EDITORIAL

Any time a government official starts whining about their perceived concept of undue torture against terrorists, they should be made to sit and watch the agonizing choice made by hundreds of people trapped in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

The news media showed some of the people inside the Twin Towers who—with no other way to escape the carnage— made the decision to jump from over 86 stories above ground rather than burn to death.

Their bodies landed all around the area with a sickening thud that sent chills through the rescuers who were standing on the ground, unable to do anything to save them. To this day, many of those who witnessed the horror are suffering from psychological problems.

In considering torture, government officials should also remember how some people in Iran, Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations reacted to the Sept. 11 attacks. Newscasts from the region showed many reveling in the deaths of innocent people rather than lighting candles or saying prayers.

These radicals have fought for centuries over whose view of religion is better, and think nothing of proving their point with violence and murder.

Beheadings, stonings, maimings, car bombings and suicide bombings against those deemed their enemies are committed regularly by the same people this administration is claiming were interrogated too harshly.

Our methods of trying to extract information from suspected terrorists are childish compared to their standards. One of the tactics reportedly used by members of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) included “waterboarding,” a technique that involves laying a detainee on a plastic sheet and pouring water over his face (which is covered by a cloth) for 15 minutes.

According to a report, an interrogator believed this was an effective technique and asked CIA officials to draft guidelines for its use. The CIA explained to the interrogator that a detainee “must be placed on a towel or sheet, may not be placed naked on the bare cement floor and the air temperature must exceed 65 degrees if the detainee will not be dried immediately.”

Some of the other so-called abuses performed by the CIA in an effort to extract information from detainees during interrogation included verbally threatening to sexually assault members of a detainee’s family, staging mock executions, intimidating with a weapon such as a handgun or power drill and blowing cigar or cigarette smoke into their faces, causing them to vomit.

Sacre bleu! What brutes the Americans are! Next thing you know, the detainees will be sent to bed without dinner or dessert.

Rather than vilifying the CIA interrogators and taking away their authority, Attorney General Eric Holder and all involved in this witch hunt should applaud the work of the agency for helping to prevent another attack on our country.

As the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks draws nearer, this nation must instead stay focused on stopping terrorists and avoiding a deadly repeat of history.