Opportunism At Its Finest: Democrats on Torture

The debate over torture, or the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) has reached almost comedic proportions. For months that have stretched into years, Democrats and the American Left has absolutely vilified the Bush administration and its hardworking intelligence officials for participation in such acts. Only now is the truth beginning to come out. Not only did Democrats know about these EITs, they implicitly approved of its use. Now they are calling it illegal forms of torture and threatening investigations, and worse, prosecutions. The outrage is beginning to sound an awful lot like hypocrisy.

This is certainly not a comfortable topic to discuss. No one likes torture. But then, no one is advocating a position of pro-torture. The argument has never been that torture is good and should be used more frequently. The argument is that EITs are sometimes required, dirty as they may be, in times of dire circumstances. It is unbelievably naive to think that we may never be required to do that which is unpalatable. In life, sometimes we are required to do things that we would rather not have to do, but in order to ensure our survival and our livelihood, we must be willing to do what is necessary against an evil segment of a peaceful religion the likes of which we have never seen. This is not to say that we do anything that is necessary. We weigh the benefits against the costs; the gain against the loss; the fairness; the justness.

This should be done in an open and fair discussion so that a position can be developed and this is exactly what the Bush administration had tried to engage in by developing cohesive legal opinions on the these policies and briefing Congressional leaders on them as far back as 2002. When one raises a position and is unchallenged by their opponents, the only conclusion that one can come to is that they agree. This is what Congressional Democrats left the administration with in these early days of a post-9/11 world, until they decided to pull the rug out from under the administration.

Now for the hypocrisy. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has recently railed against the Bush administration for their participation and legal justification for these EIT policies, even going so far as threatening to investigate and, if she deems appropriate, prosecute egregious offenses. This is all quite ironic considering the fact that she has been aware of and, by her silence, complicit in such methods since 2002.

Speaker Pelosi was told at the 2002 briefing about the use of the EITs and "on a bipartisan basis, asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission" according to former Rep Porter Goss who was also a part of the briefing. This account is supported by CIA sources who say Speaker Pelosi "questioned whether we were doing enough" to extract information.

There's more. Not only was she informed about the administrations position on EITs, she was also, according to Obama administration officials, informed of its specific application to a named detainee. On May 5, CIA Director Panetta, in a report to Congress, testified regarding the CIA's meeting with Speaker Pelosi calling it a "Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on [legal] authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed." This is the exact thing that she had denied knowledge of. How convenient. I'm glad the CIA writes things down at least.

Her defense has taken a variety of turns, beginning with the assertion that she did not recollect that meeting at all. Once that was debunked, she stated that, "I can say flat-out, they never told us that these enhanced interrogations were being used." After more sources came forward, including aides from the Speaker's own office and the Panetta report referenced above, her story changed again, morphing into a claim that she was powerless to act.

Powerless? The most powerful person in the House of Representatives is claiming that the Speaker of the House is powerless? Now THAT is a revelation. Granted, she was not the Speaker in 2002, but she was still the most powerful individual in Congress for the Democratic Party. Now I think if I were one of her constituents, I would ask for my money back. How can someone that is elected to such a high office claim that she was powerless to even present a contrarian viewpoint? No one is asking her to physically go out to secret CIA prisons and confront agents face to face and go Jack Bauer on them. She was simply to state her opinion. If she is too scared or weak to do that, as a citizen, I would remove her from office. How can someone like this be trusted with the responsibility of advocating for me if she cannot effectively advocate for herself?

As recently as today, she has changed her story once again, saying that the CIA was dishonest and withheld information from her in their briefings. Even this argument however does not exonerate her from her responsibility as an elected government official to speak for what she believes in.

Do I believe any of Speaker Pelosi's explanation for her actions? I do not. It barely passes the laugh test. She wasn't afraid or powerless; she has been proven to have attended the meetings and even if the CIA withheld information, she had enough to understand the proposals and object if she saw fit. The problem is that she agreed with the President that he should do what was necessary. Ironically, in 2002 she actually asked the CIA if there was more that they could do. She advocated for more enhanced interrogation techniques. Does that sound like the request of someone who fundamentally believes that we were engaging in torture? The heinous part is that, in a quite stunning display of opportunism, she only changed her position when it became politically expedient to do so; when she saw a wave of public opinion that she could capitalize on to hurt the Republicans. How dishonorable.

This week more has come out. Senator Schumer is quoted as saying:

"We ought to be reasonable about this. I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake.....If we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believed that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most senators, maybe all, would say, Do what you have to do."

Does Speaker Pelosi think Sen. Schumer is unfit for office? Should he be investigated too?

I know that this is a controversial issue and one that should be discussed with the full breadth of openness and reason. What I cannot understand and do not subscribe to is the vitriolic, self-righteous condemnation of Democrats who are as complicit as anyone else in the Bush administration with regard to the policies that were developed and employed in a post-9/11 world. I know there is hatred for President Bush that has permeated not only our government but our society as a whole, some justified, some over the top. But this is not a justifiable reason for the shape that this debate has taken on. I am all for a lively and honest debate of relevant issues, but do not come to me with your fake outrage. Honestly, should we expect anything less from our elected officials on both sides of the aisle?