How far would You go to save a Loved One?

Opponents of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or torture as they call it, do not believe information gleaned from these methods is valid and may even go against current human rights conventions. A question to ask anyone who has lost a loved one to terrorist activities; “If given the opportunity to go back in time and prevent that event from occurring, how far would you go and what would you do to prevent that loss?” If the event were preventable because of advanced notice due to harsh interrogation or information gained through torture, is the life and well-being of a terrorist worth more than the life of your lost wife, husband, child, sister, brother, mother, father, in-laws, or even a best friend?

These methods are used in restrictive situations on select persons within a certain time frame after being apprehended so that any information to be gained is still fresh and pertinent. The longer the time frame between the seizure and actual questioning means events may have unfolded to make any information gathered irrelevant and not useful. Many times information gathered is only used to verify what is already known or suspected. It is one of the techniques used in the court of law; ask only questions you know the answers to.

These techniques are regularly performed upon the actual people who will be using them on the enemy. People who are expected to go deep into harm’s way without much in the lines of support and with the possibility of being captured are often given training into what to expect if caught. It is regularly given as a part of SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training to toughen up the field operatives.

We know that, as of today, time travel is not possible, so we can only speculate as to how we would feel or what we would actually do given the ability to alter the past. We have all seen movies of people going back in time to right a wrong or undo an injustice done to them. The ending is usually pretty well scripted out where the good-guys win. In reality, the future would not be the way we left it; a domino effect given the altered series of events in the past would cause an entirely new and different future. So we must use what we have presently; information gathered from sources to alter the future.

Recently a big push has gone out to re-evaluate how we treat persons caught on the field of battle against the United States military forces. Are they considered prisoners of war, enemy combatants, or are these just more political maneuverings and word games? The whole argument has become a matter of semantics.

Are we obligated to follow the Geneva Convention and other civil treaties if our opponents do not? The Geneva Convention states that its tenets apply to uniformed agents of an established government’s military. People who are contracted by a government as non-uniformed agents, people who act independently of the government and people who have no formal relationship to any government are not strictly bound by those same laws or treaties. As such, when a member of a uniformed military organization enters onto the field of battle, if caught and taken prisoner, they are taught to expect certain rights and treatment. Soldiers of the United States are careful not to do anything that would bring them under the scrutiny of higher elected officials.

There is a manual that is well known to the military intelligence community as well as our opponents and it states that, as agents of the United States government, they must act in accordance to these rules or be tried by a jury of their peers in a court of law. This knowledge can be used to find information as well as hide it. If you know what an opponent can and cannot do, you can plan ahead.

Interviewing subjects, talking to them in a more relaxed, friendly manner and treating them in a civilized approach is said to eventually break down any barriers and the prisoners will inadvertently give out information they wouldn’t normally using harsh techniques. This is used if time is not a major factor.

We may never know the honest truth about what is the best method to gain information to use for our causes and against those who would do us harm. As long as there are people and politicians who want to use the system for their own ends and are more worried about the rights of the opponents than the welfare of American citizens fighting on their behalf, we will continue to have these debates on how to treat enemies of the United States of America.