Ashcroft Says Waterboarding Not Torture, Democrats Cry
Another dog and pony show took place today on Capital Hill as John Ashcroft was brought before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about detainee treatment. The purpose of these hearings is not about finding out information, but rather to provide a forum for Democrats to grandstand during an election year, and hopefully cause the Bush Administration some embarrassment.
I pretty well lost count on the number of hearings that have been held to discuss waterboarding. Even though waterboarding was only used on 3 occasions in the last seven years, Democrats have felt the need to hold hundreds of hours of hearings.
John Ashcroft was unshakable as he explained to the committee that enhanced interrogation techniques were incredibly valuable and that, “…the value of that information exceeded the value of information that was received from all other sources.”
Resorting to the usual “straw man” argument, Rep. Maxine Waters brought treatment of U.S. soldiers into the debate.
Waters asked Ashcroft whether such techniques would be regarded as “totally unacceptable and even criminal” if they were used on American soldiers.
To which Ashcroft swiftly responded:
“Well, my subscription to these memos, and my belief that the law provides the basis for these memos persisted even in the presence of my son serving two tours of duty overseas in the Gulf area as a member of our armed forces,” Ashcroft said.
Ouch, that’s gonna leave a mark.
The fact that Democrats want the CIA to strictly adhere to the Army field manual is not only completely absurd, but extraordinarily dangerous. Our intelligence operatives are supposed to work in the shadows and have the latitude necessary to get information and keep America safe. Democrats don’t know the first thing about keeping America safe, and are either too stupid or too weak to do what’s necessary to win this war.
-Chris Jones
Video: Addington Tells Congressman “Al Qaeda May Watch C-Span”
This was truly a beautiful moment. Kudos to Addington for sticking it to the Congressman. Liberals are more concerned about what we do to terrorists than what the terrorists are trying to do to us. Then Congressman Delehunt has the nerve to say he’s glad Al-Qaeda knows who he is. Meaning he’s glad Al-Qaeda knows who’s responsible for whatever “torture” took place and can take retribution.
Democrats are such whiny babies about interrogation. That’s why you just can’t trust Democrats on national security. In their minds, treatment of detainees is the most important thing. In my mind getting intelligence comes first, how the terrorists are treated doesn’t even figure into it.
Video: Blind Horse Tortured And Dragged To Death
Anyone who would do something like this to an animal should be killed.
Slaughterhouse Video Prompts Largest Beef Recall In U.S. History
This video is only a piece of the slaughterhouse video that prompted the massive beef recall. Even putting aside the fact that sick cattle were allowed into food supply, what’s more important is the way we continue to allow the barbarism that goes on inside these slaughterhouses.
I enjoy eating meat, but with every passing month I get closer and closer to giving it up. The way these animals are treated is becoming an issue that is impossible to overlook or sweep under the rug.
It simply doesn’t make sense for meat companies to kill cattle in such a grotesque and inhumane manner. It would not cost the company more money to put the animal down humanely. Yet it seems as though these companies actually prefer to kill cattle in the most gruesome and savage ways possible.
These slaughterhouses are nothing more than assembly lines of torture and mass murder. I say this not as a PETA nut, but as a lifelong meat eater and hunter.
The difference between these meat companies and hunting is quite simple. When I shoot a deer I kill it with one shot and it dies immediately. If I were to employ the same tactics to hunting as are employed by slaughterhouses, I would shoot a deer in the leg and then chain it to my truck and drag it to death.
The public was rightly outraged over the Michael Vick dogfighting case and his torture and killing of dogs. Why then is there not similar outrage over the torture and killing of cows? Or Chickens? Or any other meat Americans consume?
Why are cows considered throw-away animals that don’t deserve even an ounce of compassion or sympathy? Why is it okay to kick and electrocute a cow, but not a dog? I can assure you that cows feel the same sense of terror and agony when they’re tortured as dogs do.
The bottom line is that the American meat industry needs to be reformed and new regulations need to be put in place, both from a consumer safety standpoint and an animal cruelty standpoint.
