Apr 22 2009
Is Anyone Going To Care If Khalid Sheik Mohammed Was Waterboarded?
Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) is a truly evil man, right up there with history’s other notorious evil men like Hitler. The good news for humanity is he never got a chance to rule and show us his full potential. While Bin Laden gets the credit for the atrocities of 9-11, the real credit goes to KSM, he made it happen. His list of crimes is long and gruesome:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was a member of Osama bin Laden‘s al-Qaeda organization, although he lived inKuwait rather than Afghanistan, heading al-Qaeda’s propaganda operations from sometime around 1999. According to the 9/11 Commission Report he was “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks”. He is also thought to have had, or has confessed to, a role in many of the most significant terrorist plots over the last twenty years, including the World Trade Center 1993 bombings, the Operation Bojinka plot, an aborted 2002 attack on Los Angeles’ U.S. Bank Tower, the Bali nightclub bombings, the failed bombing of American Airlines Flight 63, the Millennium Plot, and the murder of Daniel Pearl.
We know from the Obama administration’s disclosure of classified material the man was waterboarded many, many times. He was sleep deprived and possibly slapped on the face. As some folks said it was tragic he did not get a taste of various college initiation rights as well. Our fighting men and women go through waterboarding to train them how to face up to what is really just a simple reflex action. There is no ‘near drowning’ as the liberal media has been hyperventilating. A cloth is placed over the face and water is poured over it, causing the reflexive panic that kicks in when one IS drowning. But it is nearly impossible to drown, the amount  of water being used is just not that much. It is trick of the senses, it is not real drowning (water in lungs, etc).
For the man who is responsible for pulling off the attacks that killed 3,000 innocent men, women and children on 9-11 this trick of the senses is minor in comparison to his actions. He had plans in his possession for more evil and bloody deeds. He knew all about others in al Qaeda who had their own plans for evil and bloody carnage. And he divulged much of what he knew and we saved many lives and rounded up a lot of terrorists because this nation decided to fake out his reflexes and make it seem like he was drowning.
The reward for this success of course is a witch hunt by democrats in Congress and the White House in a lame attempt to divert America from the fact that all their mad spending and bankrupting the country is not working to fix the job market as they promised:
President Obama signaled Tuesday that he has changed his stance on the prosecution of Bush Administration aides over the possible torture of terrorism suspects. Coverage of the story is extensive, leading all three network newscasts, and is generally negative toward the Administration. Much of it casts Obama’s comments as a reversal — one triggered by criticism from Capitol Hill Democrats and key segments of his political base. Both print and TV reports also tend to note Obama’s apparent contradiction of recent comments on the issue by his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. The CBS Evening News called Obama’s remarks “stunning,” and noted “the White House later denied the President had reversed policy.”
This could really blow up in Obama’s face. He is supposed to be chasing down terrorists and stopping their efforts to hit us. He is not supposed to be going after those trying to find and stop the terrorists, who are doing the job of protecting this nation. Obama is nuts to pick a legal fight with the intelligence community.Â
These people know a lot of dark little secrets, and they can divulge information too. In fact, they are starting to do that very thing right now, openly:
President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.
“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,†Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.
…
Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Mr. Bush, said on Fox News Sunday last weekend that “the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work.†Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in a separate interview with Fox, endorsed that conclusion and said he has asked the C.I.A. to declassify memos detailing the gains from the harsh interrogations.
The Dems better back off this quickly, or else those defending us will have to defend themselves, and they would be within their rights to expose the entire picture. Including those parts that indicate what threats were headed our way (many listed above already tied to KSM) and how many people could have died.
