Obama Flagged for Anti-patriotism

October 9, 2007

 

It's rare but I found myself in full agreement with former president Bill Clinton when he told Tim Russert on “Meet The Press” last year that torture would be an acceptable way to get time-sensitive information from known terrorists. Clinton told Russert, “we get lucky, we get the number three guy in al Qaeda, and we know there's a big bomb going off in America in three days and we know this guy knows where it is. Don't we have the right and the responsibility to beat it out of him?” Absolutely! If he'd talked more like that when he was president I might have supported him a little more. But his candor is rare these days in politics. Presidential candidates on both sides are squeamish when it comes to this subject.

 

There are, of course, exceptions. Second-tier Republican presidential contender, Congressman Tom Tancredo, when asked if he'd use torture in a similar circumstance, said he'd call in Jack Bauer, referring to Fox TV's action hero on the series 24 . Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, joined with her co-contenders for the Democrat nomination and ruled out ever using torture, under any circumstance. She's not alone in the senate with that position. Democrat senators Harry Reid, Chuckie Schumer and Dick Durbin could not imagine a situation where we should ever resort to torture.

 

Republican senators Arlen Specter and John McCain were solidly against any kind of torture, too. McCain, of course, is trying to be president. He maintains that he was tortured in Vietnam and torture gets you nowhere. I deeply respect his service to our country but, in all fairness, there's no comparison between torturing McCain in Vietnam and torturing a terrorist with vital information that would save American lives. McCain knew nothing to tell his captors. Of course torturing him did no good. He had no information they needed. Under the Bill Clinton scenario, however, we're talking about a known terrorist who we are positive has information about a bomb that's set to go off. Not only should torture be an option , it should be required !

 

Don't misunderstand. I'm not talking about the routine torture of just anybody and everybody the U.S. government gets its hands on. I'm talking about an extreme situation where your intelligence is good enough that you're sure the guy sitting in front of you knows about a plot with such destructive powers that thousands, if not millions, of Americans will die if you don't get the information out of him. To sit there and spout off lofty rhetoric of how we're above that and we're the beacon of freedom in the world is not only foolish, it's downright dangerous.

 

To me, this is a central question that should disqualify a candidate if he or she doesn't answer the question correctly. Would you torture one, lone terrorist who you knew had information about a bomb set to explode that would kill millions of people? Or, to put it another way, would you allow millions of innocent Americans to be killed just so you could brag about your civility afterwards? Our next president might just face that exact situation. Do we really want someone sitting in that Oval Office who can't make the tough decisions?

 

Barack Obama recently explained that he stopped wearing his U.S. flag lapel pin because he thought it represented false patriotism. He wanted to demonstrate his patriotism through his actions. Patriotism is more than just a love of country. It's a dedication to doing whatever is necessary to preserve that country. How many true patriots do we have running for president?