CIA: We stand behind our actions — and the results

In past wars, it’s worked to our advantage that enemy soldiers knew they’d be treated well if they surrendered.

But there are going to be circumstances in which harsh interrogation is needed to save lives. And I’m glad I’m not the person who has to decide when/how that will work in practice.

jazz_piano on April 21, 2009 at 6:30 PM

Enemy SOLDIERS, yes. I haven’t seen any soldiers from al-Qaeda yet. Iraq had some, but they threw down their guns and stopped being soldiers when the American armed forces declared the beginning of combat operations. We let them pick up those guns and slink back into civilian areas to become terrorists. The occupation and reconstruction of Iraq would have gone much more smoothly if we had given them one last chance to surrender honorably, before the operation began… and then done them the honor of letting them die like soldiers, if they still carried Saddam’s flag when we came over the border.

Calling the vermin we’ve battled in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the skies over America on 9/11 “soldiers” is an insult to actual soldiers. Extending them the respect and consideration due to soldiers serving beneath a lawful flag makes a mockery of the honor true soldiers demonstrate to each other in a time of war. It turns the strength of civilization into a weakness, to be exploited. It cheapens the wisdom accumulated through thousands of years of war and peace-making in the West, and scoffs at the price true soldiers paid to acquire that wisdom on the fields of Ia Drang, Pork Chop Hill, Normandy, Verdun, Gettysburg, Agincourt, and hundreds of others.

In the Geneva Conventions, the West strove to express its resolution that war should be fought between professional soldiers beneath the flags of their nations, after every diplomatic alternative has been exhausted. The soldiers of all sides in the conflict deserve respect for their courage and honorable conduct. The lives of civilians are to be spared whenever possible. The rules of war exist to make sure neither side blunders into it unaware, and to keep the immense power of modern weapons from turning military conflict into indiscriminate carnage. True warriors don’t extend respectful and humane treatment to the soldiers of a lawful enemy because they hope this respect and humanity will be reciprocated. They do it because of who they are. They do it because they look across the firing line and see other men like themselves.

None of this applies to lawless barbarians who hide among civilians, target non-combatants deliberately, regard bloodshed as an objective in itself, and prey upon soft targets in their homes, or upon the high seas. We achieve no humanitarian ends by extending elaborate consideration to people who have renounced their own humanity. We spit on the honor of soldiers by treating animals as soldiers. We jeopardize innocent lives by allowing a barbaric enemy to believe that he will be treated like a rowdy hockey player – five for fighting, then back onto the field. We endanger our own civilization by extending its most refined notions of leniency to the enemies, not just of one nation, but of civilization itself… giving them every reason to calculate that the cost of attacking us might be considerably less than catastrophic to them.

We are now engaged in a long war against an enemy we have to defeat before they make each move. There’s no one to negotiate with, no one for Obama to bathe in his celebrated – but so far utterly useless and ineffective – diplomatic skills. There is no one to sign a peace treaty, or make restitution to civilians injured by collateral damage, or take responsibility for orders issued through a lawful chain of command.

I hope the CIA is even more cunning, subtle, and ruthless than liberals accuse it of being. I’ve heard it said that the fanatical murderers of radical Islam might be less eager for bloodshed if the Arab world had ever experienced its own Antietam, Guadalcanal, or Bastogne. If the CIA fails – if the American left makes it fail – the next stage in this conflict might finally bring them that experience. If we can spare the world that fate by throwing wet towels on the faces of a few slimeballs who surrendered their right to live when they entered battle without lawful flags and uniforms, we should do so.

Doctor Zero on April 21, 2009 at 8:49 PM