Within 48 hours of being sworn in last week, President Barack Obama signed executive orders to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and ban torture of terror suspects.
These executive orders will do more to regain America’s moral high ground in the international community than one million US troops can do in either Iraq or Afghanistan. And this is the case notwithstanding the fact that some of the detainees released into foreign custody might well end up, as others have, launching new terrorist attacks against the United States.
Therefore, hail to the commander in chief for inaugurating the triumph of principle and courage over ideology and bravado.
Political correctness, moral relativism and cowardice have driven political leaders to absurd extremes to ensure plausible deniability (e.g. via renditions) even when torture is absolutely justified.
[Justified torture…, The iPINIONS Journal, April 21, 2005]
Nevertheless, it would be disingenuous of me not to note that Obama left enough wiggle room in his order on torture to allow “coercive interrogation” in exigent circumstances. But, given the politically correct notions of what constitutes torture, he is understandably loath to specify exactly what methods might be used to coerce terror suspects.
I have no doubt, however, that, like George W. Bush, he would approve the controversial waterboarding method if CIA interrogators insist that it’s the only way to extract information from a suspect to save American lives. And – for the reasons I delineated in a related commentary – rightly so!
All the same, nothing demonstrates Obama’s intent to fight global terrorism more with words than with bombs quite like his decision to grant his first media interview as president to the Arab television network Al Arabiya:
[M]y job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.
Related commentary:
What’s wrong with waterboarding if it saves lives
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