For about a year, there have been rumors of secret CIA prisons holding al-Qaeda members and other suspected terrorists away from such publicly scrutinized places as Guantanamo Bay. According to an article by Dana Priest in the November 2, 2005 issue of The Washington Post, these classified “black sites” are known only to a few American officials, and, in the host countries, only to the head of state and top intelligence officers. Since these prisons exist on foreign soil, mostly in Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe, they are not subject to much oversight from Congress.

While the CIA remains silent on what occurs in these prisons, some detainees, who have been transferred to less secure sites, claim that they were tortured.

Perhaps these allegations of torture are true, and the CIA has been using it as a means of interrogation. Just the thought of that sends shivers down most peoples’ spines. Torture is never a pleasant idea and that is exactly what makes it so effective. This may sound Machiavellian, but if the CIA is getting useful information out of these detainees and preventing further attacks against U.S. interests, they should be free to continue their operations.

The United States is in a very difficult position; we can worry about our public image and lose the war because we’re too afraid to truly fight it, or we can choose to commit ourselves fully to victory by whatever means necessary. That is what this war will come down to in the end. It’s a war of attrition, and we have the greater numbers.

The radicals we fight believe it is their duty to God to destroy Western civilization. They do not want land, and they do not want money. They want us dead.

It is impossible to fight such hatred with political correctness. We have to let the CIA and the military do their jobs, without all the red tape that prevents them from success.

These secret prisons, are places of fear, not for Americans, but for terrorists. That is exactly how it should be. The weapon of the terrorist is fear, not violence. A terrorist merely uses violence to create fear. It is time to fight fire with fire. Our government should send a clear message to our enemies: you will be caught, you may be tortured, and you will never have a chance to harm the United States again. In the end, it is a choice between the rights and freedoms of terrorists, or the rights and freedoms of Americans. That should not be a difficult choice.