It’s not a likable word. It’s not a likable thing!
— Sir Thomas More, A Man For All Seasons
Much ado is being made of the Senate Democrats playing politics with a redacted report while the House is grilling Obamacare booster Jonathan Gruber the CIA’s role using “enhanced interrogation techniques” between 2002 and 2009. These EITs were reviewed by individuals such as Senator Feinstein in 2002 in the shadow of 9/11 and deemed responsible, adequate, and just at a time when American lives presumably hung in the balance.
As we’ve moved from that shadow, so too have the goalposts.
What the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee have sadly succeeded in doing is politicizing a discussion on whether or not EITs were indeed torture — sleep deprivation on one end of the spectrum; waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks) 183 times on the other.
Let’s be up front about this. Two very separate issues are at stake here.
(1) Torture is wrong. Period. This is not for discussion… which is why it is so absolutely necessary for the Senate Democrats to conflate torture into the second item (i.e. bigotry and defense of family come to mind… more later). Deacon Greg Kandra over at Patheos summarizes this in a series of quotations from other sources worth reading. Torture, much like terrorism, is an intrinsically evil act.
(2) The Senate Democrats politicized a discussion where over 90% of the information is being withheld from the American public. To my mind, that is morally reprehensible. This is not a topic that should be cheaply politicized in a lame duck session by the outgoing party to hang around the necks of the opposition. We owed it to ourselves to have a rational conversation about what constitutes torture, what led Feinstein and others in 2002 to condone EITs, and what led them back.
Now we won’t have that conversation, because the opportunity to have it was stolen from us. The CIA vociferously claims EITs saved lives, even while apologizing for using the techniques. Secretary of State John Kerry begged the Senate Democrats not to release the redacted report. Former CIA operatives insist that half the story was told.
Will we ever know the truth at this rate? The circumstances that will allow us to ensure this will never happen again? The answer today is sadly no — the American public is now choosing sides based on political affiliation, just as the Senate Democrats wanted. An opportunity to become better as a society is burnt up by the Senate Democrats for short term political advantage.
Frankly, that angers me. I’m sure it angers you as well.
We were cheated — and that is a shame.
