October 14, 2010
In 2002, as the Bush administration was turning to torture and other brutal techniques for interrogating "war on terror" detainees, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz loosened rules against human experimentation, an apparent recognition of legal problems regarding the novel strategies for extracting and evaluating information from the prisoners.
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Lots of our Naval personnel go through the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program, as part of their training.
It is like one of those spend a day in jail programs, that we expose teens to, only a bit more rough. The key lesson is to our sailors is to do their best to EVADE capture, but if they are captured, then the SERE school provides some training on what to expect and how to cope.
America must never torture "detainees" or prisoners of any kind. It is un-American.
What we need to do is to make sure that we do not have any future undeclared wars; especially of the sort that Bush waged where anyone deemed by them as an enemy, was by definition, the enemy, without regard to any sort of standards of justice or laws of war.
If, for example, we are aware that Pakistan is harboring the Taliban. We must first demand that Pakistan destroy or neutralize the threat to us that is within their borders. If they seek our aid, then Congress, must be required to vote a declaration of war in assistance to the government of Pakistan, before any US soldiers are deployed.
If the Taliban represents a real threat, and is resident in Pakistan, but Pakistan refuses to act with sufficient vigor to neutralize the threat, then the US Congress should declare war against Pakistan, with the specific aim at neutralizing the Taliban forces.
If the Taliban straddles the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Afghanistan is cooperating, but Pakistan is not, then War should be declared against Pakistan with an alliance with Afghanistan.
However, if after an active debate in the Congress, the threat from the Taliban is deemed to be insufficient to warrant a war, then we must not go to war using incremental deployments under the cover of the President's war powers, since his powers are SUPPOSED to be limited to providing immediate retaliatory response, or in response to an imminent threat.
If we force our government to be limited by our Constitution, we will have no more wars of Presidential fiat, and the facts of any threats will be clearly enumerated in public debate, before any future expenditures of blood and treasure.
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