Unjustifiable
Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon and the US Government
Conspired to Torture – Mark Fallon (Regan Arts)
16 years after the events of September 11, 2001 and 7
years after Navy SEAL raid that led the death of that events mastermind, Osama
bin Laden seems like an odd time for the release of a book calling into
question the enhanced interrogation techniques employed during the War on
Terror. My only guess is the comment by President Donald Trump that he would
bring back waterboarding and with some Trump-esque bravado, “and worse” is what
spurred the publication of Unjustifiable
Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon and the US Government
Conspired to Torture, from former NCIS investigator Mark Fallon.
Fallon, like so many others before him, makes the claim
that the U.S. Government’s so-called enhanced interrogation techniques; sleep
deprivation, stress positions, being forced to stand for long periods, exposed
to extremes in temperature, isolation and waterboarding amount to torture. Fallon,
again like so many before him, throws around things like the Geneva Convention’s
prohibitions against torture and claims that so-called “torture” does not work,
in producing actionable intelligence. Naturally, Fallon’s role as an insider in
the war on terror, will have liberals falling all over themselves to foist “expert”
status on him.
In the end, what Unjustifiable
Means, amounts to is nothing more than one man’s opinion about whether or
not the enhanced interrogation techniques amount to torture or not and if they
produce the desired results. It’s easy to claim that they don’t work for any number
of reasons, most notable is that our secret keepers can’t really lay specific
claims to successes without revealing the instances where it clearly worked and
the techniques that worked without broadcasting to the enemy the details of the
process.
We do know with CERTAINTY, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
the architect of the events of 9/11, was subjected to waterboarding among other
approaches and in the process gave up the fact that bin Laden communicated from
his Abbotabad hideout through a pair of couriers. That knowledge led to
tracking those couriers back to bin Laden’s location, which in turn led to the
Navy Seal raid that brought about his demise. Even the three major liberal
networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, along with the Washington Post, Time and Newsweek
among others concede this point.
As to torture and the Geneva Convention; I hardly think
that even long periods of hot or cold conditions, sleep deprivation or being
forced to stand for long periods, amounts to torture in the face of what journalists,
military personnel or contractors have been subjected to by comparison. While I
could never ask the question, I doubt if journalist Daniel Pearl would label
that torture. The Geneva Convention claim is ridiculous on its face. Even
Fallon himself concedes in the book, that this is a different kind of enemy and
to think that terrorists could or would become signatories to an international
treaty is absurd. I would bet that the folks who did sign that prohibition
would strongly frown on beheading and burning prisoners alive.
While I do salute Mr. Fallon for his service, I am left
to wonder when he claims that in his experience the most effective way to
garner information and intel from a prisoner is to “develop a relationship”
with them. He neglects to spell or give any detail on exactly what that process
looks like and how it works. Faced with a life or death situation, I wonder how
quickly that process would work and exactly how effective it is when the person
you want to develop a relationship with would dearly like to cut your head off
if given the chance.