But that would be a mild problem compared to the fire storm that will erupt if we are attacked again. If that happened then Obama’s words would come back to haunt him big time:
“I’m sure that sometimes it seems as if that means we’re operating with one hand tied behind our back or that those who would argue for a higher standard are naïve,†he said. “I understand that. You know, I watch the cable shows once in a while.â€
But he added: “What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.â€
This is not TV Bozo! This is real life. Obama sits behind a phalanx of secret service protections, but the exposed average Americans who would die in droves if we experience another 9-11 have no such protections. Why should good Americans die to pamper an admitted and known killer, who knows where other killers are and what their plans are? Is anyone going to risk their loved ones over the likes of KSM? Obama is kidding himself (as are the liberals) if they think we would shed even a single tear for this scum, let alone risk our lives. The dems just don’t get it.
Witch hunts will not fix the bad economy. There is no way to play for time and try and divert the nation’s attention with this crap. The failed plans of mad spending by a sluggish government is just not going to kick in as would have tax cuts. Â This diversion is not going to hide or mute that pending train wreck.
But more than that, the American people will be rightfully wondering why our distracted government is treating the mad man behind 9-11 like a victim ,while attacking the defenders of this nation as if they committed a crime. If you want to look totally clueless, that’s one great way to do it. I wish I could say the liberal democrats aren’t that stupid, but I thought they weren’t that stupid on a lot of things. Sadly, I think they are going to out do themselves this time.
Update: That didn’t take long, It seems Obama has a backlash brewing in the Intel Community:
Sad to say, it’s slow roll time at Langley after the release of interrogation memos that, in the words of one veteran officer, “hit the agency like a car bomb in the driveway.” President Obama promised CIA officers that they won’t be prosecuted for carrying out lawful orders, but the people on the firing line don’t believe him. They think the memos have opened a new season of investigation and retribution.
The lesson for younger officers is obvious: Keep your head down. Duck the assignments that carry political risk. Stay away from a counterterrorism program that has become a career hazard.
Runaway from defending this nation? Are we now less safe since the Dems claimed it was open season on the defenders?
Put yourself in the shoes of the people who were asked to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners in 2002. One former officer told me he declined the job, not because he thought the program was wrong but because he knew it would blow up. “We all knew the political wind would change eventually,” he recalled. Other officers who didn’t make that cynical but correct calculation are now “broken and bewildered,” says the former operative.
So those who made the hard choice and went into selflessly into the war are now being hunted, while the spineless cowards who thought more of themselves than their country crow? This is going to really blow up.
Â
Kathie,
The day you end five years in a Vietnamese prison being tortured is the day you will be deemed worthy of criticizing McCain on this subject. Do you realize how many people in the military and who are veterans you just repulsed?
AJ, I called McCain a POLITICAL coward. I DID NOT CALL THE MAN A COWARD, no would I ever. Do you not see a difference?
AJ, I called McCain a POLITICAL coward. I DID NOT CALL THE MAN A COWARD, nor would I ever. Do you not see a difference?
kathie, it’s a huge difference. As a McCain watcher, I do disagree that he was a political coward. Nope. This is pure ego and relating it all back to what he suffered. He allowed the Abu Ghraib mess to label Bush & USA. Examples: How he handled those Hearings. HE was the one that gave it to the Dems. I say it trashed our service guys also by painting them with that brush. Look at how he handled the Swiftboaters. Lots of those guys suffered and they did not take kindly to McCain’s ego. He did them terrible. He hates Bush. He had to have his finance fiasco passed first and then did you not notice that he took 100% credit for The Surge? About 1,000 times, 100% credit. He is an Overseerer without the responsibility.
If those Pug Overseerers do not get some smarts over the MSM, it will not matter what is true or false. They have to get their mugs on TV and give interviews and point fingers at the ones that were briefed. Loudly. As a group. Individuals. Now. Or anytime in the last 8 years. If they can’t SHOUT and raise a big enough stink, they need to resign. Now.
Given that Bush is the first President to officially authorize the use of these enhanced interrogation techniques in the history of our country, let me make sure I understand the arguments in favor of this policy correctly:
1. KSM and Al Qaeda are the first evil and ruthless enemy America has faced. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Viet Cong, Soviet Union – none of those enemies qualify as evil and ruthless. By the way, if we establish our interrogation polices based on how evil our enemies are – why wouldn’t we authorize outright torture?
