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Define Torture To Protect Nation And Its Defenders

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 13, 2009

In one of the first acts of his presidency, Barack Obama fulfilled a campaign promise and reversed the most disputed counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration. He signed executive orders closing the Guantanamo detention camp within a year, ending the CIA's secret prisons and requiring interrogators to use only methods prescribed in the Army Field Manual.

Before assuming office, the president said he thought that waterboarding, the interrogation method that simulates drowning and was used on at least three terrorists during the Bush years, is torture and illegal. His attorney general and CIA director have since said the same. Others disagree, asserting that a technique that causes no lasting harm should not be considered torture.

Congress should spell out whether waterboarding and other rough interrogation methods amount to torture. The skilled interrogators trained to retrieve information meant to protect Americans should not have to put themselves at risk of breaking the law.

But Congress is unlikely to do it, because, as Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn points out, an imprecise definition "allows members to take a pass on defining the law while reserving the right to second-guess the poor souls on the front lines who actually have to make decisions about what the law means."

It's possible that with Obama's executive orders we've heard the last discussion of torture for a while. But without a more precise definition, the debate over interrogation techniques will eventually be revived.

Plus the president, who reads intelligence assessments every day, has appointed a task force to decide whether the CIA should have a broader arsenal of interrogation methods.

The truth is most people don't really want to know what the CIA is doing to protect them, even though they find the notion that American intelligence officers or soldiers would use torture to extract information disturbing. No one is publicly supportive of techniques that would kill, maim or permanently injure. But few would likely object if harsh tactics were used to prevent another Sept. 11.

Some people justify extreme interrogation techniques because our worst enemies today claim no allegiance to any army or country and have pledged to kill Americans.

Yet others say the very idea that American interrogators would torture deprives the nation of its moral authority, spreads terrorist rage and drives our enemies to treat American prisoners with the same disregard. There is something to be said for both views.

Context and circumstances are crucial. Are we really valuing human life if we risk 10,000 to save one from waterboarding? Survival, after all, is an American value; security is a governmental imperative.

The debate over torture has been distorted. This country does not condone torture or approve of extreme interrogation techniques as a usual method of conducting business. Indeed, it's an American value to not gratuitously hurt anyone. But it's also an American value to protect the innocent from ruthless killers.

Our guardians on the front lines of the war on terrorism need guidance and support, not self-righteous political posturing. It's time Congress had the courage to define exactly what it considers torture.

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