The Reason for Op-Eds

Amazing juxtaposition of pieces in the Washington Post yesterday (10 December 2014).  After the release of the Senate Democrats' $40 million study into the use of enhanced interrogation tactics by the CIA following the 9/11 attacks, and the mournful ("Oh, how could we do this?") cries of Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Harry Reid and others, there was the following to be found in the Post:

(1) A banner headline announcing the release of the report
(2) Two carefully-selected letters to the editor supporting the report and castigating the CIA
(3) A lead editorial supporting the report
(4) A carefully written op-ed by John McLaughlin, former deputy director and interim director of the CIA, ripping the report into confetti and stuffing it up elegantly up the noses of the Senate staffers who wrote it.

Let us start with the fact that, while the report includes lots of interviews with the lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees, there were no interviews with any of the CIA directors or deputies from that era.  None.  As a result, the staffers, all to Democratic senators, were able to conclude what the lawyers for the detainees and others who were interviewed told them was true -- no one from "our" side (the ones, er, defending you and me) was interviewed to sat them nay.

Now we have the media out there crying how bad America is, and that we must never do this again, wah, wah, wah.  Well, there is a legitimate debate to be had as to what tactics an American intelligence-gathering effort should be allowed to use.  I grant that.  I personally think that when people fly passenger jets into our buildings and kill innocent Americans, their right not to have water dripped on them goes away, but we can discuss that.

What we can't debate is its effectiveness.  Sen. Feinstein made a tortured (sorry) attempt to parse her words to make it sound like all that nasty treatment of terrorist murderers didn't even accomplish anything.  That, my friends, is what Mr. McLaughlin took issue with.

In his op-ed, he went point by point down several major highlights of where our interrogation of terrorists had prevented attacks on this country and our citizens, from averting air attacks on the west coast to the capture and execution of Osama bin Laden.  Since he was in the middle of it, McLaughlin has a tad more credibility than the Senate staffers who couldn't be bothered to talk to him themselves.  Nothing I write here will be as compelling as Mr. McLaughlin's piece, even though he was constrained for security reasons from getting too detailed in spots.

Facts are facts, despite Sen. Feinstein; and the USA's gradual understanding of the Democrats' unwillingness to accept them is one reason she will no longer be a committee chairman come 1 January.  For all its posturing and attempts to support the Democrats' point of view with banners and lead editorials, the Post's acceptance of the "it wasn't even effective" narrative is a mistake.

Our interrogation worked.  If you don't believe that terrorists and murderers should be physically prompted for information that saves innocent Americans, sure, let's have that debate.  But keep the facts in front of you.  Terrorists, like the bully, convenience store robber and police-officer assailant Michael Brown in Ferguson, are accountable for the natural consequences of their actions.

That's why we have op-eds.

Copyright 2014 by Robert Sutton