Where’s the Outrage? Where’s the Detention Policy?

Where’s the Outrage? Where’s the Detention Policy?  [Dana Perino and Bill Burck via NRO]

The Obama administration is working with Pakistani intelligence to interrogate Mullah Baradar, reportedly the Taliban’s number-two man. We’ve been a little underwhelmed by the Left’s reaction to this news.

As others have pointed out, the Pakistanis made the arrest and are taking the lead in gathering intelligence from Baradar. But the Pakistanis are not subject to President Obama’s ban on interrogation techniques that go beyond those authorized in the Army Field Manual. The Pakistanis don’t know the Army Field Manual — and probably think the enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation, used in years past against certain al-Qaeda detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, are rather quaint.

The Left’s silence on Mullah Baradar is convenient. Gone are the hysterical cries of torture. Missing in action are the opponents of rendition. One searches in vain for impassioned denunciations of Obama’s outsourcing of interrogations to countries with long histories of torture. What happened to the sputtering self-righteousness of yesteryear, when Bush and Cheney were routinely compared to Hitler and Pol Pot? To the Left, it would appear, it’s totally cool as long we’re not the ones doing it.

Further, the interrogation of Baradar may not be working. According to the LA Times, which based its account on sources in the Obama administration, the “joint” interrogation of Baradar by Pakistan intelligence and the CIA has not provided information that could lead to the capture of other Taliban leaders or “inform the planning of U.S. military operations.” Maybe this is because, as some have suggested, instead of breaking out the medieval torture devices, the Pakistanis are treating Baradar with kid gloves. Perhaps the Pakistanis have no real interest in gathering intelligence from Baradar. They want to use him as a bargaining chip to enhance their advantage in any post-war settlement, as we have discussed....

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