https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/05/31/offstage/feed/PJ Media is a leading news site covering culture, politics, faith, homeland security, and more. Our reporters and columnists provide original, in-depth analysis from a variety of perspectives.en-usThu, 11 Jun 2026 04:09:09 -0400<![CDATA[As readers of this site know, I&#8217;ve long argued that one of the historical reasons that the US attempted to take custody of terrorism suspects after 9/11 was to avoid having to rely on bad intelligence provided by foreign intelligence agencies using unbridled methods of interrogation. I&#8217;ve maintained that the political push to bring terror suspects into the criminal system and/or close down prisons like Guantanamo Bay would mean a reversion to reliance on rendition; and while that provided the appearance of humanitarianism, in practice it was neither humane nor intelligent. It moved the interrogation process offshore, beyond the legal responsibility of the United States. But that merely moved things behind the curtain and once again returned poor intelligence without any gain in moral stature. In the absence of the political will to take responsibility for either challenging the existing protocols on coercive interrogation in order to keep up appearances or simply accepting the risks that might attend a self-restriction on interrogation techniques, policymakers have resorted to subterfuge to try and have it both ways. They&#8217;ve employed weasel phrases like &#8220;a false choice&#8221; to imply that there were no tradeoffs, no hard decisions that had to be made; or they have simply redescribed former practices with other words to produce the desired cosmetic and technically legal result. But the dilemma remains the same: to keep their jobs the politicians have know they must prevent another mass terror attack on American soil, but to keep their jobs they decided to lie about how they had to do it. Nancy Pelosi was perhaps the most egregious example, but she was by no means alone.]]>Sun, 31 May 2009 19:20:54 -0400<![CDATA[Richard Fernandez]]>https://pjmedia.com/richard-fernandez/2009/05/31/offstage-n188379