2. These interrogation techniques are the ONLY way to get reliable intelligence and truly safeguard our country. So all of our past presidents and leaders have deliberately jeopardized the safety of our soldiers and our country by refusing to authorize these techniques in our efforts to fight our enemies. None of the interrogation techniques the FBI, CIA and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been using for over 100 years really works.
3. If Cheney, Hayden and other senior Bush officials say that these techniques produced valuable intelligence that twarted an attack, that is proof positive it is true. It doesn’t matter that these guys have a vested interest in saving their own asses or that they have yet to provide any concrete evidence to support these claims. Their public statements alone should be enough right?
4. If there is another terrorist attack, which most counter-terrorist experts have consisently said since 9-11 that there certainly will be, it will undoubtably be because these interrogation techniques are not available. Again, these interrogation techniques are the one and only way to safeguard against terrorist attacks.
5. The US soldiers at Abu Grab were “bad apples” and deserved to be convicted and put in prison for years for using enhanced interrogation techniques to extract information out of Iraqi prisoners to prevent further deaths of US soldiers in Iraq. Bush, Cheney and other senior officials who authorized the use of these same techniques should be lauded as heros for protecting our country – oh yeah, they should also be forgiven for selling these US soldiers out when the pictures were publically released because they were too cowardly to admit they authorized these techniques.
AJ,
Admiral Blair clarified the statement you quoted above as follows:
“The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means,†Admiral Blair said in a written statement issued last night. “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22blair.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
“The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world”
Anti-American propagandists have used these techniques as an excuse to hurt America’s image in the world. Which of course they were going to do anyways regardless of any specifics. Fixed.
“Given that Bush is the first President to officially authorize the use of these enhanced interrogation techniques in the history of our country, let me make sure I understand the arguments in favor of this policy correctly:”
Are any of these “arguments” you list things that you’ve actually heard, or did it happen in a conversation with yourself?
Are any of these “arguments†you list things that you’ve actually heard, or did it happen in a conversation with yourself?
Heard them? I see bedwetters like you live them every day.
Yes, everybody, me included, admires John McCain deeply for his self-less suffering and sacrifice during his captivity. I went from being ambivalent about him to loving him to the point of tears after the convention.
But there’s just a few things about him that are so confounding. His stance on “torture”, especially given that he would have apparently been aware that it did indeed work, and supposed global warming/cap & trade to name a couple. Nobody’s perfect on every issue, but these are big ones, with big bad consequences if you get them wrong. Still definitely would have preferred he and Sarah to what we’re getting now.
As for Blair’s “clarification”, he says he doesn’t know if other things wouldn’t have worked. Well, I think they did try other things, presumably everything they had in their arsenal of techniques built up over decades. A little water in the face DID do the trick. Did we have time to conduct an in depth study on what can we do now that we haven’t already developed over the past 60 years? Certainly not.
To demonize people who were doing their very best to (successfully) protect against another attack, which most people thought was very likely to occur, and who were also doing what I see as an admirable job of balancing the amount of force administered with the need to know, is profoundly unfair, and is looking to me as being done for purely selfish, political reasons — the security of the country be damned.
And yes, if they didn’t have waterboarding and Abu Graib to use against us, they would have found something else. Or they would have MADE UP something else, like the Koran in the toilet. And are the good folks at the NYTimes who ran the non-stop front page articles on Abu blameless and factor-less? Are we to forgive and forget the people within the CIA/FBI who leaked damaging info to the press?
Radical Islam has GOT to be laughing its collective butt off at all this. Not to mention training to what they now know for sure is our new, refined revelation on our limit on interrogation.
