Opinion> Bill Oreilly> Truth Vs Ideology

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Truth vs. Ideology

Frustrating! That's the appropriate word for what is happening in the wake of the Osama bin Laden raid. Besides the precision of the Navy SEALs, the big story to emerge from the action is that coerced interrogation gave the CIA vital information used to track bin Laden to his lair. Current CIA Chief Leon Panetta has confirmed that.

Of course, that exposition is embarrassing to the left, including President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Clinton, who are all on record as saying coerced interrogation does not work. Apparently, they were wrong in a big way.

The nails-on-the-blackboard part of this story is that some liberal pundits are trying to deny the undeniable. The spin they are using is that a "mosaic" of intelligence led the CIA to bin Laden. It was not just waterboarding or whatever. To paraphrase Panetta: We'll never know if we could have gotten the same intel without the water.

That's true, but who cares? It is the duty of the federal government to protect Americans from harm. And that's what the Bush administration did when it signed off on coercive questioning.

The record shows that just three men were waterboarded: Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Rahim al-Nashiri, all al-Qaida big shots. Under duress, KSM gave up vital information that crippled his terror group and ultimately led U.S. authorities to watch bin Laden's top Pakistani courier. Eventually, that man led the CIA to the compound outside Islamabad.

But still, the far left won't budge.

No matter what the facts are about the effectiveness of coerced interrogation, they will deny them. Infuriating.

The sane policy going forward is this: The president and only the president should have the power to order coerced interrogation, including waterboarding, if national security is endangered or American lives are on the line. One man makes the decision, and his orders are carried out by an elite intelligence team answerable directly to him.

So if Obama doesn't want to order waterboarding, fine. That's on him. But the elected leader of the nation should have the power to make the decision.

It is ironic that many on the far left openly celebrated the death of bin Laden. So, guys, let me get this straight: It's OK for U.S. forces to shoot a terrorist in the head, but it's not OK to waterboard him if lives are in danger? Good grief.

It is long past time for Americans to reject ideology that endangers human beings. We live in a dangerous world chock full of doomsday weapons. Common sense should dictate how the federal government defines strategies to protect us. How many times have you heard ideologues say that coerced interrogation does not work?

Well, it does. Ask bin Laden. Wait, we can't.

Veteran TV news anchor Bill O'Reilly is host of the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" and author of the book "Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama." To find out more about Bill O'Reilly, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. This column originates on the website www.billoreilly.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

Comments

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Mr. O'Riely,
Notice that you can't quite bring yourself to say the word "torture"? Why all the weasel words? When you find yourself using such words, you should take it as a clue that you are not being honest with yourself or your readers. If somebody said that pulling out fingernails, drilling holes in teeth with out Novocain, etc. were possibly effective methods of getting information, would you say that is was fine, if it yielded information? How about if somebody just thought it might have been effective? If the methods employed by the CIA were used on American POW's, would you use the "T" word? Do you consider the treatment of American POW's in North Vietnam as having been "enhanced interrogation"?
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The truth is that most experts consider torture to be less effective than some other methods of interrogation. We will never know what the results of more professional and morally defensible interrogation would have been, but these results are clearly not significant evidence that torture works better than other methods. The most that can be said is that these methods yielded some information, not that these methods were the only method that would have done so. It is time to be clear in our discussion on the topic. You should at least have the moral integrity to use honest language.

Comment: #1
Posted by: Mark
Sun May 8, 2011 1:22 PM

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Mark is right, we use way to many euphemisms, especially the generation that was going to "tell it like it is". Let's undo that dishonest habit: "Gay"= male/male sodomist, "choice" = killing babies at will, "quota" = reverse racial profiling/discrimination with just cause. Those words, and many others, should be taken as a clue that people are not being honest with themselves or their readers. "Held accountable" means "I'll have to find my son-in-law a more discreet but higher paying gig", "going forward" means "maybe after I'm dead and can't be touched." Anything a tea-party congressman said/says is totally uncreditable and should be filed under "myths and legends". Sentences beginning with "Any rational man..." or "Any thinking person..." are automatically insulting to every one who may hold a different but wholly reasonable opinion. People who employ these rhetorical tools should be "interrogated" in the Republican sense of the word. Nah, that's "morally undefensible" and such opinions should be erased from the human mindscape. Anybody got a needle?

Comment: #2
Posted by: Tom
Mon May 9, 2011 8:09 AM

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