Mr. Blair [Obama nominee for intelligence director] also suggested that some interrogation procedures [for detainees] would need to remain secret so potential adversaries could not train to resist them.
“We don’t want to provide open intelligence support for those who are coming after us,” he told members of the Intelligence Committee.
Remarkably, as the piece goes on to detail, congressional Democrats, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, oppose this common sense approach. She, among others, wants to legislate what methods can be used -- making the information unavoidably public.
It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to realize two things: If we publicize which interrogation methods can (or cannot be used), first, our enemies can be trained to resist them. Second, our forces lose the psychological advantage that comes with being able to threaten an unresponsive terrorist with certain measures (even if he has no intention of using them) -- because, in fact, his adversary knows as well as he does what's actually allowed. This is like handing a not-insubstantial weapon to our enemies.
Surely if the Obama White House is willing to restrict access for journalists to its own political activities, it should be willing to restrict access to information about American interrogation methods for our enemies.
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