Tuesday, Apr. 21, 2009 Did Waterboarding Prevent Terrorism Attacks? By Mark Thompson and Bobby Ghosh / Washington
In the wake of the release of the CIA torture memos, the Obama Administration already has its hands full with critics on the left who want senior Bush Administration officials prosecuted for the use of harsh interrogation techniques like water boarding. But thanks to former Vice President Dick Cheney, it has to deal with a different line of attack from the right. The growing chorus claims the Administration selectively chose which CIA memos to declassify, deliberately holding back documents that show "the success of the effort...specifically what we gained as a result of this activity," as Cheney put it in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity Monday.
Like many of his allies, Cheney insists that methods like waterboarding or sleep deprivation are an essential tool needed to pry vital intelligence from terrorists who otherwise refused to cooperate with their captors. Last month he said "the enhanced interrogation program" stopped "a great many" 9/11-like attacks. "I've seen a report that was written, based upon the intelligence that we collected then, that itemizes the specific attacks that were stopped by virtue of what we learned through those programs," Cheney said to CNN, adding that its contents are "still classified" and can't be detailed. (See pictures of life inside Guantanamo.)
Opponents aren't buying any of this. They say that such an approach is a violation of international law that's tantamount to torture, and that whatever chunks of actionable intelligence it dislodged were dwarfed by the damage done to the U.S. image and reputation around the world. In addition, many of the Bush Administration's prosecutions of purported terrorists — announced with great fanfare as key victories in the war on terror — ultimately fell apart because of the suspect methods used to extract confessions. "I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values, including the rule of law," the President said Monday during a visit to the CIA. (Read six ways to fix the CIA.)
Both the White House and Senate Intelligence Committee are probing into the conflicting claims, and the CIA is combing through thousands of classified cables trying to determine just how important such techniques were to national security. But reaching consensus on what we really learned as a result of things like waterboarding won't be easy. There's a reason, after all, the intelligence world is often likened to a hall of mirrors. What appears to be true to one spy looks exactly the opposite to another.
Officials in the Bush Administration maintain that the intelligence wrung from terror detainee Abu Zubaydah (whom the CIA waterboarded "at least" 83 times, according to an an agency document released by the Obama Administration last week) led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the self-proclaimed architect of the 9/11 attacks. His capture, in turn, helped prevent future terror strikes, they maintain; Mohammed himself, the memos revealed, was waterboarded a startling 183 times in March 2003 (a May 2005 memo from a CIA lawyer said waterboarding could be used on a detainee up to 12 times daily for as long as 40 seconds per event). Then-CIA director George Tenet, in his 2007 memoir, says that tough interrogation of al-Qaeda members — and documents found on them, he is careful to add — thwarted more than 20 plots "against U.S. infrastructure targets, including communications nodes, nuclear power plants, dams, bridges, and tunnels." A "future airborne attack on America's West Coast" was likely foiled only because the CIA didn't have "to treat KSM like a white collar criminal."
Critics of such claims argue that what was thwarted were merely al-Qaeda fantasies. "Torture gets people to talk — no question," says a former senior U.S. national security official involved in such matters. "They talk and talk and talk, until you stop hurting them. But in every instance, bar none, you later discover that they've just been lying or exaggerating, or telling you what they think you want to hear." In fact, a 1963 CIA interrogation manual warned that those resisting questioning "are likely to become intractable if made to endure pain" or generate "false, concocted as a means of escaping from distress."
Complicating matters is that even if such foiled plots were more than fantasies it's as hard to prove a negative after September 11 as it was before. Just because there were no attacks after 9/11 doesn't necessarily mean that the interrogations deserve the credit. And of course the intelligence community's failure to discover that Saddam Hussein lacked any weapons of mass destruction before the Bush Administration invaded Iraq in 2003 makes their purported knowledge about thwarting attacks suspect to many observers.
Even one of the memos itself acknowledges the disagreement within the intelligence community about the effectiveness of the harsh methods. A footnote in the May 30, 2005 memo by Steven Bradbury, then acting head of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, states that, "According to the [CIA] IG Report, the CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation from those who did not actually have information ... On at least one occasion, this may have resulted in.................http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1892947,00.html
Maybe they can make them breakfast in bed to get them to talk.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Rep. Michele Bachmann: Has janet Napolitano Gone Mad?
Friday, April 24, 2009 4:40 AM
It didn't take long for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to shoot herself in the foot or for Republicans to make her a target of their opposition to Obama administration policy.
At the heart of the GOP criticism is a recent intelligence analysis from Napolitano's agency saying veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan could be susceptible to right-wing recruiters or commit lone acts of violence.
When conservative bloggers began writing about the report, Napolitano defended the assessment while acknowledging that some of it should have been rewritten. She went on a number of television news shows to apologize and explain her support for and admiration of veterans.
This was not enough for several Republicans who took to the House floor this week to criticize Napolitano, confirmed to her Cabinet position less than 100 days ago.
"Has this homeland security secretary gone absolutely stark raving mad?" said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. "She needs to come before Congress. She needs to answer a few questions."
On Thursday, Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, told Fox News that Napolitano must not understand "the disruption that she has caused" in some parts of the country. "I think the appropriate thing for her to do would be to step down," he said.
A day earlier, Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, said, "Janet Napolitano should resign or be fired."