-Chris Jones
Gruesome Torture Chamber Found in Iraq
A tip from a local villager brought soldiers earlier this month to a hidden room inside a house in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Thursday. Graffiti on the building proclaimed “Long Live the Islamic State”—a reference to the Islamic governance, or caliphate, sought in Iraq by Sunni extremist groups that include al-Qaida.
The room was a dirt floored dungeon complete with blood splattered walls, chains hanging from the ceiling, and swords on the killing floor.
One of the most chilling aspects of the room is what was scrawled above the bed. A Quranic phrase in Arabic normally used to welcome a guest: “Come in, you are safe.”
Scrawled in white paint above a bed in the torture area was a Quranic phrase in Arabic normally used to welcome a guest. But the context suggested only sadistic mockery: “Come in, you are safe.”
The floor was littered with food wrappers, plastic soda bottles and electric cables that snaked to a metal bed frame, presumably where detainees were shocked, according to the U.S. account of the discovery during a Dec. 8-11 mission.
The rooms “had chains, a bed—an iron bed that was still connected to a battery—knives and swords that were still covered in blood,” said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq.
To make matters worse, nine mass graves were found nearby with the remains of 26 people in them. Villagers apparently knew about the torture site for some time, but did not tell authorities for fear of reprisals.
Both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia death squads regularly torture their captives before killing them—sometimes with power drills. Most of the hundreds of bodies that have turned up in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq show signs of torture.
Chances are you won’t hear much about this story from the far-left, because in their world the only group that tortures is America. When a terrorist is waterboarded for information the left howls with protest comparing the Bush Administration to Nazi war criminals, but when Al-Qaeda tortures people to death you never hear a word about it.
-Chris Jones
CIA Agent: Waterboarding Is Torture, But Necessary
Check this little gem out from ABC News:
A leader of the CIA team that captured and interrogated the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.
In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.
“The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate,” said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News’ “World News With Charles Gibson” and “Nightline.”
“From that day on, he answered every question,” Kiriakou said. “The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.”
Kiriakou says he did not know that the interrogation of Zubaydah was being secretly recorded by the CIA and had no idea the tapes had been destroyed.
I’m not sure what planet the anti-torture crowd is living on, but the argument that a person will say anything to make the torture stop just doesn’t hold up.
For every military person that says torture doesn’t work, I can point to two who says it does. A truly innocent person might make stuff up, but a guy who really knows something will usually start with the truth.
Waterboarding is the least painful torture technique available. Zubaydah was waterboarded for a whole 35 seconds and that’s it. There’s no reason to get hysterical and act like America is the new “torture” capital of the world.
Watch the full report tonight on “World News With Charles Gibson” at 6:30 p.m. ET and on “Nightline” at 11:35 p.m. ET.
THEORY:
What if when Allah supposedly came to Zubaydah in the night and told him to cooperate, it was really a hologram the CIA designed? Meaning they were able to create a hologram of Allah that floated above Zubaydah compelling him to cooperate.
Be honest, would you really be that surprised if the CIA tried something like that?
-Chris Jones
Top Democrats Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
From The Washington Post:
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
“The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough,” said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.
Yet long before “waterboarding” entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.
With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane HarmanJohn D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan). (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).
This article just confirms a pattern of behavior from the Democratic leadership. They were briefed on the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” and had no objections. Once the program was leaked to the public, the Dems pretended to shocked and outraged at this so-called “illegal wiretapping.”
The Democratic leadership was briefed about our enhanced interrogation program repeatedly including the use of waterboarding, and they raised no objections. Once that program was leaked to the public, the Dems once again pretended to be shocked and outraged that the President would allow “torture.”
It should be noted that the Terrorist Surveillance Program wasn’t called “illegal wiretapping,” and Waterboarding didn’t become “torture” until after the public became aware of them.
It really shows just how disingenuous Nancy Pelosi and the rest of her team really are. All the “investigations” they call for are just “dog and pony shows” used to score cheap political points with their incredibly ignorant Bush-hating base.
