There is something sick and lunatic about our lawmakers' and media's obsession with the destructon of CIA tapes of waterboarding a couple of senior jihadist leaders--tapes the CIA was under no obligation to make in the first place.
But there is a greater problem here.
What does it say about our desire to survive as a nation when our leaders are more concerned with protecting our mortal enemies from temporary duress (35 seconds of waterboarding is considered a long session) than with saving American lives?
They say they are concerned with America's continued moral well-being. There is no degradation of our precious moral high ground (if that's what they want to talk about) in coercing actionable intelligence from jihad leaders. Such coercion, including waterboarding, is not undertaken to procure phoney testimonies in a show trial, to punish political opposition, or for sadistic delight. It is undertaken to save American lives.
Andy McCarthy wrote a terrific piece on this subject here:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmQ5ZWVlNDUwMGU2NTNkYWVkNTk1MGUxNDIyYmQ5Yzg
For a chilling look at how dispassionate--"non-committal" was the word the article used--some lawmakers really are about protecting the nation when it comes to a choice between waterboarding a terrorist and risking American lives, take a look at this CNSnews.com piece entitled: "Some Senators Wary of Waterboarding, Even to Save Lives."
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200712/POL20071212a.html
That should make us shiver a little as we huddle around the hearth fire....