Torture at Guantanamo
I think the recent debate about whether US officials in the Bush administration should be held accountable for using what some call "torture at Guantanamo" is led by fools.
If your children were in danger and you needed a disarm code to save them, what would you do to extract the code from a prisoner? Would you draw the line at water boarding? Of course not. So why should we expect any less from those who are charged with protecting us AND our children?
We aren’t referring to uniformed combatants here, covered by the Geneva convention. We’re talking about fanatics and terrorists. The kind of people who blew up the World Trade Center, the London Subway and the Madrid Train to name only a few. The kind of people who plan on blowing up more people and places in the future.
Do I object to torture? Yes. Do I object to the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, including women and children, in their offices, schools, and homes? Absolutely. And if I have to choose between the two, my choice is simple. I would readily allow the water boarding of one man to potentially save many.
That is not being unusually cruel. That is protecting my people. Innocent people. So let’s stop this nonsense.
When you have competing evils, it is not wrong to choose the lesser of the two.