"CAN "ENHANCED INTERROGATION" BE USED FOR SELF-DEFENSE?

Democrats in the U.S. Senate have just issued a report equating the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) with torture.

The report states water boarding resulted in physical harm, including vomiting and seizures to at least some of the prisoners, and in one instance, death. It asserts that the CIA mismanaged the operation, kept poor records, and gave inadequate and inaccurate information to the Bush administration, to Congress and to the press.

The report claims that the information given by the terrorists under the EIT was inaccurate and worthless, and that the program has damaged the reputation of the U.S.

Those who minimize the findings, claim Democrat Senate staffers who prepared it spoke only to the attorneys representing the Gitmo detainees, and not to the the CIA agents involved.  I do not intend to address that issue.

For me, the real question is whether the U.S. is ever justified in using EIT.

Many who oppose enhanced interrogation, like Sen. John McCain, label it torture. But the intent is different. There is no claim the CIA used EIT with intent to punish or to wantonly inflict pain -- that is “to torture.” Clearly the goal was to extract information to prevent a second 9/11 and save American lives.

Additionally, EIT can take many  forms.  At one end of the spectrum, enhanced interrogation includes sleep deprivation, irksome music, putting the prisoner in a cramped box, or a chilly or hot room, etc.  At the other end  -- the torture end -- EIT would include the ripping out of fingernails, the rack, cutting off fingers, toes, arms and legs, roasting over hot coals, etc. Some forms of enhanced interrogation do not kill or maim the prisoner; others do.

Would it ever be right for the U.S. to engage in the more brutal forms of enhanced interrogation? If we can cut off a prisoner’s fingers, arms and legs, and roast him over hot coals, it would seem to follow bugging him with gangster-rap music would also be permissible.

The question is not as easy to answer as you might first believe. There are three good main reasons most reasonable Americans oppose torture.

-- First, a person being tortured might lie and say whatever his interrogator wants him to say to avoid further torture.

-- Second, America does not torture its prisoners of war because it hopes the enemy will act accordingly.

-- Finally, America doesn’t torture out of respect for the human person.

That being said, the question remains, why is it worse to torture a prisoner than to kill him with a drone strike? To fire bomb his cities? To kill his countrymen with nuclear bombs?

The CIA’s enhanced interrogation all occurred after the 9/11 attacks on our country to forestall subsequent attacks. But would the CIA have been justified in using torture in its most rigorous form in the hours before the 9/11 attacks occurred to prevent those attacks?

You will recall that on Sept. 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaida Islamic terrorists hijacked four civilian airliners. Two were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. A third was flown into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

All the civilians aboard the four airliners were murdered in the crashes or resulting fires. At the Pentagon, 125 military and civilian personnel were murdered. At the Trade Center and in the nearby vicinity, nearly 3, 000 people were brutally murdered; including 343 firefighters and paramedics, and 23  police officers. Only six people in the towers at the time of their collapse survived. Some 10,000 were injured; many severely. Others contracted cancer from what they inhaled that day.

So,  what if 24 hours before the 9/11 attacks our CIA had captured a major al-Qaida operative, who  boasted, “Twenty-four hours from now, we will teach America a lesson it will never forget!”? And what if in response to CIA normal interrogation, the operative had told his interrogators, “You’ll find out soon enough!”?

Would the CIA have been justified in water-boarding him? Ripping out his nails to force him to talk? Or would it had been better to terminate the interrogation, and wait 24 hours until the planes had destroyed the towers and wantonly murdered more than 3,000 Americans?

What if my hypothetical al-Qaida operative under torture had talked and the attacks had been thwarted?  Would the Iraq war have been avoided? The Afghan war? How many American soldiers would be alive today? How many would have avoided wounds that have destroyed their quality of life, and crushed their families.

I don’t like torture. But I have always felt that the assassination of Adolf Hitler would have been justified to prevent World War II, and the millions of deaths caused by Hitler and his war.

Similarly, if the Iraq and Afghan wars would have been avoided by preventing 9/11, torturing my hypothetical operative would have been morally justified. (Self-defense does not always require that the assailant be killed!)

To paraphrase the Catechism of the Catholic Church: The legitimate defense of societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. The act of self-defense, including non-lethal forms of self-defense, can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s nation; and the killing or extracting information from of the aggressor. “The one is intended, the other is not.”

