Enhanced Interrogations kept us safe.

My article as published in my school newspaper: http://tinyurl.com/EnhInt

National security concerns override personal feelings about methodology

Written by Colt Ables

THURSDAY, 23 APRIL 2009 03:27 PM

Apparently, the problem with “enhanced interrogations” is that they work. Regardless if you call the methods used by the CIA torture or enhanced interrogations, you have to admit that they aided in keeping America safe since September 11, 2001.  Last week, when President Obama ordered the release of top-secret memos that were passed from the White House Office of Legal Counsel to the CIA, people said we are less safe with these details coming to light.  Methods used range from face slapping and a technique called “walling” (throwing someone wearing a protective collar to prevent whiplash into a flexible wall), to the infamous water boarding. I bet the terrorists are relieved to know the methods that we would have used if they are captured. The real issue is about the information that wasn’t released. Much of the information from the memos that did not pertain to the methods used was blacked out. Marc Thiessen, former staffer in the Bush administration, remarked that much of what was blacked out in the memos actually pertained to the information obtained during the interrogations. In a report for The Washington Post, he cited information about a possible attack on the West Coast that involved flying a plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles. There was also information that led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said to have been the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Who’s to say the individuals would have cracked in another form of interrogation? But much of the information obtained provided intelligence that helped keep our nation safe.  Now those who provided counsel to President Bush could be in trouble and face prosecution due to a political witch hunt just to stifle the success and legacy of those who kept us safe. If the proposed methods weren’t used and planned attacks thwarted, who’s to say what the consequences would have been? If your mother, father, son or daughter’s life were in danger and you knew that someone had information that could save any of them, would you not use whatever means were necessary to ensure the safety of your loved one?  After Sept. 11, extreme measures were needed to ensure the safety of American citizens and, regardless of your feelings on the methods used, they worked. If you are one who wants to argue that “America’s image has been tainted” — if doing the popular thing at the expense of innocent American lives is your course of action, then what does that make you?