You’re going to have to excuse hard-left Hollywood types if they don’t get on board for the whole waterboarding thing. The concepts of forceful interrogations and the need to get dangerous people to reveal their life-threatening plans is as far removed from their daily experiences as, say, humility or well-reasoned arguments.
Most folks working in the entertainment industry live in pockets of Los Angeles in which they’re so warmly cocooned in smug, safe familiarity that they don’t have to worry about encountering so much as an opposing political philosophy, let alone a foreign hostile enthusiastically set on killing them. How are these actors, writers, directors, producers, et. al, supposed to take foreign terrorist threats seriously when the most they have to concern themselves with during their average day is whether that spa barista really did use soy milk and not non-fat in their morning coffee colonic?
Of course, they take that safe comfort completely for granted and never think to respect or thank the men and women risking their lives to preserve it. In fact, the entire concept that there might be grimly determined, painstakingly trained and resolutely dedicated Americans who work day and night to keep Hollywood and the rest of the civilized world safe from fanatical attacks is truly beyond their Fred Segal-ized, Wolfgang Puck’ed comprehension. So, if they can’t perceive of such honorable public servants, we can’t expect them to show any support for their efforts.
You have to understand that, while hard working at their chosen entertainment careers, Hollywood types are generally not a hearty breed. We’re talking about generally wispy, uber-sensitive folk who don’t like getting their hands dirty. Well-educated and desperate to be liked, they don’t want their qi and chakras befouled by any bad buzz — even though the world is awash in it.
Unfortunately, that all means if the law of the jungle ever took hold around them, they’d be the first ones hollowed out, stretched, tanned and made into survival shelters by the rest of us who dug a ditch or bled on the grass now and then.
And that would be too bad because a lot of them are my friends. They’re good people at the end of the day. They don’t want to hurt anyone (besides Sarah Palin and anyone who got the role they auditioned for earlier). They’re just not adept at facing and accepting the uglier realities of the world — that the bad guy gets a vote and, when he decides to bring down a downtown LA skyscraper with a jetliner full of innocent passengers, he’s not likely to tell any of our authorities about it if you simply offer him a comfy chair and a cup of tea.
Of course, their lord and savior declared waterboarding off limits now. And that’s fine. It’s been well argued by some in the intelligence committee (including high-ranking FBI officials) that the technique is unreliable and unnecessary. So, go ahead, Hollywood hard left folk. Applaud your hand-selected government as it takes that ugly waterboarding off the table as an interrogation option. I know it troubles you to read about such distasteful realities in the New York Times over your organic sprout luncheon muffins.
But, you’d best be prepared to decided what techniques you will support — what limits you’re willing to test to interrogate those planning future terrorist actions, because the problems those interrogations are meant to solve aren’t going away. There are men out there right now who are watching this “torture” debate — looking at all of Hollywood’s self-righteous indignation and sterile pontificating. They don’t debate. They don’t give themselves hugs for how evolved, compassionate and enlightened they are. They just plan and wait.
They behold all of the Starbucks, Sushi Rokus and Urban Outfitters — all of the self-absorbed, delicate people filling them — and they laugh through clinched teeth until they’re heard from again with a violent bloodlust that makes waterboarding look like a garra rufa pedicure.
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