Since the American people don't care and generally approve of terrorist interrogations, why are we impaneling an inquisition against our own operatives in the war on terror?

The elephant in the Justice Department hearing room investigating excessive force in the interrogation of terrorist suspects will be the large majority of the American public. They do not care if we waterboard or inflict pain on people who blow up innocent bystanders – and often themselves – in a maniacal melee for purposes beyond the ability of rational people to comprehend. It's difficult to get up a head of steam over practices instigated by the deadly attacks of 9-11, the subsequent cowardly and heinous murder of American troops in Iraq and the explosions in public places in Spain, the UK, India and Indonesia.

Since the people don't care and generally approve of terrorist interrogations, why are we impaneling an inquisition against our own operatives in the war on terror? Because, as usual, a small cadre of anti-war, anti-American activists are getting their way on the force of a self-righteous head of steam. This hard-left crowd has been at it since 2003, so none of this is new. They have been calling for war tribunals against the CIA and the Bush White House relentlessly, even after Obama swept into office. I know – I see their bulletins. And right there with them are the ridiculously biased mass media who offer no perspective in their febrile advocacy of what is essentially an undermining of American policy and security.

Obama backed away from tribunals against the CIA and other agencies, but passed the baton to Attorney General Eric Holder. After a decent interval, Holder announced he will indeed investigate his own countrymen for doing their duty. The hard Left says he is not going far enough – they want Bush and Cheney, remember. But the reality is we are risking our national security by staining the men and women on the front lines of the war on terror.

As I understand it – via my contacts from producing the Raleigh Spy Conference since 2003 – intelligence officers are afraid to act for fear of recriminations, leaving us vulnerable to attack and watching in horror war tribunals against the public servants who protect us. But get used to it. Public policy under Obama is in the hands of the chosen few who act as if the wishes of the people don't count. The administration's health care plan is embraced by the Washington Democrat elite but disdained by the people in poll after poll; elections are manipulated by unpublicized legislation that allows new voters to register and vote during one visit to the elections board (a change more than any other that ensured Obama's ascendancy); muddled pronouncements about the need to cut defense spending to please the hard Left that sends a mixed and weak message to our allies and enemies; and economic policies that are not working for the majority of Americans.

But the big one is the war in Afghanistan. I admire our armed forces and feel pride at the deployment of our technically advanced weapons and intelligence-gathering equipment. But I do not approve of this war in a country unconquerable since the time of Alexander the Great. Worse, I think we are there as part of the ongoing campaign against the presidency of George W. Bush.

During the last weeks of the past presidential election, the "surge" in Iraq worked. Yet every Democrat I met said "so what," it made no difference because Iraq is not our war. I asked what was "our war" and the reply was Afghanistan. Could it be we are there for political reasons to maintain the cover-up of the success of the "surge" in Iraq just to keep on beating up George Bush?

The Taliban is not our enemy. They are certainly bad characters, but then so was Saddam Hussein, whom the Left said wasn't worth the effort to invade Iraq. Pundits justify the war in Afghanistan saying we are fighting al-Qaeda there, but we beat them in Iraq already. They are in Pakistan, but does that mean we should be in Afghanistan for no rational reason?

But then it's not rational to haul up the CIA for doing its job – so there is a consistency to the war tribunals and the war in Afghanistan: politics, Obama-style.