David Hicks Feared Being Shot

Good! You're SUPPOSED to be afraid that if you don't cooperate that bad things might happen.

"I realised that if I did not cooperate with US interrogators, I might be shot."

Notice how he used the word "cooperate" rather then "tell them what they wanted to hear". That means he knew he was supporting terrorist operations against the US. He knew he was wrong and he knew he had become and enemy of the US.

However, there's a flip side to this coin.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, said his claims were credible.

"I know this kind of abuse happened," he told ABC. "I've talked to people who participated in it -- CIA, military and contractor."

Wilkerson said military officers had told him the interrogations at Guantanamo Bay had revealed "virtually nothing" of useful intelligence.

"And that is just damning," he said.

Unfortunately for Colonel Wilkerson, there are reports of Khalid Muhammed giving up vast numbers of Al-Qaeda operatives that weren't previously known.

So, the question of the hour is, how far do you take an interrogation? Studies have shown that generally speaking, torture doesn't work. However, in some cases it does, so a fine line must be drawn. Sometimes that line is crossed and innocent people are tortured. Sometimes that line is crossed and thousands of lives are saved because of a plot being uncovered.

Counter terrorism isn't an exact science. Sometimes you just get a gut feeling that the guy knows something. You are then at a crossroads. Do you slap him around a bit to get him to talk and reveal something that might save innocent peoples lives? Or do you ask politely and risk seeing American citizens dying on the front page of CNN while the public asks why you didn't do more to get the information?

You can't walk 5 feet on the Internet without running into a website that claims the government knew of the 9/11 plot, yet didn't do enough to prevent it from happening. Well now they are going into overdrive and people are complaining that the government is doing too much. You can't win either way you go.

Travis
travis@rightwinglunatic.com