Wars are filled with tough decisions, both tactically and morally. In order to defeat the Confederacy, General Sherman’s “March to the Sea” sought to break the enemy militarily, economically and psychologically. The results of this march included the near complete destruction of Atlanta.

During WWII, in an effort to hamper German communications and prevent reinforcement of their eastern front, the allied forces firebombed Dresden.

In order to avoid a ground invasion of Japan that would cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, the US ended the pacific war by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Whether or not these actions were justified are positions which reasonable people can disagree. What is clear, however, is that wars have historically been fought by people willing to make tough decisions in order to achieve victory. Unfortunately, our current crop of leaders seem incapable of even considering the merits of such decisions today.

Of course, the enemy we face today operates in a different manner than the enemies we’ve fought and defeated in the past. This enemy is an ideology, not a specific state. It has little infrastructure to target. Its only significant vulnerability (beyond the little bit of infrastructure that has been targeted) is the knowledge possessed by specific leaders regarding their operational cells and plans.

Given this knowledge, the prudent course of action would be to immediately determine how far we are willing to go to get that information. But that requires an honest debate, conducted in good faith, within the public sphere. Neither parties’ leaders seem willing to have such a debate openly and honestly.

The Bush administration has been reluctant to make its case clearly to the public. The administrations opponents have been too willing to demagogue the issue with indiscriminate and faulty use of inflammatory words like “torture”.

What exactly constitutes “torture” is a point of debate, as the definition is subjective. But the opposition skips right over the definition and hopes you’ll accept their assumptions on faith. But does slapping a terrorist in the face to get his attention really constitute torture? Critics want you to think so. Most Americans would probably not be persuaded by such an argument. The most serious technique our interrogators wish to employ is that of waterboarding. That’s where the subject is made to think he is drowning and death is imminent, though he is never in any physical danger. But we’ll never know precisely what the public thinks of these things since the public debate has been demagogued beyond recognition and few public officials seem to have the guts to state their position clearly and unequivocally.

Others, most likely the strongly religious, may find moral objection to any coercive interrogation techniques, whether they constitute torture or not. Making the argument that a terrorist in captivity is incapable of harm, they believe that to bring them any amount of harm beyond that absolutely necessary to keep the terrorist from presenting a threat to civilians, such as imprisonment, would be immoral.

I do not agree. I find the underlying assumption of that position, that a terrorist locked away in prison is no longer a cause of harm, to be faulty. A prisoner may no longer be capable of picking up a gun and shooting someone, but they can still do harm in their choices. If they have knowledge of the harm their companions are meaning to carry out and they choose not to divulge it, that choice is as much an act of aggression upon us as if they were out doing it themselves.

The individual’s very silence about their known terrorist cohorts and their plans is a harm upon me and my countrymen. Given the scope of the attacks they wish to carry out, I find it morally unacceptable to not do everything in our power to get that information in order to protect those targeted by the terrorists. This is especially true when that knowledge constitutes the primary means by which to defeat an enemy that doesn’t rely on railroads, airports, factories or other easy to bomb targets. Their blatant and deliberate targeting of civilians serves to erase any remaining moral qualms I might have to putting known terrorists in unpleasant situations in order to learn what they know.

Sadly, even as legislation is being considered, few seem willing to openly consider the tough choices in front of our generation. The leaders of previous generations had the guts to risk the deaths of thousands of civilians, rightly or wrongly, in order to protect many more Americans. Today’s leaders apparently lack the courage to even consider risking harm to a handful of known terrorists in order to protect thousands of American civilians. And that’s truly a shame.

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