The High Minded Are At It Again--For Good And Ill

The Geek rarely agrees with the sentiments expressed by the High Minded and Lofty Thinking of the world. Personal and professional experience extending over many decades spent mucking about in the dreck of realpolitick have made him suspicious of those afflicted by Idealism.

There are times, however, when a finely honed sense of realism, of at least a realistic appreciation of US national and strategic interests forces the Geek (uncomfortably) to share a bed with at least some of the High Minded wallahs of the world. The most recent enforced bed-sharing comes about as a result of the impending Durban II conference starting Monday in Geneva.

Iain Levine, the program director for Human Rights Watch is dead on target with his call for the Obama administration to participate in the conference despite the strong reservations held by the US regarding even the latest revision of the Outcome Document. Levine is particularly correct when he cautions against surrendering the field to Iranian Orator-in-Chief Ahemdinejad.

To be absent from the gathering is a backhanded form of appeasement. By refusing to challenge the anti-libertarian philosophy expressed by the likes of Ahmedinejad is to hold silence in the face of evil. And, as was once famously said, "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to keep silent."

Racism wherever and whatsoever color practiced is an evil. This is equally true whether the hydra headed beast goes under the name of Jim Crow laws or anti-Semitism or countering "religious defamation." Ahmedinejad is no better than such legendary American bigots as George Wallace and Senator Bilbo. Suppression of free expression under the rubric of protecting religion is no better, no less evil than book burning of so-called "Jewish" literature by the Nazis.

US national interest demands that we not remain silent in the face of the new forms of racism, the latest expressions of anti-Semitism, the post-modern assault on free expression. US national interest demands that we not allow forces and countries hostile to us and the rest of the West hijack concepts and ideals for which countless lives have been lost over generations. The US has a responsibility not only to its own interests but to the best hopes of people everywhere that we not abandon the Geneva arena to the forces of a repressive crew fearful of the exchange of ideas and the existence of people not under their sway.

A realistic appreciation of America's place in the world now and in the future demands that we do no less than wage the good fight in Geneva. The oppressed of the world can and should expect no less of us.

Comes now Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. By definition (or at least job title) the Austrian born Nowak is one of the High Minded and Lofty Thinking. He has made the news by accusing President Obama of having broken international law by refusing to prosecute those intelligence officers who acted in good faith under the legal guidance provided by the Department of Justice and engaged in the forms of intensive interrogation which may legitimately be defined as torture.

The president made the controversial decision to publish the critical memos from the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department which gave the color of law to techniques which are both inherently very harsh and capable of abuse so as to cross the hazy border into the land of torture. In the wake of these disclosures (to say nothing of the disgustingly sanitary and pettifogging language in which they are couched) the High Minded of the US and other countries have been baying after the blood of those who employed the approved techniques.

The Geek can testify from personal experience that none of the techniques are at all pleasant. Quite the contrary, taken alone or in concert, they are all highly unpleasant. They are meant to be. They are, literally, calculated to make spies talk. That is why they are employed as a part of training for men at risk for capture, to give them some taste of what might come so that they are better equipped to resist.

In a training setting there is no way these techniques can be considered as torture. The person on whom they are inflicted knows damn well that he is not going to die. He has cost the government too much time and money to train to be allowed to die before getting to the field. On top of this he knows he can cry "Uncle" at any time and the game is over--along with his field career (perhaps.)

The situation in one of the now (in)famous CIA black prisons is quite different. The captive has no reasonable expectation that the Americans will suffer him to live. And, the only avenue available to the captive to end the torment is betrayal of his cause and colleagues.

The Geek would not have used these means of persuasion even if ordered. Way back when, the Geek knew others in his line of work who made the opposite choice, but he was certain that his methods, while slower, were more certain of producing useful catch.

Having said that, it necessary to assert that the Geek is not given to judging whether or not the intensive methods were necessary or justifiable in their recent application. Only by finding out if time-sensitive, actionable intelligence which was effectively employed by US or friendly forces to interdict a threat can a decision on utility and necessity be rendered.

Criminal prosecutions such as those demanded by the High Minded are not the proper way to find out what benefits may have accrued by increased national security from the use of means which (arguably) equal torture. Neither trials nor public Truth and Justice Commissions will be able to ascertain with effect the necessity of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, monotonous diet or any of the other techniques.

Once Janet Reno, the Clinton administration's Attorney General remarked that CIA exhibited "battered child syndrome." It was a place of fearful people, inhibited from taking actions necessary to secure information let alone perform clandestine operations necessary for the protection of American national and strategic interests. What Herr Nowak and others of the High Minded and Lofty Thinking brigade want is the production of a climate which brings not only CIA but all components of the US Intelligence Community back to the level of battered children.

Intelligence officers must not be risk averse if they are to perform their jobs effectively. They must do unpleasant things with unpleasant people in unpleasant parts of the world. The collection of much (perhaps most) of the truly critical intelligence information regarding the capabilities and intentions of the adversaries demands working with people in very base conditions and for ends which can objectively be evaluated as base.

After all the stock in trade of the intelligence officer is the inducement of betrayal, the suborning of treason. This is not a pleasant reality to contemplate. It is hard enough for those who have been there and done it to acknowledge. It is infinitely harder for the High Minded who live in a shielded world to consider as either necessary or proper.