By Joseph Curl - - Wednesday, December 10, 2014 Senate Democrats and President Obama have moved up to a whole new level of desperate.
On Tuesday, Democrats in the Senate, who will lose control of the chamber in just three weeks, released a report focused on interrogation techniques — during the administration of George W. Bush. Yes, Mr. Obama is all about transparency, as long as it’s not about his administration. Despite warnings from top Obama officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, that release of the once-classified report would endanger Americans abroad, the president demanded that the United States explain its actions to — terrorists.
In some ways, the interrogation techniques detailed in the 500-page report were brutal. The CIA used waterboarding, sleep deprivation, isolation, starvation to break enemy combatants captured in the fields of war. One suspect never charged with any crime died of hypothermia. The Central Intelligence Agency also set up secret “black sites” in numerous places around the world where captives were held, sometimes for years. The reason for the “in some ways” qualifier above is that the techniques were set up just six days after Islamic terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing 3,000 people. While Mr. Obama on Tuesday said “what’s clear is that the CIA set up something very fast, without a lot of forethought to what the ramifications might be,” the fact remains that in the dangerous days after Sept. 11, 2001, America was, for the first time, at war with a foe that felt no remorse in targeting U.S. civilians, even children.
That was a different world back then, in the fall of 2001. Americans, shocked that terrorists had dropped the two biggest buildings in New York City, feared another terrorist attack at any moment — America was a ticking time bomb. The stock markets shut down and plunged more than 1,000 points in the weeks that followed. But after the shock came anger, and the feeling was exactly as Mr. Bush had said three days after the attack: “The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”
So there wasn’t a doubt for many when the notion of getting information from bloodthirsty terrorists — in whatever way necessary — came up. Not torture, mind you — no stretching on the rack, no pulling out fingernails, but rather “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Leading lawmakers were in on the discussions and, with little dissent, agreed with the administration. The fear ebbed and the terror threat against the homeland dissipated.
But the upshot of the report released Tuesday by the Democrat-controlled Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, gleefully parroted all day by the mainstream media beholden to Mr. Obama, was that the enhanced techniques employed by CIA operatives had virtually no impact — and certainly didn’t lead to any “actionable” intelligence from terrorists. The cables and networks implied that the CIA was out of control and, worse, operating far outside the confines of American justice, let alone the Geneva Conventions — all for nothing.
Not, though, according to Republicans on the Senate committee. They released a 167-page report of their own, saying the Democrats’ report was fueled by “political motivations” and simply arrived at a preordained conclusion desired by the majority party in the Senate.
“We have no doubt that the CIA’s detention program saved lives and played a vital role in weakening [al Qaeda] while the program was in operation,” the senators said.
Meanwhile, six former CIA directors and deputy directors said the report was riddled with errors and Senate Democrats didn’t even interview any CIA officers involved with the program. They said the report, which cost $40 million to produce, “defies credulity by saying that the interrogation program did not produce any intelligence value” and that, in fact, the interrogation techniques “saved thousands of lives.”
The real point of the report, however, was not to blame Mr. Bush, but rather to say he was clueless about the program. A New York Times story alleged that Mr. Bush was purposely kept in the dark and that he was “once again been misinformed” about the effectiveness of the program (sticking with the meme that the Yale and Harvard graduate is a Texas hayseed).
Yet even that was wrong. He wrote in his book “Decision Points”: “I knew that an interrogation program this sensitive and controversial would one day become public. When it did, we would open ourselves up to criticism that America had compromised our moral values. I would have preferred that we get the information another way. But the choice between security and values was real. Had I not authorized waterboarding on senior al Qaeda leaders, I would have had to accept a greater risk that the country would be attacked. In the wake of 9/11, that was a risk I was unwilling to take.”
And he closed with this: “My most solemn responsibility as president was to protect the country. I approved the use of the interrogation techniques. The new techniques proved highly effective.”
“Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.” ¯ Winston S. Churchill
This report has been fully discredited. The only people still talking about it are the MSM low ratings champs. I don't think the Right should bother another minute responding to it. It just gives this shit more play.
"GENEVA — All senior US officials and CIA agents who authorized or carried out torture like waterboarding as part of former President George W. Bush's national security policy must be prosecuted, top UN officials said yesterday.
It's not clear, however, how human rights officials think these prosecutions will take place, since the Justice Department has declined to prosecute and the US is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said it's "crystal clear" under international law that the United States, which ratified the UN Convention Against Torture in 1994, now has an obligation to ensure accountability.
"In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture — recognized as a serious international crime — they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency," he said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hopes the US Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques at secret overseas facilities is the "start of a process" toward prosecutions, because the "prohibition against torture is absolute," Ban's spokesman said.
Ben Emmerson, the UN's special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said the report released Tuesday shows "there was a clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration, which allowed (it) to commit systematic crimes and gross violations of international human rights law."
ZitatZeid Raad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said it's "crystal clear" under international law that the United States, which ratified the UN Convention Against Torture in 1994, now has an obligation to ensure accountability.
Hey Prince Assahola-Hussein. Is that the same accountability that your country Jordan adheres to in regards to your rampant human trafficking?