Powered by Max Banner Ads
Up In Smoke: CIA Subjected Cole Bomber To Second-Hand Smoke
This via CNS News:
Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, according to the 9-11 commission report, was the mastermind of the Oct. 12, 2000, attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
Nashiri was also the target of an "unauthorized" CIA interrogation technique (that had not been legally vetted by the Justice Department) that is described in a May 7, 2004, CIA inspector general’s report that was partially declassified by the Obama administration this week.
CIA officers blew smoke in Nashiri’s face, according to the report, and they used cigars.
The IG’s office described this smoke-blowing as one of several "unauthorized or undocumented techniques" it discovered had been used in isolated incidents by CIA employees interrogating high-level al-Qaida terrorists.
"An Agency (redacted phrase) interrogator admitted that, in December 2002, he and another (redacted phrase) smoked cigars and blew cigar smoke in al-Nashiri’s face during the interrogation," said the IG report.
I know it sounds like a brutal war crime, but the interrogators had a reason for blowing smoke:
"The interrogator claimed they did this to ‘cover the stench’ in the room and to help keep the interrogators alert late at night," said the IG report. "This interrogator said he would not do this again based on ‘perceived criticism.’ Another agency interrogator admitted that he also smoked cigars during two sessions with al-Nashiri to mask the stench in the room. He claimed he did not deliberately force smoke into al-Nashiri’s face." The interrogators learned their lesson: Don’t blow smoke at terrorists.
Only in America could something this absurd actually be real. Second-hand smoke is considered an “unauthorized” interrogation technique?
I guess if you happen to break wind in front of a detainee you have to report that as well.
What he should have done is put that cigar out in al-Nashiri’s eye. Now that’s what I call an “unauthorized” technique. Oh yeah!!!
-Chris Jones
CNN Poll: Americans Approve Of Waterboarding 50-46
A new CNN poll out today shows Americans approve of enhanced interrogation techniques including waterboarding by a margin of 50-46.
This is not a surprise to me at all. I’ve seen many polls that show a margin of approval much wider than that.
The only people getting worked up about waterboarding terrorists are the corrupt, left-wing media.
Anyone else besides the media upset about interrogation is an idiot and doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about.
I pray for the day when we can boot this Marxist out of the White House and get somebody in there with some balls.
Hey Media, KSM Was NOT Waterboarded 183 Times
The media has been frothing at the mouth over the recently released torture interrogation memos.
The NY Times has devoted as much ink as possible to deceiving the public into believing terrorists were tortured and Bush is a war criminal.
However, the only thing criminal are the lies the nearly bankrupt NY Times prints.
One of their favorite lies of late has been that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times.
That’s the kind of red meat The Times has been dreaming about for years and has been only too happy to peddle it.
Unfortunately for The Times, it isn’t true.
That 183 figure represents the number of times water touched his face. Since the object of the technique is only to scare, water is only poured on the face for maybe 5 or 6 seconds at a time.
Then KSM was allowed to catch his breath briefly before more water was poured. But each time the water is poured counts separately.
So a single waterboarding might consist of 15 or 20 pours, maybe more.
The Justice Department memos don’t explain all that, because they were never meant for public consumption. The CIA never dreamed those documents would be plastered all over the Internet and the evening news.
The real outrage here has nothing to do with interrogations and everything to do with the outrageous irresponsibility of Obama for releasing the documents.
Our president doesn’t give a f*ck about national security, and would rather placate the ACLU then do what is necessary to protect this nation.
-Chris Jones
Shocker: NY Times Buries Story About Success Of Enhanced Interrogations
The NY Times gleefully trumpeted the release of the so-called “torture memos” ringing every last drop of ink and pixel out of the story as it could, while quietly burying the story about the success of enhanced interrogations. One would think acknowledgment by Obama’s own intelligence director that “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” would be news. However, the NY Times chose to put that part of the story online only.
Their excuse for this is simply that the paper ran out of room. Yeah, sure it did. The NY Times has relentlessly flogged the “torture” narrative for years and written 100+ front page stories on it. So it’s mighty convenient that The Times would run out of room in their paper on the very day an Obama official confirms what the Bush administration has been saying for years — that the enhanced interrogation program was a big success.
-Chris Jones
Obama Flirts With Show Trials For Former Bush Lawyers
I really wish this whole thing would just go away. Not because I think anyone is going to be prosecuted, but because of the absurdity of it all.
The newly released CIA memos did exactly what Obama intended them to do, inflame his kooky left-wing base.
Obama has said all along his intention is to “look forward” rather than get caught up in phony manufactured issues from the Bush era.
He gave reassurance to the CIA that no one at the agency will be prosecuted for keeping us safe for the last seven years.
However, he left the door open for his Attorney General to prosecute former Bush lawyers for their advice that led to enhanced interrogation.
It’s hysterically funny to imagine the Justice Department prosecuting members of the previous Justice Department for giving the president legal advice.
Obama is too much of a committed a liberal to allow his socialist agenda to go down the shitter for a couple of show trials. The opportunity to turn America into France may never come again.