Homicide can be murder or self-defense. It depends upon the intent.

Enhanced interrogation can be torture or a legitimate act of self-defense.

Again, it depends upon the intent.

Posted Online:  Dec, 20, 2014 12:00 am - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea

Can a Minimum Wage Hike Help the Unemployed?

Chicago will increase its minimum wage to $13 per hour. This is obviously good for those who will see their wages rise to $13. But what about those who are unemployed?

Minimum wage laws are nothing more than attempts to amend “the law of supply and demand.”

There is a reason Giancarlo Stanton was given a 13-year $325 million contract ($25 million a year) to hit a baseball by the Florida Marlins. He does it in a way that only a handful of people on this planet can do it. And a great many people are willing to pay big bucks to see him do it. The Marlins were not compelled by any minimum wage law to offer Stanton this contract. They did it voluntarily because they thought Stanton’s drawing power would produces revenues in excess of the cost.

But what if the Marlins had opted not to pay Stanton his $325 million? Could they have signed an equivalent player for substantially less? What if the Marlin’s had offered to pay Stanton $7.93, the Florida minimum wage? Do you think he would have signed? Would any other equivalent player who hit about .288, with 37 home runs and 105 RBIs sign for $7.93 per hour?

It is not an easy thing to hit major league pitching. Very few people can hit fastballs that come to the plate at 95 mph, sliders that look life fastballs until they break at the last minute, and change-ups that leave the pitcher’s hand looking like a fastball, but come up to the plate about 10 mph slower.

Michael Jordan was one of the greatest athletes America has ever known. He tried baseball for one year in 1994. He managed to hit .202 with 1 home run at Class AA Birmingham! Last year in the majors, out of roughly 750 players, only 29 hit .288 or better; only 11 hit 30 homers or more.

But regardless of what Giancarlo Stanton is paid, that has no effect whatever on teacher salaries.

There is a reason why teachers start at disproportionately smaller salaries. There are far more people who want employment as teachers than there are available teaching positions. All applicants have the required education and licenses.

Presumably,  they can all do the job. But nobody is willing to buy a $100 ticket to see them teach.

According to a January 2014 Program Evaluation report, the average starting salary for an Illinois teacher is about $36,636 annually. And according to USA Today (Feb. 19, 2013), “The nation is training twice as many K-5 elementary school teachers as needed each year, while teacher shortages remain in the content specific areas of math, science and special education.

“Illinois trained roughly 10 teachers for every one position available.”

But what would happen to starting teacher salaries if there were 100 positions that needed filling, and only 25 teachers seeking employment? Because demand would exceed supply, there would be a bidding war, and salaries would go up to attract the best and brightest.

There is a reason Walmart and McDonald’s can pay $10 per hour. There are a great many more workers who want jobs than there are jobs. When there are 100 people willing to work at $10 per hour, Walmart can ignore the retired $100K executive who is willing to work at $25 per hour, and hire from the pool of 100.

When the minimum wage is increased, the Walmarts, as well as small businesses, have choices to make. They can

-- Pay the new increased minimum wage, “eat” the increased cost of doing business, and accept a diminution of net profits:

-- Pay the new increased minimum wage to some workers, and hold down costs by discharging other workers, or

-- Pay the new increased minimum wage and pass the cost on to customers.

What happens when a business is operating on a tight margin and doesn’t believe it can pass its increased labor costs on to customers? If it can’t risk increasing its costs, it has two options:

-- Fire enough workers to offset the increased cost of labor for others, or

-- Go out of business.

Of course. it can risk doing business as a loss; but why?

According to Forbes (Feb. 20, 2012), the “unemployment number ... reported at 6.2 percent ...  is simply misleading.  ... According to the U-6 report, the ‘real; unemployment rate is 12.6 oercent,” which includes those who have not looked for work during the four weeks.

But in the black community, Newsmax stated on Nov. 27,  the unemployment rate is worse: 11 percent  and for young black men (ages 16-21),  21 percent.

So what happens, when the president issues an executive order granting work permits to 5 million illegal immigrants? How many of those will be competing for the minimum wage jobs that are out there?

How does flooding the labor market with 5 million illegal immigrants help the 12.6 percent of Americans and the 21 percent of young black American males who can’t find employment? Increasing the supply of unemployed workers by 5 million only guarantees employers a larger pool to pick from, and it removes pressure for them to pay better wages.

