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The debate continues to rage in Washington over the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques against suspected terrorists, with former vice president Dick Cheney adamantly defending unorthodox methods because it enabled authorities to extract information that “prevented the violent deaths of…hundreds of thousands of innocent people.”

On the other hand, President Barack Obama strongly censured the Bush administration’s method of extracting information from prisoners. While he acknowledged that the previous administration was “motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people,” its misguided decisions undermined the rule of law and alienated even its allies.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came under fire over reports that she knew about the use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques from a CIA briefing sometime in 2002, yet did nothing about it. Pelosi vehemently denied any knowledge but public opinion is strongly against “Nervous Nancy,” with bloggers suggesting the use of “enhanced interrogation” methods to force the Speaker to tell the truth.

President Obama said the use of “enhanced interrogation”—another way of saying “torture”—resulted in “enhanced hatred” for the United States and undermined counter-terrorism efforts, eventually hurting the image of America around the world. The detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Obama stressed, has “set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world.”

What the US president is really saying is that in its efforts to protect its citizens from terrorists, the US threw its principles out of the window and conveniently forgot about due process, human rights and all other democratic tenets that it has been preaching other nations to uphold.

In fact, history has repeated itself. A few months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US government rounded up and incarcerated more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans in “War Relocation Camps” as “enhanced protection” for Americans. It was a time of “enhanced fear and paranoia” fueled by suspicions that the Nisei or Japanese-Americans might sabotage the US because they were loyal to the Japanese Emperor. Lt. General John DeWitt, who directed the internment program, conducted search and seizure operations to look for radio transmitters, rationalizing his actions by repeatedly saying “a Jap’s a Jap.”

Records show that even before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the US had been conducting covert investigation on a number of Japanese-Americans in the West Coast and Hawaii, with the FBI and the military secretly undertaking “enhanced surveillance” operations as a precautionary measure. Some 2,000 Japanese-Americans were summarily arrested several days after the Second World War broke out simply because they were considered influential figures in the community.

After 9-11, Osama bin Laden succeeded in changing America’s way of life forever. George Bush sincerely believed he was protecting the safety of Americans when he authorized wiretapping and other “enhanced surveillance” techniques, monitoring telephone calls and emails—pretty much like the scenario in the movie “Eagle Eye” where a secret super computer monitors people’s cameras, cell phones, computers and all other electronic devices. It’s a chilling scenario because anybody’s privacy can be invaded (perhaps like what’s happening in this Hayden Kho-Katrina Halili scandal), and in the wrong hands, such powerful technology could be used by terrorists to destroy the US. It’s a well-known fact that terrorists use cyberspace to recruit militants, provide instructions on bomb-making and spread hatred against Americans.

Republicans and former Bush administration officials say the terrorist threat is more than enough justification for the use of waterboarding as well as the continued existence of the Guantanamo prison facility (also known as Gitmo). The US Senate refused to allocate budget for the closing of the facility as well as the transfer of detainees to American prisons, much to the frustration of Obama. To rightists, why should America close Gitmo and give terrorists a foot in the door by bringing them into the US? “To bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come,” Cheney had warned.

Countries which have been at the receiving end of US pontification about human rights abuses—particularly China—are closely watching the events in Washington. And as far as they are concerned, more than ever the US has no right to sermon them about their record of human rights abuses. George Bush is being blamed for the documented deaths of more than 100 detainees in Guantanamo in Cuba, Bagram in Afghanistan and other American prison facilities in various locations. Today, left-leaning groups want George Bush tried like Ferdinand Marcos, Augusto Pinochet, Pol Pot, Ne Win and other dictators charged with human rights abuses.

In an interview, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates described the Guantanamo detention facility as “one of the finest prisons in the world today” but it has tainted the reputation of the US. Guantanamo is now being used as a propaganda tool by terrorists as a symbol of American human rights abuses.

Obama correctly points out that as president, he bears responsibility for keeping America safe from terrorists—much like the way George Bush felt—but he believes he now has to walk a tightrope to enhance counter-terrorism efforts without encouraging more hatred for the US. Obama wants to extend a hand in peace to those who are willing to “unclench their fists.”

One thing is clear: the world has changed dramatically over the years. At the end of the day, each country will do what it thinks is best in securing the safety of its citizens. As they say, to each his own—and that includes the Philippines—when it comes to protecting Filipino citizens without relying on other countries to help us.