Conman
1. We did not use interrogation techniques on KSM and the others because they were ruthless killers, but because we had actionable intelligence that they were highly connected to bin laden and could connect us to other plots.
2. Nobody said that this was the only way to interrogate, If you read the memos at “gateway Pundit” you will see that other methods were tried and they would not talk. You will also read why.
3. The blacked portion of the memos state what intelligence was gleamed, Cheney ask that it be published as well so we could judge for our selves.
4. If we pick up another high value target, these techniques will no longer work. Explained in “Gateway Pundit” as to why.
5. Soldiers at Abu Grahb were not using EIT”s, given permission to be used by the President. That is a false analogy, one circumstance has nothing to do with the other, it is a political story. The memos make that very clear.
If you want to believe a political story, or if you would rather contemplate the facts and then say it was wrong, that is find. What I’m finding that the political story is more fun for those who hate Bush.
“Heard them? I see bedwetters like you live them every day.”
Don’t resort to projection once you’ve lost an argument. It looks bad.
Not to brag… but I had my wife waterboard me several times… No big deal… and… you WILL talk…No nightmares here but if KSM has some…hay, at least he’s getting three squares and a bunk somewhere…
.and.
give the interrogators some credit for being able to get to the “truth” when they spill their guts…if some lefty gives you that lame argument…
.and.
I’ll bet they didn’t have to phone President Bush 17 times…
[ref pirates] to get permission…
Semper Fi
I think John McCain suffered a great deal in Viet Nam and that left him with certain attitudes about certain things. I don’t agree with him on this, but I think he was sincere. I honestly do not think it was about political cowardice.
However, considering the fact that the Clinton administration used rendition for years and allowed other people to do what they deemed necessary to get information…and considering the fact that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi signed off on this I really don’t see how the Democrats are in any position to complain about all this at all. They just want to appease certain members of their base in an effort to maintain dwindling support.
And the soldiers who behaved badly at Abu Ghraib are in a military prison today.
And my guess is the CIA people can turn on Obama, after all there were people in the CIA who had no problem leaking information to hurt Bush. Remember how awful it was that someone supposedly leaked Plame’s identity? Now Democrats can leak all sorts of things and it is okay fine.
Anyone consider a person must not be too scared of waterboarding to be waterboarded 166 times or whatever the number was? Think about it.
conguy: you said:
“The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us”
you don’t believe that do you? they’ve done ‘damage to our interests” outweighed benefits? Those several thousand people that were saved by avoiding the terrorism in LA would probably think that America’s image overseas has always been crap and always will be. Notice didn’t you that Obama didn’t get anything, mark that, zip point nothing from all our great allies that love us so much.
so let me get this straight, a terrorist has info that your family is going to be wiped out, but if you waterboard him, they will be saved. You opt to not waterboard him, too inhumane, better off that he kill all your relatives. that’s more humane.
now, convince all of us that is the option you would take.
Now substitute someone else’s relatives for yours, totally different, let them all die, won’t affect you. Somebody’s else’s problem.
1. those who do intel work have stated a number of times and in a number of places that they can get info without waterboarding.
2. we do torture and it then can be done to our people.
3. We put Nazis on trial for crimes against humanity…are we exempt?
4. the arguement that what if this or that does not justify doing that which may be deemed illegal (I leave it to the courts to decide such things).
5. what our intel people say is besides the point. They have usually done what they wanted with or without approval and now they use their self interest to say they will be harmed. Nonsense.
6. Democracy thrives best when the light of day allows things to be seen and known.
Oh AJ!! Without reading anything else but your post, you made me react in pan with the picture of the dust counds at the end………If that was my child….oh my God, I would happily decend into hell to dave them from the hell that awaits them. I would waterboard. I would torture….No parent on earth would TRUTHFULLY say that they would do anything different. They would be lying.
I know a guy who has a son in the CIA…they know what Obama’s speech meant. They know they are not safe.
BAD THINGS are happening people!! Pay attention!!