Enough Already!

I have wanted to publish a post about Guantanamo and the "torturing" of detainees for some time; I had backed off because the issue seemed to have (finally) gone away. But the latest announcement that Eric Holder intends to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and potentially prosecute CIA interrogators has finally generated the steam to blow my lid off.

Where to start? With the numerous Marines that I have heard interviewed who said that the detainees lived better than their guards and that interrogations would be halted to allow them to say their 5-times daily prayers? How about the fact that former CIA director George Tenet said that enhanced interrogation techniques produced more useful intelligence than all other sources combined? Does it even matter that some of those who were interrogated were the masterminds of an attack on America that killed over 3,000 innocent people?

What is "torture"? If we perform the same techniques on our own people at SERE school is it really torture? If there are a doctor and a psychologist present at all times to protect the well-being of the detainee is it really torture? I suspect that the victims of the Japanese before and during WWII, the Nazis, and Saddam Hussien and his brutal sons, among others, would skoff at the notion that anything we did to any of these detainees amounted to more than a minor inconvenience. You were probably fortunate if any of the above killed you outright if you got on their bad side. Assuming you can find anyone alive who survived capture by the Nazis aiding the French Resistance; or the Bataan Death March; or one of Hussien's torture rooms, ask them their opinion of the "torture" at Guantanamo.

If you want a glimps of REAL torture, watch a movie like Body Of Lies or Taken, or read an account of the treatment of the Iraqi National Soccer Team under Saddam's regime. Or, if you can stomach it, find an internet video of the terrorists beheading a terrified Westerner.

Why are there people in this country who's main purpose seems to be to villify their country and it's security agencies? To "take down" the CIA? I know that paranoia and conspiracy theories abound (The U.S. Govenment blew up the World Trade Center!!), but are the lunatics really running the asylum?

So now Eric Holder, who recommended the pardon of the truly evil Marc Rich, wants to prosecute CIA personnel and members of the Bush Administration? The Democrats should beware - prosecuting members of the previous administration over political disagreement is a slippery slope. The fact that this is a diversionary tactic intended to appease the radical Left and shift attention away from National Health Care makes it all the more despicable.