-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
U.N. Calls The Use of Tasers “Torture”
The U.N. Committee Against Torture singled out Tasers at the end of a conference in Geneva, expressing concern that the most popular model caused so much pain that use of it “constituted a form of torture.”
I think the bigger question here is, what doesn’t the U.N. consider torture? They love to throw that word around and label everything “torture.”
An example of true torture is watching American tax dollars continue to fund a corrupt, and ineffective organization like the United Nations.
What’s real torture is watching the U.N. pass resolution after resolution against various countries that they have no intention of actually enforcing. They are a truly impotent organization that would cease to exist without American funding.
The bottom line is that the U.N. needs America, but America doesn’t need the U.N.
-Chris Jones
Torture: The New Abortion
An Op-Ed by Rosa Brooks in today’s L.A. Times suggests that the litmus test for nominees used to be the abortion issue, but now is torture.
Why can’t we just call this a compromise? The Democrats can have their abortions as long as we get to torture terrorists. I think that’s a pretty fair trade.
Brooks sarcastically asserts that the reason Rudy Giuliani is the current GOP favorite is because of his endorsement of torture, in spite of his pro-choice/pro-gay marriage positions.
She’s exactly right about that. Republicans are willing to do whatever it takes to win the war on terror and Democrats are not.
I hope the new litmus test for nominees is torture, because I could never support any candidate that doesn’t have the guts to do what’s necessary to defeat our enemies.
You can’t fight a wolf if you’re gonna act like a sheep. The Democrats have shown that they’re a bunch of sheep and shouldn’t be trusted to defend this country under any circumstances.
Joe Lieberman was the only Democrat left with any balls and they kicked him out of the party.
Mukasey Refuses To Call Waterboarding Torture, Liberals Cry
In an effort to quell growing doubts in the Senate about his nomination as attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey declared Tuesday that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques “seem over the line or, on a personal basis, repugnant to me” and promised to review the legality of such methods if confirmed.
But Mr. Mukasey told Senate Democrats he could not say whether waterboarding, which simulates drowning, was illegal torture because he had not been briefed on the details of the classified technique and did not want to suggest that Central Intelligence Agency officers who had used such techniques might be in “personal legal jeopardy.”
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said he was unsatisfied with Mukasey’s response to the waterboarding issue.
“I remain very concerned that Judge Mukasey finds himself unable to state unequivocally that waterboarding is illegal and below the standards and values of the United States,” Leahy said.
Of course the far left blogosphere has been raging about Mukeasey’s refusal to call waterboarding torture. I think it says a lot that the biggest priority for Democrats in the War on Terror is making sure terrorists don’t get scared.
The thought of a terrorist in some CIA prison scared that he could drown unless he tells what he knows is causing Democrats to break into cold sweats in the middle of the night.
They always argue that we have to reclaim our moral authority in the world. We can’t waterboard people, because other countries might think bad things about us. When did the Democrats all of the sudden become the beacon of morality?
This is the party that supports taking god out of everything and federally funded abortion anytime, and now they’re suddenly the morality police?
What this really shows is that the long running perception that Democrats are weak on National Security is in fact valid. Their biggest concern is not getting information out of the terrorist, but making sure we’re not too mean. They don’t want terrorists to be deprived of sleep or get too hot or cold.
-Chris Jones
Taliban captured by Canadians allege torture
Never missing an opportunity to use the “torture card” to gain sympathy, Taliban members captured by Canadian troops and handed over to Afghan authorities say they have been tortured. (NO! Say it isn’t so!!!)
Three prisoners are claiming they were beaten with bricks and cables, given electric shocks, deprived of sleep and had their nails torn out.
The three said they had been captured by Canadian troops, given a document that said torture was no longer used in Afghanistan and then transferred to the Afghan secret police.
“The people from the secret service tore it (the document) up and threw it in my face. They tortured me for 20 hours. I protested and said the Canadians had promised that nothing would happen to me.”
“They replied: ‘We’re not in Canada, we’re at home. The Canadians are dogs!’” he said.
I know this is the time when we’re supposed to get misty eyed, demand answers, and condemn torture. But I’m not.
-Chris Jones
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