A far better plan, would be for the government to work to create a job market where there are more jobs than applicants. If Walmart and McDonald’s need 1,000 workers, and there are only 100 available, wages will increase and no minimum wage law will be needed. The law of supply and demand will do the job better than any minimum wage law ever could.

Flooding our job market by providing illegal immigrants with work permits only increases the worker supply while at the same time driving down wages.

President Obama’s executive order will only exacerbate America’s unemployment situation!

Posted Online:  Dec, 6, 2014 12:00 am - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea


 


 

'I’m Not the King of the U.S. ... or Am I?'

                    “I know some of the critics of this action call it amnesty. Well, it’s not.”  

                                                                               President Obama, Nov. 20, 2014

 

The liberty that Americans have known since 1789 rests on nothing more firm than an understanding.

That understanding is embodied in a brief 15-page document -- the Constitution.

It was an understanding reached by men who feared both one-man rule and mob rule, and who therefore intentionally separated executive, legislative and judicial powers.

It is an understanding reached by the statesmen who feared kings -- kings who claimed to rule by “divine right,” and whose fiat was law.

It is an understanding reached by men who believed that the American people through their elected Congressional representatives ought make their own laws.

It is an understanding under which the President’s law-making power was limited to “recommending  to (Congress for) their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient,” and to vetoing bills passed by Congress, to prevent their enactment.

It is an understanding under which the President’s duty as executive would be “to take care that laws enacted by Congress be faithfully executed.”

It is an understanding that Congressmen, judges, and the president would make a solemn oath to observe the Constitution prior to taking office.  Indeed, the president takes the following oath:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

In short, the freedom and liberty of every American rests upon nothing more than a fragile understanding” written on a 15-page scrap of paper.

Note that there is nothing in Article VI, Section 2 about executive orders or other presidential fiats being the supreme law of the land.

This president knows that. Indeed, he has said so some 22 times! Here are just two examples:

 “I’m not a king. You know, my job as the head of the executive branch ultimately is to carry out the law. ... When it comes to enforcement of our immigration laws, we’ve got some discretion. We can prioritize what we do. But we can’t simply ignore the law.” -- Jan. 30, 2013

 “The problem is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed. And Congress right now has not changed what I consider to be a broken immigration system. And what that means is that we have certain obligations to enforce the laws that are in place even if we think that in many cases the results may be tragic.” — Feb. 14, 2013.

(Read all 22 of his declarations at speaker.gov/general/22-times-president-obama-said-he-couldn-t-ignore-or-create-his-own-immigration-law#sthash.ErCRBgJk.dpuf.)

Mr. Obama makes many arguments in favor of his immigration executive order.
In the main, they include that:

       -- He needed to act by executive order out of compassion for the illegal immigrants and their children.

     -- He needed to act by “decree” for the good of the American people, because the “system was broken;” i.e., because the House would not pass the Senate’s proposed immigration bill that he favored.

Our Constitution gives a president no power to take the lawn into his hands,  out of  “compassion” for the illegal immigrants and their children, for the good of the American people, or  because Congress was “broken,” or wasn’t acting fast enough to suit him.

“I acted alone for the good of the state,” “I acted alone out of necessity;” these are the traditional justifications of dictators.

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants.” William Pitt, the Younger, 1783.

But what is the present necessity? This is the same president who for the first two years of his term had absolute majorities in both houses of Congress, and who could have had Congress pass  immigration reform just as it passed Obamacare.

The president would answer, “To those members of  Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill.”

But what about, “I’m not a king” or “I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed”?

Where is it stated the president can take the law into his own hands where Congress fails to act, or to please him?

Mr. Obama also justifies his actions alleging that President Bush also made executive orders pertaining to immigration. USA Today (Nov. 21) debunks that:

“But where the two presidents largely agreed on the principles and policy, they diverged in strategy. While Bush issued a number of small-bore executive orders -- to expedite citizenship for immigrants in the military, or to defer deportation for students affected by Hurricane Katrina -- his speech called on Congress to act.”

It comes to this: if any president can make orders which have the force of law with his pen, then we have lost our republic and have replaced it with a one-man dictatorship. And what the king can do for you today, he can do against you tomorrow!

Posted Online:  Dec, 1, 2014 12:00 am - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea