By Any Means Necessary

MSNBC.com is running a Doug Struck/Washington Post article today, claiming torture in Iraq is still routine, at least according to a report issued by Human Rights Watch. HRW is an organization that takes great pains to avoid mentioning that Darfur is a Arab Muslim genocide of African Muslims and Christians. So much for their objectivity, or credibility.

In any event, the article states that Iraqis are routinely beaten, hung by their wrists, and shocked with electrical wires. Struck makes sure to use a quote from an Iraqi by the name of Dhia Fawzi Shaid, claming that the the torture is "worse than Saddam's regime."

Really?

Would Dhia Fawzi Shaid come forward openly, using his full name, and complain to an international organization with full media exposure if Saddam was still in power? Only if he would like to be intimately acquainted with the inner machinations of a wood chipper. Color me skeptical, and this report less than honest.

Human Rights Watch also acknowledges that Iraq was, "in the throes of a significant insurgency" (who knew?) , but what really got under my skin was the statement in the Human Rights Watch report that:

"no government, not Saddam Hussein's, not the occupying powers and not the Iraqi Interim Government, can justify ill-treatment of persons in custody in the name of security."

Ladies and gentlemen, I've got news for you: if you are in the middle of an insurgency and capture someone that may have information about an impending attack that will almost certainly take the lives of dozens of men, women, and children, it it not only morally justified to use every method at your disposal to avert that attack, it is your moral imperative.

Yes, the "ill-treatment" of prisoners in a combat zone is acceptable and justifiable to get the intelligence needed to save a far greater number of lives. Yes, I condone torture in extreme cases, and even summary executions.

To say you will not use every means necessary to avoid terrorist attacks is to say you hold the lives of the terrorist in higher regard than the lives of Iraqi mothers, fathers, and children. Does anyone dare make that case?

You must do what you must to save lives. I don't care if this involves electrical shock to the genitals of terrorists or the cutting off of their fingers joint-by-joint. If having your compatriot's gray matter splattered all over your burka loosens your tongue, then so be it.

As someone once astutely noted, war is Hell.

That said, torture is obviously unacceptable for routine criminal offenses, and I'm neither thrilled nor surprised that the Iraqi prison system is still in need of substantial reform.

But don't try to tell me torture is never justified.

It simply isn't true.