There is a lot of talk both about the memo concerning interrogation and the decision not to prosecute people involved during the last administration.
I’ve talked about both of these subject long before this stuff came out but I’ll repeat some of it.
As Legal Insurrection has pointed out the legal line was not crossed by the tactics used. The press and our friends on the left can be as angry as they want but the law says what it says.
Personally I think even if the line HAD been crossed the administration wouldn’t have gone to court. I explained it back in December but the key statements are worth repeating:
You can take this to the bank: Any successful attack on American soil during an Obama administration is going to be wholly owned by not only that administration but the Democratic party.
It won’t matter how diligent or responsible the administration has been. It won’t matter that they acted in good faith which any fair minded person must assume. It won’t matter if like Hornblower in Hornblower during the Crisis members of the current administration and people who understand how hard it is to be right every time rush to their defense. The public will remember who succeeded in protecting the country and who failed particularly if a major population center is successfully hit.
Any kind of trials will be drawn out affairs and would likely be still going on during a successful attack. How much worse will it be for those who failed to protect the country if those who succeeded in protecting the nation are on trial during their failure? Would they risk it? Would they even consider it? Considering the history of the president elect who has a history of avoiding risk I think not.
The moral case is more iffy. As I said before I think the legal standard has to be strict because any standard made will invariably be crossed, by keeping the rules tight and the punishments for crossing that line in place it assures the line will only be crossed in dire situations. The fact that only 3 subjects were waterboarded during the entire time of the debate suggests that the administration took the moral business seriously.
All of that being said I think the release of these memos are a security disaster. By spelling out what we were doing to a foe that we are currently at war with will not only allow our foes to counter train, but the comparison between our “harsh” tactics and our foes tactics will frankly re-assure our foes to hold out. This will make it much more likely that we will have to choose between:
Killing our foes outright, (no info)
Not using harsh techniques (no info)
Doing actual torture (info at a high cost)
I pray I’m wrong but between the release of this info, and the America was wrong tours all over the world I think we are going to embolden a lot of nasty people and cost lives. The narcissism of the “don’t blame me” business is also going to bite back.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 