They have no leg to stand on legally anyway, and it would set a horrible precedent that republicans would be sure to get even with once back in power.
Secondly, the opinions issued by the Bush era lawyers regarding interrogation were completely legitimate.
Moreover, democrats will have to put Nancy Pelosi and other top democrats on trial as well since we know they were fully briefed on interrogations including waterboarding as far back as 2002.
At the end of the day, all the newly released memos did was confirm what most clear thinking Americans already knew anyway — that there was no torture.
As someone who’s pro-torture, I was somewhat disappointed by what I read.
The techniques described in the memos were highly effective enhanced interrogation techniques and nothing more.
Only big pinko pussies would call anything described in those memos as “torture.”
Obama is just keeping this thing hanging out there as a bone for the kooks in his party to gnaw on while he works on getting his agenda passed.
When it comes to prosecuting Bush officials, allow me to borrow a line from the former president and say, bring it on.
-Chris Jones
Video: Playboy Journalist Bets He Can Withstand 15 Seconds Of Waterboarding
Waterboarding seems like an extremely effective method of interrogation. I still don’t see why peacenik liberals get so worked up over waterboarding. It looks like the easiest and most humane way of interrogating a person that won’t talk. Instead of attaching wires to their nuts and administering electric shocks or beating them to within an inch of their life, you simply give them the sensation of drowning without actually doing them any harm.
The fact is it’s unlikely the U.S. will ultimately prevail against radical Islam. Americans simply don’t have the stomach or the courage to do what’s necessary to win. Our enemies have no conscience and can decapitate a hostage without hesitation. Americans on the other hand get squeamish about making a guy feel like he’s in imminent danger.
If WWII happened today, it’s doubtful that America would win. We have allowed left-wing peaceniks to burrow themselves deep into our higher education system where they’ve successfully brainwashed generation after generation into believing America is the bad guy and the oppressor. Liberal universities have graduated millions of little peacenik pussies who lack the courage to ever defend this nation or see any reason why they should.
We have lost the ability to see things in black and white. Not everything is nuanced as it is in Barack Obama’s world. Some things really are simple. Some people really are evil. Sometimes people have information in them that we must get at no matter what it takes. Getting that information is not always fun, and can sometimes be downright ugly, but nevertheless it must be done.
-Chris Jones
(hat tip HuffPo)
Cheney: Waterboarding ‘Remarkably Successful’
Here’s a little news snack that’s sure to have lefty bloggers and pinkos seeing red:
We were fortunate as a country to have a hardliner like Cheney around after 9/11. Rather than bow to the ACLU he did what was necessary to protect this country. The loony left doesn’t care about keeping this country safe. They’re more interested in the comfort and well being of our enemies.
Familes Of 9/11 Victims: Keep Guantánamo Open
The Pentagon finally got some much needed backup today in their seven year battle against far-left human rights cowards desperate to close Guantanamo Bay.
Families of 9/11 victims spoke out passionately today after being invited to witness the military tribunal of a terrorist. Ever since 9/11, the ACLU and other left-wing organizations have conducted a despicable smear campaign against the Bush administration over Gitmo, enhanced interrogation, and the war on terror in general.
Family members of those killed on 9/11 however, aren’t buying into the hype.
“Guantánamo Bay has gotten a bad rap,” said Alice Hoagland, whose son was killed in the 2001 attack.
Hamilton Peterson, whose father was killed that day, said the procedures of the much-criticized military commission tribunal seemed plenty fair. “The entire day,” he said, “was giving these defendants their due.”
The very notion that we should extend the same rights to foreign terrorists captured overseas that American citizens enjoy is more than absurd — it’s dangerous.
All this crap about restoring America’s standing in the world or keeping the moral high ground is a bunch of theoretical nonsense. Sadly, this was demonstrated once again in Mumbai, when a highly trained terrorist group went on a bloody rampage that left 179 people dead.
The reason we haven’t been attacked since 9/11 is not just blind luck. The Bush administration correctly recognized that this is not like any war we’ve ever been involved in. We face an enemy that doesn’t know the first thing about human rights or the Geneva Conventions. The terrorists we face don’t recognize even the most basic rules of war.
There’s no such thing as POW’s or prisoner exchanges. In the War on Terror, if a U.S. soldier is captured by the enemy he’s a dead man pure and simple. The free world has never faced a more unscrupulous and savage enemy as the one we face today.
But human rights organizations and left-wing lawyers can’t seem to get it through their thick skull’s what a serious situation this is. They want the U.S. to fight this war with our hands tied behind our back. The far left has done everything possible to damage the U.S. and hurt the war effort.
The only thing that should matter is getting the information out of the people who have it — by any means necessary.
The cowards on the left who continue to crow about human rights don’t give a damn about keeping this country safe. In their eyes it’s America that is the bad guy and the terrorists freedom fighters are just defending themselves.
People who believe that are idiots and deserve to be marginalized. If you care more about the treatment of the terrorists than you do about saving the lives of your fellow countrymen then you’re a bad American.
