The original argument related to the conduct of warfare (including the treatment/questioning of captives) is made on the principal that both sides will abide by some code. We treat captives in the way we expect our people to be treated by the other side.
The nature of our current enemy (militant Islam) requires a rethinking of our policies. Our enemy tortures without objective. Their belief system tells them that slow beheadings and other savagery beyond our imagining are honorable for their own sake. They seem to take joy and pleasure in the activity. They video tape it to share with others. Our enemy targets woman, children, grade schools and shopping centers by design so as to inspire the greatest fear and revulsion. They almost never even attempt to win actual military victories – or to achieve negotiated settlement of demands/grievances. To them – the carnage itself is the point – not any hoped for objective from the carnage. They stage attacks from their own grade schools and shopping centers to take advantage of values we hold and they do not.
In all our other conflicts, our assumption has been that our opponent has been an honorable people at cross purposes with us. This is not the case with our current enemy. This is blind evil – for evil’s sake. If, to gain information from such people we need to administer “discomfort without actual harm” in a procedure such as waterboarding or the like, I say do it routinely. Our people in their hands experience much worse and our conduct (one way or the other) will have no effect on them at all.
Remember Daniel Pearl.
GDT
