National Security

Ken Salazar is "deeply troubled" again, according to the Denver Post. He gets that way a lot, it seems. The trouble this time caused the Senator to vote against confirmation of Attorney General Nominee, Judge Michael Mukasey of New York. There is trouble, but it isn't with Mukasey – it's with Salazar's poor judgment.

Mukasey was confirmed 53-40 by the Senate late in the night Nov. 8. All 40 votes against Mukasey came from Salazar and his fellow Democrats, plus Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Chris Dodd were absent, but all had indicated they would oppose Mukasey.

Bush's selection of Mukasey (originally recommended to Bush by none other than Chuck Schumer) immediately drew broad spectrum praise, and it appeared briefly like the nomination might sail through the Senate. But, not wanting to miss an opportunity to do some more Bush-bashing, the Democrats invented a straw man, and decided the nomination must turn on the definition of torture of enemy combatants, and specifically on simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. A large segment of the loony left-wing constituency that the Democrats depend upon for votes and money loves to blame America and defend our enemies. Siding with captured al-Qaeda operatives rather than our own military, the blame-America-first crowd has successfully made treatment of those that would kill us a higher priority than saving American lives.

The Associated Press reports that waterboarding is banned by domestic law and international treaties. However, U.S. law applies to Pentagon personnel and not the CIA. The Bush Administration won't say whether it has allowed the agency's employees to use it against terror detainees, and that's got the left rushing to attack the Administration and defend the terrorists.

Mukasey has steadfastly refused to denounce waterboarding under any and all circumstances, as he should. Pandering to the Code-Pink and Cindy Sheehan crowd, Salazar and most of the Democrats have folded and announced opposition to the Mukasey nomination.

No one gives blanket endorsement to real torture. However, the realities of war – particularly with an enemy that subscribes to no moral code of conduct whatsoever – can create realities that are difficult to imagine in the theoretical.

It is worth remembering that during the Cold War, America never took the "first strike" option off the table, although it was an abhorrent consideration. Wisely, no President ever let the Soviets know that we would only play defense.

President Clinton infamously announced beforehand that he would never send ground troops into Kosovo, thus identifying for the enemy his limits.

With a real threat of nuclear weapons looming in Iran, there is broad sentiment – particularly among the Democrat candidates for President – that any military option to deal with Ahmadinejad should be taken off the table and proclaimed to the world.

Telling any enemy what your boundaries are, how far you are willing to go to protect and defend your people, is the strategy of a fool. And, codifying limits for treatment of every war prisoner in absolutely every circumstance is equally stupid. Al Qaeda, for example, already believes we are weak, and to let them know what to expect when captured would prepare them to withstand our efforts to extract critical intelligence.

War is not the same as keeping order at the playground. You simply never say what you will never do.

On successive days prior to the Senate confirmation vote, the Wall Street Journal carried guest editorials refuting the opposition by Salazar and other weak-kneed Senators. Bret Stephens, member of the WSJ editorial board and former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, recalled the recent passing of Paul Tibbets, Jr. the pilot of the Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb killed an estimated 140,000 civilians. Three days later another 80,000 perished as a second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. On August 15, Japan surrendered to the Allied Forces and World War II finally came to an end.

Stephens's referenced historical evidence that as war broke out in 1939, years before America joined the fight, President Roosevelt "issued a plea that all combatant nations do the decent thing and refrain from bombing." However, once the Nazis started bombing civilian targets and the war escalated, Roosevelt's sense of reality changed considerably. At Casablanca in 1943, Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill vowed to undertake "the heaviest possible bomber offensive against the German war effort." And, they delivered on the promise. Well over a million German and Japanese civilians died as a result. "How can this be justified? Does it not greatly diminish Allied claims to moral superiority?"

Was Tibbets (or President Truman who gave the order) a hero or a war criminal for taking the lives of so many? Stephens sides with most historians who concur that the bombs ended the war and ultimately saved "as many as a million Allied and Japanese lives." "The important point is that the debate fundamentally is about results," he says.

