Posted by
EWRoss on Monday, January 25, 2010 8:00:00 AM
You have to wonder if the Obama administration officials who
came up with the idea of establishing the High-Value Detainee Interrogation
Group (HIG) weren’t overly influenced by Hollywood.
It's a familiar, action-packed concept. Highly-skilled interrogators work out
of Washington, DC, under the direct supervision of the
White House. They deploy around the world to obtain critical intelligence from
newly captured high-value Islamist-Jihadist operatives in the nick of time to
prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack. It would make a great prime-time TV
series.
If Hollywood
were to produce such a program, however, they’d have to write scripts that had
little resemblance to the real one. Few Americans would tune in more than once
to a series in which the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
were read their Miranda rights, provided a comfortable cell with a copy of the
Qur'an, and asked politely if they would cooperate with US Intelligence before
their lawyers arrived. Americans would much prefer to watch protagonists that
behaved more like 24's Jack Bauer or Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp.
Read my full column at http://ewross.com/The_HIG.htm