereign country and gave the order that if any of them got a clear shot at bin Laden, they were to take it. There was no consideration of bin Laden's rights to due process, or whether he was unable to defend himself during the raid. Just do what you have to do to take him out, our president clearly stated.
On this, he was right. I applaud the president for finally showing some guts in battling radical Muslim terrorists. I actually gave him the benefit of the doubt and figured that he was finally coming to his senses. I thought he would set aside once and for all the insane views of the liberal moral elitists. You know, the ones who actually believe that this scum of the earth was entitled to due process. The ones who still insist that we as Americans are above carrying out these sorts of operations. The Michael Moores and Rosie O'Donnell's of the world. Those people.
But of course, I was wrong. For despite the fact that we have now seen firsthand what enhanced interrogation can do for us in the war on terror, Obama has made it clear that he will not change his stance on the issue. On this, he's decided to fall right back in line with the liberal moral elitists who say that it was wrong to place Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on a board and pour water over his face. This is a horrible practice that tramples on the rights of the terrorists and makes us look like barbarians, so they say.
Instead, they'd rather we sit down with bad guys like KSM and try to have a nice, civil conversation. Maybe we should serve cake and sing "kumbaya" while we're at it. Perhaps we can bribe them. Sure, why not give the terrorists millions of taxpayer dollars in this time of economic crisis so they can re-use that money to support terrorist acts against us. That makes sense. Or we can even follow Joy Behar's suggestion and offer them a book deal. Are you kidding me? If this isn't insanity, then I don't know what is.
The fact is that enhanced interrogation works. In this case it led us right to bin Laden, despite how the liberal politicians and pundits want to spin it. It is not the same as torture, though again that is what the liberals want us all to believe. I applaud Bill O'Reilly for calling out his own colleague, Juan Williams, on this issue. Williams continually made references to things like pulling out fingernails and poking eyes out when discussing enhanced interrogation. O'Reilly was quick to distinguish between these extreme tactics and the practice of waterboarding, and promptly put Williams in his place.
The CIA agents who Holder is currently investigating were merely carrying out their orders. President Bush, in collaboration with his security advisers, made the decision to waterboard the terrorists. The men who carried it out were only guilty of one thing: doing their jobs. If that's a crime, then there is something seriously wrong with our justice system.
I don't get myself too worked up over the ongoing investigation because I am quite certain that nothing will come of it. It will be nothing short of political suicide if Obama gives the go-ahead to prosecute these men. Skilled politician that he is, the president will never make that mistake. But what I do get worked up over is the fact that we are not currently using enhanced interrogation tactics, because it is putting the lives of Americans at risk.
I will never understand how anyone could place the welfare of suspected terrorists ahead of the safety of innocent Americans. But I suppose it's easy to do that when you didn't lose a loved one on 9/11. It's easy to think this way if one of your family members was not killed or maimed in Iraq or Afghanistan. It's all well and good as long as someone close to you isn't being held as a prisoner by Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Well, it's time for all of these people, especially our president, to wake up. There is no way that President Obama can look anyone in the eye and say that he wouldn't order enhanced interrogation on a suspect who had information on where one of his family members was being held. God forbid this should happen, but if the terrorists ever succeeded in kidnapping one of his daughters, he would order waterboarding in a heartbeat on a prisoner who we believed might have key information. But sad as it is, this may be the only way that he'll ever change his mind on enhanced interrogation. Until then, we'll have to live with whatever comes and dream of what could have been if we had only used waterboarding on the bad guys.
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