They should bake them cakes instead and ask real nice.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Keith Olbermann Offers $1,000 a Second for Sean Hannity Waterboarding
MSNBC news commentator Keith Olbermann is taking on his Fox News counterpart Sean Hannity over the issue of waterboarding – in a rather extreme way. He blasted Hannity’s views on the issue and said he would donate $1,000 to charity for every second that Hannity is waterboarded.
Hannity, in an argument with actor Charles Grodin on Fox, defended waterboarding, calling it a means of “enhanced interrogation.” When Grodin asked Hannity if he would consent to be waterboarded himself, the Fox anchor replied, "Sure. I'll do it for charity. I'll let you do it. I'll do it for the troops' families." That wasn’t enough for Olbermann. "What a breakthrough it would be if, by having reality literally forced upon him, a buffoon like Hannity were to realize the deadly seriousness of this," Olbermann says. "The searing truth: that the moment of torture automatically makes the presumed bad guy recipient the victim, and makes the torturer into the evildoer." As for the charity offer, Olbermann says, "For every second you last, a thousand dollars - live or on tape, provided other networks' cameras are there.” But he doesn’t stop there. “Oh, and I'll double it when you admit you feared for your life, when you admit the horrible truth - waterboarding, the symbol of the last administration, is torture," Olbermann says. While Olbermann spills his invective, President Obama and Senate Democrats are pulling back. The White House and Democratic leaders in the Senate say they will prevent the creation of an independent commission to examine the Bush administration’s authorization of harsh interrogation methods, according to The New York Times.
All this far-left fuss over harsh interrogation techniques is both predictable and despicable [April 24 Gazette]. Make no mistake: If, in the process of keeping us safe after 9/11, the Bush administration had approved tickling the truth out of militant Islamists, you can be certain that we’d now be learning that being tickled is being tortured. While waterboarding doesn’t sound like fun, it is undergone by U.S. Special Forces as part of their training. And, according to CIA memos not yet released, it works. The proof is eight years without a follow-up attack, which has allowed many of us to fall back into a Sept. 10, 2001 mentality. One thing to consider: If Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had only been waterboarded, his head would still be attached to his body.
Like I said earlier, as the liberals wish- bring them flowers and let them have special religious rights and ceremonies, kosher meals, and never, ever, ever, offend their religion or think that we should attack their mosques (even when they are used as arsenals) or risk having bad feelings. Then there will be world peace (whirled peas like the bumper sticker says!) RIGHT!
If we had the same nursery school mentality with the rat-basta_d Nazis and communists, then we would be under THEIR thumb at the present. But THAT generation (even the liberals of it) still had COMMON SENSE and an understanding that there actually IS EVIL. Today, we have stricken the absolutes of good and evil from the pages of our lexicon and let our young and uninformed be victims of moral and ethical confusion. What better way to let evil into our everyday lives, worldwide?
Now the world in the future must return to the darkness of it all, simply because we decided to be impotent in the face of aggression and evil and we worried that a response some would deem "too strong" would lend to our feelings of guilt. There is no response strong enough in the face of such abject evil. Our worldly responses must not be tempered by those with ulterior motives as the left has. Common sense and strength must prevail, or we and our children are doomed to live life under Sharia totalitarianism and the occultist evil that is radical Islam.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Is there a place for the waterboard? To prepare for its uncontrolled use by our future enemies. Brutal interrogation, murder and extreme humiliation of Americans may now be guaranteed because we have mindlessly, but happily, broken the seal on the Pandora's box of indignity, cruelty and hatred in the name ofprotecting America.
Our enemies are beheading Americans. Waterboarding? It already prevented a major attack on LA that would have killed thousands of Americans.
Now instead of leveling Iranian nuclear facilities-Obama wants to have a sitdown with sweet tea. He is a weak leader with no idea how to destroy Islamo-facists. It is illegal for Catholics to pray in private in Saudi Arabia. Conditions in Pakistan are rapidly deteriorating. Obama has been a complete failure in foreign affairs with even the French laughing at him.
Let me ask everyone....if your 3 year old daughter was abducted and you had one guy in custody that actually knew where your kid was and the only way you could get this info was by waterboarding or anything else for that matter, would you give the green light on it then....or would you bring in Dr. Phil, serve him tea and crackers and hope he spills his guts?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
To hell with water-boarding break out the blow torch. Our enemies have been torturing our soldiers for longer than most can remember. What was done to the American soldiers when they were captured by the Japanese, Germans, North Vietnamese, and now the terrorists and the "chosen one" says all we can do is follow the Army handbook while our enemies cut off our soldiers heads or tie their lifeless bodies to a bridge for all to see.
Is there a place for the waterboard? To prepare for its uncontrolled use by our future enemies. Brutal interrogation, murder and extreme humiliation of Americans may now be guaranteed because we have mindlessly, but happily, broken the seal on the Pandora's box of indignity, cruelty and hatred in the name ofprotecting America.
...yeah, you are right. The terrorists ALL OBSERVE THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACCORDS TO THE LETTER!!!!!!! YEAH...put the bong down now grandpa. The 60's are over. Go stuff Pandora's box you know where. You liberals won't be happy until the nation is in flames, be upfront about how much you hate this land and the values of it. Just spit it out and stop hiding behind the democrat party. Tell us how you are a black-hearted bolshevik. Extreme humiliation... PLEASE!!!!!!!
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Logged
Our enemies are beheading Americans. Waterboarding? It already prevented a major attack on LA that would have killed thousands of Americans. 
