Handcuffing the CIA

Late last night while leaving a comment on Dread Pundit I found myself getting a little carried away in the comment box. I sometimes do that. Usually I don't have time to leave lengthy comments, but on this issue of torture and the sworn duty of the president to protect us a left a longer than usually comment. I'll share it with you now.

"What is or what isn't torture is the question. A question without a clear answer. The question should be will rough interrogation save hundreds or even thousands of lives and if so do we do it. It is the sworn duty of the president to defend Americans not to protect the rights of foreign nationals who may have vital information necessary to carry out that duty. Obama recently made a statement at one of his many public appearances and said, (I have to paraphrase): Yes information was obtained the question is could we have gotten it without harsh methods. This was without a doubt the most ignorant statements one in his position could make and no one member of the press called him on it. The implication of his answer was that the CIA interrogators immediately went to harsh methods when they started questioning the terrorist. That is not how things are done and Obama is aware of that. The CIA does not use harsh methods until all other measures have been exhausted. And as for the terrorist giving misleading information---of course that happens, but the information is checked out and if it is incorrect the CIA goes after the prisoner again and again and finally they get the truth. And in many cases lives are saved as a result of their efforts. To take this tool away from us is to condemn some Americans, not to torture, but to death at sometime in the future. This in not acceptable, this would be a criminal act on the part of the president and a violation of the oath he took. And if such an unthinkable thing should occur the president should be impeached and put on trial in the Senate and the country at that time would applaud that action. Obama may be able to walk on water, but he is skating on thin ice by restricting the actions of those who try to defend us. If he continues to listen to those voices on the far left, the voices coming from a vocal minority, the voices of the hate America crowd, the voices of weakness and appeasement Americans may die and their deaths will be on the hands of this indecisive weakling".