When reading Deroy Murdock’s recent op-ed in the New York Post, I was reminded of the famous quote, “Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at nigh only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." But according to Mr. Murdock:

“America's top commander in Iraq, Lt.-Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, prohibited Thursday the use of sensory deprivation and "stress positions" (uncomfortable body poses) as tools of interrogation in Iraq. Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita admitted "the heightened scrutiny of the last couple of weeks" might have forced Sanchez's hand.”

“Such scrutiny was on vivid display as Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) hurled an accusatory question at Pentagon intelligence Undersecretary Stephen Cambone at Tuesday's hearing: ‘Secretary Cambone, were you personally aware that permissible interrogation techniques in the Iraqi theater included sleep management, sensory deprivation, isolation longer than 30 days and dogs?’”

“Levin's query suggested that these tactics should be verboten, and now some of them are. Still, one wonders if Levin, or the Pentagon, might like access to such methods, up to and including the menace of snarling German shepherds, if they yielded a basement full of Saddam Hussein's VX nerve gas or the undisclosed location of terror master Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?”

Do Americans really want a kindler gentler approach to the War on Terror? Or are we willing to let “rough men” do what is necessary to protect our way of life? Mr. Murdock certainly isn’t in favor of soft treatment for detainees; he concludes:

“Yes, excesses should be punished, and they will be. But if being forced to sit in pitch-black rooms while wearing women's panties makes Ba'athist henchmen and al Qaeda killers sing, forgive me if I fail to burst into tears."

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