Jack Bauer Joins The State Department
Posted on January 23, 2009
Filed Under Government | Comments Off
Ok not really, everyone knows Jack Bauer spent a little time in Canada and is a terrorist. However the Wall Street Journal is scared his tactics may still be used in the real world despite no evidence the kind of ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario has ever happened ever (see what I did there with the 2 “ever”?). Now I do understand their worry, Obama promised to unilaterally end torture so if there any loopholes he’d be going back on his promises, however I would like to remind you the circumstance in which this called loophole may be used.
Let’s assume for a moment that some terrorist group (as this scenario cannot work with just one person) was smart enough (or we were dumb enough) to let some kind of substance into the US that could kill thousands of people in an instant. Keeping in mind this terrorist group would have to find a way to keep this substance stable while transporting it and have enough technical staff to insure they can create, maintain and hold said substance. While they may be able to find some information off the internet it’s almost certain that just like on TV this group would have to capture or bribe someone from this country to help them. Then they would have to find a way to contact the government with some kind of demand without giving away their position, they would have to have a plan to accept said bribe and then somehow get out of the country.
While the television may make this seem possible I don’t think anyone realizes just how much planning 9-11 took, decades. If we can agree this ticking time bomb scenario is more complicated than 9-11 we’d be talking about a terrorist group that would have to start planing for this decades before 9-11 to even be plausible. The scenario also brings up the point that you’d have to capture someone you know is high up enough and is actively threatening our population unless we do something like pull our troops out of a country. You have to keep in mind only 1 case in the entire planet has come even slightly close to meeting this criteria and it turned out after torturing him (the case was in Hong Kong IIRC) he was lying. You have a better chance winning the lottery than this happening to the United States let alone any other country.
I don’t care if my government has a ’so called loophole’ to possibly torture a suspect who is bragging about the ability to kill thousands of Americans in a ticking time bomb situation because in the history of our planet the scenario has never happened (save for our television) and I doubt it ever will. However it would seem the Wall Street Journal thinks the day may come and the president may have to make the hard decision, something tells me despite the highly unlikely situation I doubt Obama would authorize it, and if he did we would never heard the end of it. If Obama was willing to put his career on the line for this one exemption I’d be ready and willing to hear why, wouldn’t you?
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