The very next day, the Wall Street Journal had a guest editorial "Democrats and Waterboarding" by Harvard Law Professor and renowned liberal, Alan Dershowitz. Quite insightfully, Dershowitz analyzes the Democrat base noting that enough pacifists exist to influence primaries and thus votes by elected officials, but he argues winning a national general election and a congressional majority is a whole different matter. "Hundreds of thousands of Americans may watch Michael Moore's movies or cheer Cindy Sheehan's demonstrations, but tens of millions want the Moores and Sheehans of our nation as far away as possible from influencing national security policy," according to Dershowitz.

By staking out positions the electorate rightly deems as soft on terror and thus jeopardizing American lives, Dershowitz believes the Democrats are being penny-wise and pound-foolish if they really want to capture the White House in 2008. Dershowitz proposes that the biggest mistake of the Bush Administration is their inability to maintain a bipartisan coalition following 9/11. Now, in their relentless attempts to distance themselves as far as possible from Bush, he believes the Democrats are playing too exclusively to their anti-war leftist base and may fail to appeal to a broad enough voting block to both win and ultimately govern. "Most Americans – Democrats, Republicans, Independents or undecided – want a president who will be strong, as well as smart, on national security, and who will do everything in his or her lawful power to prevent further acts of terrorism," Dershowitz believes.

To the specific issue of torture as the Democrats have framed it, Dershowitz argues that Mukasey "is absolutely correct, as a matter of constitutional law, that the issue of 'waterboarding' cannot be decided in the abstract….the court must examine the nature of the governmental interest at stake….and then decide on a case-by-case basis."

Just as Roosevelt quickly learned during World War II, the boundary of what is morally objectionable can change with the transition from the theoretical to the seriousness of the reality of the moment. Dershowitz makes clear that he is not an advocate of routine abuse of prisoners such as occurred at Abu Ghraib. But, he recalls several historical events when the ends justified the means. For further evidence, he offered none other than former President Bill Clinton's opinion as expressed in an interview with National Public Radio:

You picked up someone you know is the No. 2 aide to Osama bin Laden. And you know they have an operation planned for the United States of some European capital in the next three days. And you know this guy know it. Tight, that's the clearest example. And you thin you can only get it out of this guy by shooting him full of some drugs of waterboarding him or otherwise working him over.

Clinton went on to explain that Congress should adopt laws that would place personal responsibility for such extreme, but realistic situations, and require reports if even after the fact to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That's spoken by one of the Democrats own, but one who has had to deal with the responsibilities and realities of the Presidency – not just sit back and take pot shots at it.

Dershowitz, though liberal, is a pro-Israel realist. He knows the jihadist enemy we face and the extent to which they will go in their quest to destroy those that choose to hate. He suggests that those Democrats, like Salazar, who vote against Mukasey claiming to protect some ethereal moral high ground, should be made to answer some direct questions themselves:

1. Would you authorize the use of waterboarding, or other non-lethal forms of torture, if you believed that it was the only possible way of saving the lives of hundreds of Americans in a situation of the kind faced by Israeli authorities on the eve of Yom Kippur?
2. Would you want your president to authorize extraordinary means of interrogation in such a situation?
3. If so, what means?
4. If not, would you be prepared to accept responsibility for the preventable deaths of hundreds of Americans?

As divergent from the vast majority of the Democrat Senators and candidates for President as Dershowitz is on this issue, his heart is with the Democrats in every election. That's why he closes with a salvo meant to shake them to their what-is-best-for-America senses. "The Democrats may lose the presidency if they are seen as the party of MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Dennis Kucinich and those senators who voted against Judge Mukasey because he refused to posture on a difficult issue relating to national security. They will win if they are seen as just as tough but a lot smarter on how to deal with real threats to our national interests."

One year from now, we will have the evidence of Mr. Dershowitz's admonishment and his prediction. However, with the absurdity of Hillary Clinton as the so-called "hawk" of the Democrat's presidential field (demonstrating how far left the rest of them are) and leaders like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi more intent on bashing Bush to satisfy MoveOn.Org than to do what's best for America, I think the die has already been cast. When supposed "moderates" like Salazar sell out to the pressure of Code Pink instead of using pro-American common-sense, it is a clear indication that the fringe left has a choke hold on the Democrat Party. And, regardless of how much that might hurt, they won't be letting go anytime soon.

Waterboarding is banned by domestic law and international treaties. But U.S. law applies to Pentagon personnel and not the CIA. The administration won't say whether it has allowed the agency's employees to use it against terror detainees.