-Chris Jones
Destruction of C.I.A. Tapes Cleared by Lawyers
The NY Times is reporting today that lawyers within the clandestine branch of the Central Intelligence Agency gave written approval in advance to the destruction in 2005 of videotapes documenting interrogations of two Al Qaeda terrorists.
The involvement of agency lawyers in the decision making would widen the scope of the inquiries into the matter that have now begun in Congress and within the Justice Department. Any written documents are certain to be a focus of government investigators as they try to reconstruct the events leading up to the tapes’ destruction.
The former intelligence official acknowledged that there had been nearly two years of debate among government agencies about what to do with the tapes, and that lawyers within the White House and the Justice Department had in 2003 advised against a plan to destroy them. But the official said that C.I.A. officials had continued to press the White House for a firm decision, and that the C.I.A. was never given a direct order not to destroy the tapes.
“They never told us, ‘Hell, no,’” he said. “If somebody had said, ‘You cannot destroy them,’ we would not have destroyed them.”
I have my doubts that anyone would have destroyed the tapes unless they felt the legal justification for doing so was iron clad. Destroying those tapes does not only run the risk of ruining your career, but could also land you in prison. So I believe that they believed they had the legal authority to destroy the tapes.
Whether or not that turns out to be the case (I’m betting it will) remains to be seen.
-Chris Jones
Right On Cue: Democrats Call For Investigation Into CIA Tape Destruction
It was a foregone conclusion that Democrats would call for dog and pony shows hearings and investigations after the CIA admitted to destroying interrogation tapes. So right on cue that’s exactly what they did, complete with “faux” outrage and references to Richard Nixon.
From The Huffington Post:
Congressional Democrats Friday demanded a full Justice Department investigation into whether the CIA obstructed justice by destroying videotapes that documented the harsh 2002 interrogations of two alleged terrorists.
A day after CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden told agency employees the tapes were destroyed in 2005, members of Congress, human rights groups and lawyers for accused terrorists said the tapes may have been key evidence that the U.S. government had illegally authorized torture…
In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, asked for a probe of “whether CIA officials who destroyed these videotapes and withheld information about their existence from official proceedings violated the law.”
In a Senate floor speech Durbin dismissed the CIA’s explanation that it was trying to protect the identities of the interrogators. “We know that it is possible and in fact easy to cover the faces” of those who appear on camera, Durbin said. “This is not an issue that can be ignored.”
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., accused the CIA of a coverup. “The agency was desperate to cover up damning evidence of their practices,” he said in floor remarks. “We haven’t seen anything like this since the eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap in the tapes of President Richard Nixon.”
-Chris Jones
Thank God The CIA Destroyed Interrogation Tapes
Liberals are howling this morning about the recent NY Times article and subsequent admission by CIA that 2 tapes showing the harsh interrogation of terrorists were destroyed.
The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said.
In a statement to employees on Thursday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, said that the decision to destroy the tapes was made “within the C.I.A.” and that they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value.
General Hayden’s statement said that the tapes posed a “serious security risk” and that if they had become public they would have exposed C.I.A. officials “and their families to retaliation from Al Qaeda and its sympathizers.”
I don’t blame C.I.A. for destroying the tapes. Leaving those tapes lying around where some turncoat within the agency could possibly turn them over to the NY Times was not worth the risk.
Republicans are interested in fighting the war on terror, meanwhile Democrats (minus Joe Lieberman) are more interested in undercutting those fighting the war on terror.
If we didn’t live in a country infested with cowards who would just love to prosecute a C.I.A. agent for doing what’s necessary to keep us safe, then it wouldn’t be necessary to destroy tapes.
It’s a great victory for America that those tapes never saw the light of day. Thankfully, the C.I.A. no longer records interrogation sessions so after the a few rounds of pointless Senate hearings this whole story will most likely just fade away.
-Chris Jones
Bush Says U.S. ‘Does Not Torture’
Once again left-wing wimps are howling about the U.S. “torture” policies that are once again front and center thanks to that liberal rag known as the New York Times.
The Times reported that the first 2005 legal opinion authorized the use of head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings, known as waterboarding, while interrogating terror suspects, and was issued shortly after then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took over the Justice Department.
That secret opinion, which explicitly allowed using the painful methods in combination, came months after a December 2004 opinion in which the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices.
A second Justice opinion was issued later in 2005, just as Congress was working on an anti-torture bill. That opinion declared that none of the CIA’s interrogation practices would violate the rules in the legislation banning “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of detainees, The Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials.
President Bush once again defended his administration’s detention and interrogation policies for terrorism suspects on Friday, saying they are both successful and lawful.
“When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them,” he said during a hastily called appearance in the Oval Office. “The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.”
It’s beyond belief that some people are actually worried about the CIA slapping terrorists around a bit or waterboarding them. Those people want to kill us and whatever the U.S. Government needs to do to make those people talk they should do. I sleep better at night knowing that we have the guts to do what’s necessary to keep our country safe.
-Chris Jones
The Hot Joints
Posts
