"The threat we face now, the idea of a terrorist in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, is very real, and we have to use extraordinary measures to deal with it."

- Former Vice President Dick Cheney

"If you're in doubt, do what it takes to help America survive every time."

- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich

Question: Are authorities permitted any actions to protect our nation?

The following fictional story occurs during 10 minutes on a Saturday. The season is autumn. The time is 1 p.m.

He is a soldier but doesn't wear a soldier's uniform. He is bound to a metal chair. Ropes are lashed around his ankles, his wrists and tightly around his throat. He is in an interrogation room: small, perhaps 15 feet square, with a concrete floor, gray walls and a single table.

He has information. Under prolonged, brutal questioning and physical abuse, he has divulged little. He has trained for these possibilities. He believes in the cause. He is willing to die. Still, he has given up one crucial piece of intelligence: An attack is imminent. It will take place within two hours.

"What and when" are answered. His inquisitors still need the "who and where."

He is a criminal in his captors' eyes, not a soldier. Soldiers are honorable. This man is not. To them, he is evil manifest. Immoral. The bound man closes his eyes. He laughs, he cries. He thinks of his family. He is resolute. His captors know the coming attack may cause the deaths of a thousand countrymen and women. Perhaps tens of thousands.

Their concern is the ticking clock, and they need the "who and where." Now.

They need the information and are willing to do whatever is necessary to save lives. But they cannot wrest more information from this man. He is too strong, too determined, too well-trained. The ticking time bomb ….

A standby plan has been in place. Now it takes effect.

A terror-stricken child is pulled roughly into the room. She is 12 years old. She wears a pink blouse and a white cotton skirt. She has long black hair covered by a simple scarf. She knows nothing of politics or war or battles fought for centuries. Nothing of deep hatreds between peoples. The time bomb ticks.

Her father, still bound to the metal chair, screams, "NO NO NO!" They force her to lie on the angled table. Her scarf is removed.

"Where is the attack? Save your daughter." A cloth now covers her face. Water from a canister drowns her mouth, her nose. She flails, she screams, she soils herself. They stop. Her entire body trembles. She is 12 years old and believes her mother is as beautiful as a movie star. The father screams of her innocence.

"Yes … but we will protect our people, our way of life," his captors reply.

The water flows once more. Two seconds pass. The daughter loses consciousness. Her heart rate is checked. Still alive.

"Where?"

A cart is wheeled into the room. Upon it sits a metal box with several dials, a VU meter, electrodes, cables. The soldier recognizes the horror about to occur. Abu Ghraib prison. The photos. "Stop. Please."

"Where? Who?"

Methodically, small clamps are attached to those very intimate body parts of the 12-year-old girl who loves soccer and loves to sing. Screams. The smell of burning flesh.

"Save your daughter. Tell us."

Sobbing - loving father, loving soldier that he is - he gives up the intelligence.

He smiles adoringly, with grief and heartbreak, at his horribly battered, but still breathing and beautiful, daughter, who has a crush on Nick Jonas and adores Hannah Montana and who hopes she may one day be as beautiful as her mother. He mouths "I love you" as she is carried from the hard gray room.

The interrogator gazes at the soldier.

"You know how this works. We use any measures, extraordinary if necessary, to deal with threats to our country. As you would."

He unholsters his Beretta and aims it at the head of the captain, still tied to a metal chair, the soldier who was born and raised in Tulsa, Okla., who majored in engineering mechanics at the University of Wisconsin and upon graduation enlisted in the United States Marine Corps to defend his country, happily married with a beautiful young daughter.

He squeezes the trigger, and the compressed spring drives the hammer forward, the firing pin hits the primer, which explodes, driving the bullet down the barrel ….

Richard Dale Sullivan works with identity management at the University of Nebraska. He loves dogs. Rest in peace, Presley.