That which we call a rose
You’re all familiar with Shakespeare’s famous question and answer: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” It keeps popping into my head when I think about Obama and “torture.”
As you know, so I won’t even hyperlink, Obama has released select memos describing the techniques the CIA used to elicit useful information from the terrorist masterminds in its charge (although the administration forgot to release the memos highlighting how useful these tactics were in protecting American lives). The Left calls these acts “torture;” the Right calls them “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Regardless of the label given them, we now know what the actual techniques were, because the memos describe them. Obama, who embraces the “torture” terminology of the Left, promises that his administration will never, never “torture” people, no matter what.
What do you bet that, if bad guys come within Obama’s purview, Obama’s guys will come up with new techniques to force information out of the bad guys? And because it’s coming from the Obama team, the Left will be afraid to call it torture.
In practical terms, this means that the Obama administration will create and authorize the use of entirely new painful, humiliating and frightening interrogation techniques in order to elicit information from bad guys (because Obama isn’t fool enough to want something bad to happen on his watch). Once having done so, the same administration will assure everyone that, consistent with Obama’s promise, it wasn’t “torture.” Because, after all, “torture” is only what the Bush guys did. Instead, these brutal and semi-brutal techniques will get some bland and comforting descriptor, such as “physical information eliciting stategy,” and everyone will be happy.
I make this prediction because Obama has shown a certain pragmatism. He’s kept troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite his campaign promises to the contrary; and he did authorize the SEAL rescue, although I think a debate will continue about his alacrity in doing so. More interestingly in terms of my prediction, he’s also shown himself to be a big believer in form over substance. He’s promised to close Gitmo, but it’s pretty clear right now that he’s just going to move the prisoners somewhere else. They’ll still be prisoners. This last indicates Obama’s belief that, if he calls things by different names, no one will notice that he’s engaged in exactly the same type of conduct he once foreswore. And with the media continuing to run interference for him, he might yet be able to convince voters that the noxious policies and practices they hated under Bush are unrelated to the identical policies and practices garlanded with sweet-sounding Obama names.
