Krauthammer has a good article on the hypocrisy of those eager to gin up anger over supposed torture when they knew exactly what we were doing and approved heartily. Did these leaders raise objections at the time?
On the contrary, notes Porter Goss, then chairman of the House intelligence committee: The members briefed on these techniques did not just refrain from objecting, "on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda."
More support, mind you. Which makes the current spectacle of self-righteous condemnation not just cowardly but hollow. It is one thing to have disagreed at the time and said so. It is utterly contemptible, however, to have been silent then and to rise now "on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009" (the words are Blair's) to excoriate those who kept us safe these harrowing last eight years.
When al Qaeda hits us at home again, the responsibility for the crime will of course be lie with the terrorists who kill our people. But the failure to take the threat seriously, relying on "good cop, good cop" routines and the soothing balms of hope and change based on our president's middle name, will fall squarely on our administration's shoulders. We already know why the hate us. The question will be why didn't we believe them--and take action to fight them.
And then our civil liberties will be curtailed dramatically by this administration, in a desperate bid to bar the door after the horse has fled the barn. I've written many times, our civil liberties depend on taking the fight to the enemy and defeating them:
[Our] civil liberties do require going on the offensive to crush the terrorists and to defeat the states and ideologies that motivate those thugs. If our war on terror drags on for decades on end and we sit on the defensive, crafting new laws and trying to build an impregnible defense against small groups of attackers, our civil liberties will erode until freedom is but a dream. For a perfect defense is impossible. Enemies will get through and kill large numbers of us. And after each attack, the public will demand our government protect them through ever harsher laws.
We need to seriously address what we need to do to defend ourselves. The so-called torture debate is just an exercise in preening after we've used those tactics to keep our country safe. Some see no relationship between our actions and our safety. Sadly, we're not having a debate on torture. We're just self flagellating and calling it morality.
I'd love a debate on torture. And let's have it before we wake up to another mass casualty attack on our shores. And before our freedoms really are trampled on, as opposed to the faux Bushtatorship that the Left insisted we endured the last 8 years.
The administration has total responsibility for our safety now. Hold them responsible.
