The left is basking in a sea of self adulation at the release and repudiation by the Obama Administration of the four Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel memos from the Bush era which approved “torture” in limited circumstances. More to the point, leftists and the ACLU are overjoyed that torture has been banished forever under any circumstances. I can’t help but wonder if they have thought it through completely, objectively and rationally.
I don’t know anyone who approves of torture, encourages it, or who thinks it is a good practice for a civilized nation to engage in. I certainly don’t.
But it just may be that there are rare, extreme circumstances when it is the only viable option – no matter how abhorrent it may seem. By shutting off that possibility, the Obama Administration may be condemning tens of thousands of innocent Americans to death and suffering.
Please indulge me by assuming the facts of a scenario, similar to one that may come to a city near you in the not so distant future. Pick a city of your choice – New York, Washington, L.A. or Denver.
Assume the following:
The CIA and the FBI have acquired extremely reliable intelligence that a cell of al Qaeda, operating in the United States, has obtained a small nuclear weapon from a source inside the old Soviet Union, and through a renegade Pakistani nuclear scientist, has refurbished it.
This weapon is known to have been shielded to avoid detection, and to have been smuggled into the United States aboard a container ship two weeks ago. The terrorist plan is to detonate the device two days from now, on the fourth of July in an American city. The device is small enough to be fitted into the trunk of a car. It is estimated that the yield would be between 20 and 30 kilotons. If detonated in a populated area it is estimated that the device would kill 150,000 people outright, and an addition 500,000 could die an agonizing death from radiation poisoning in the weeks and months to come.
The city and place of the intended detonation, the current location of the device and the exact time of the attack are all unknown. However, a key player in the al Qaeda cell, who is believed to have all of that knowledge, is in the custody of U.S. authorities.
You are President of the United States. Time is critical, there is a ticking bomb, and nearly a million innocent lives are at stake. Interrogators are asking your permission to use “enhanced interrogation” methods against the terrorist so that the bomb can be located and disarmed and the attack stopped before it is too late.
What do you do? Will you allow the terrorist, a barbaric murderer, to undergo a few hours of discomfort in order to save nearly a million innocent American men, women and children? Or will you tell the interrogators to call the ACLU and get him a lawyer? Your call.
Richard Stacy, a retired U.S. administrative law judge, served 13 years as U.S. attorney for Wyoming, having been appointed by President Reagan. He lives in Denver. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
