America Writhes in Indecisiveness Before the Enemy

This is from a conversation between MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell and Liz Cheney, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under President George W. Bush and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Cheney tries to explain to O’Donnell that the waterboarding that liberals are all a-huff about is something we often use on our own military forces during training.

We don’t torture our own troops, and if this is done on our own troops without it constituting torture, to do the same thing on a bloodthirsty terrorist intent on killing hundreds or thousands of innocent American civilians isn’t torture either.

(As I have attempted to explain to other America-loathing liberals, waterboarding does no physical damage, and as a former military member I have witnessed physical damage suffered during intense training that took weeks to heal…and it wasn’t torture either.)

Despite Cheney’s calm, clear, repeated attempts to get through to her, O’Donnell displays the finest in liberal media MSNBC obstinance and refuses to allow reason to sink into her Leftist skull.

L. CHENEY: What I’m saying that is there were a series of tactics, a series of techniques that had all been done to our own people. We did not torture our own people, these techniques are not torture. The memos laid out…

O’DONNELL: Did we torture other people?

L. CHENEY: No.

O’DONNELL: You just said, we did not torture our own people.

L. CHENEY: Therefore, the tactics are not torture. We did not torture. The memos laid out the extent of exactly how far we could go before it would become torture, because it was important we not cross that line into torture.

As General Hayden and Attorney General Mukasey laid out, the problem is that now we’ve said to our enemies, look, this is exactly how far we’re g going to go. So our enemies, who we know read this stuff online, will now train to be able to withstand that.

Now, setting that aside, this argument about the Geneva Conventions, in terms of the – you know, this idea that somehow al Qaeda abides by the Geneva Conventions. If al Qaeda captures an American, they cut his head off. So I think it’s very important for us to sort of take a step back from the emotion of this and say we needed to be able to get evidence about imminent attacks.

We knew these guys had information, the information that was provided saved American lives, and the techniques were not torture. And I think it’s important for the American people to be able to see the entire argument laid out.

As many people have pointed out to liberals ad nauseam, American forces don’t waterboard for fun.  We don’t torture and we don’t even subject terrorists to discomfort merely for kicks.

A recently released CIA memo reiterates the great restrictions placed on the use of waterboarding:

…used only in the interrogation of the detainees who are most likely to have critical, actionable intelligence…not used unless the CIA reasonably believes that the detainee is a “senior member of al-Qai’da or its affiliates” and the detainee has “knowledge of imminent terrorist threats against the USA” or has been directly involved in the planning of attacks…

…requiring “credible intelligence that a terrorist attack is imminent…substantial and credible indicators that the subject as actionable intelligence that can prevent, disrupt or delay this attack; and a determination that other interrogation methods have failed to elicit the information…and that other methods are unlikely to elicit this information within the perceived time limit for preventing the attack…

Sadly, it seems a number of liberals think we should offer terrorists cookies and soda pop as an enticement to provide life-saving information about imminent terrorist threats.  They think we can execute a war against a bloodthirsty, fanatical enemy who is bent on killing as many civilians as possible while using only pillows and harsh language.  

Unfortunately, this idiotic debate about waterboarding three terrorists may just be proving that Khalid Sheik Mohammed was right: that the general US population is ‘weak,’ lacks resilience, and is unable to ‘do what was necessary’ to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals.

We were once a people who had a well-honed moral compass. That compass was mounted on the foundation of the Christian worldview, which in turn springs from unchanging, transcendent moral values.

We have since abandoned that firm foundation for the uncertain, shifting sands of humanist speculation and utopian hope; it offers the facade of a freedom which allows us the sexual and moral autonomy we crave, but it comes at a terrible cost.  Part of that cost is that we can no longer clearly discern good from evil.  

Because of that moral myopia, we lack the strength of will to grapple decisively with evil.

Because of our atrophied sense of ethics, we don’t know how to be tough without being mean.  This goes all the way from properly disciplining a child, to effectively prosecuting a war with determination–something we had no qualms about in previous generations.

This atmosphere of moral ambiguity fosters an environment were we recoil from bad feelings; we don’t have a firm grasp on what’s right and what’s wrong, but we know we don’t like feeling bad because feeling bad vaguely reminds us of the feelings of guilt which normally accompany our immoral actions.

Our enemies, of couse, don’t like anything we do. So they say we are bad and our actions are bad, regardless of whether those actions really are…which produces vague unpleasant feelings in those who lack a solid moral foundation.

As a result, we will risk harm to the country in order to avoid the personal impact of those bad feelings.  After all, somewhere in the back of our minds we “reason” that it isn’t us who will pay the price if our cowardly avoidance of bad feelings bites us in the behind.  Some faceless person unknown to us will likely pay that price…and we can live with that.  All we care about is that we can continue avoiding those icky bad feelings and feel good about ourselves. 

That reticence, that paralysis of conviction led in great part to the vulnerability that allowed 911. As a people, we have once again cast aside what little moral conviction we gained in the post-911 days and have again placed our house on the sand.

Because of that, I gravely fear what the weeks, months and next few years may bring…

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