Who's Politicizing Intelligence Now?
Marc Thiessen, a speechwriter for George W. Bush, had access to the full memos and read them to prepare a speech for Bush in 2006. When Thiessen looked at the redacted version released by the White House last week, he noticed something strange.
He writes: "But just as the memo begins to describe previously undisclosed details of what enhanced interrogations achieved, the page is almost entirely blacked out. The Obama administration released pages of unredacted classified information on the techniques used to question captured terrorist leaders but pulled out its black marker when it came to the details of what those interrogations achieved."
It's not just those memos. Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he has read other memos that describe the intelligence obtained by using coercive interrogation and that demonstrate its value. He has asked for them to be declassified and made public.
It is possible, I suppose, that a series of fortunate coincidences has resulted in the public disclosure of only that information that will be politically helpful to the Obama administration. It is also possible that Dick Cheney has taken up synchronized swimming in his retirement.
RTWT.
Hey, that's RACIST Kate!!!
Just wanted to be the first to say it. Eat blue smoke, Shaidle!
who is giving odds that no one in the main stream press is going to push for disclosure of the effectiveness of the enhanced techniques!
One thing that you must understand is torture doesn't work.
I've never witnessed such openness and transparency in government before!
Release it all so it can be judged in context.
At this moment it looks like waterboarding was used in a handful of incidents where the threat was considered imminent. Now this might still be considered illegal but I bet a jury trial would leave the perps considered not guilty.
But who knows until there is full context.
Wonder which horn of the dilema Iggy will come down on, given that he has written about it all.
grok, who has smashed your glasses?! Unreal.
Not everyone who has BO's game nailed can be written off as a racist....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmujttc0oJc
"grok, who has smashed your glasses?! Unreal.
Posted by: On Balance at April 22, 2009 3:04 PM "
Ummmmmmm....OB....that was satire.You must be new to SDA. You'll get used to it...heh
"who is giving odds that no one in the main stream press is going to push for disclosure of the effectiveness of the enhanced techniques!
Posted by: adrian smits at April 22, 2009 2:27 PM "
Not me!!!! Fox had this on most of the AM. Oh wait. Fox,the TOP cable news service in the world,with bigger ratings then MNSBC,CNN,and ABC COMBINED,is NOT considered MSM by leftards. So sorry. My mistake.
Oppppssssie. "MSNBC". Proof read..meh
Will Mr. Apology apologize to Los Angeles for the intelligence gathering mistake America made while saving the city from a terrorist attack?
Obama, motivating the field troops one revelation and one speech at a time.
"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."
RTR http://tinyurl.com/cnflk8
I think that the best thing for the right in this country would be for the left to indulge in a show trial of Bush. Bush owes us that much, after his abject failure to defend his policies in the final years of his presidency.
grok --- I get it...sarcasism, I've been told about that...
Would you believe while I was commenting, someone was poking me in the eye?
Thanks, friend
The witch hunt begins. Apparently Pelosi and her pals saw the memos at the start and signed off on them.
When I was in Airborne Regiment in 70's we practised coercive techniques on ourselves, loud music, kept awake for 48 hours with bright lights, stripped and tied to trees in cool weather etc. Believe me it works and we knew we were only on exercise.
Ahh! I got an ummmmmmmm....go Justthinkin!
Mom, they like me... they really like me...
Good days,
OB
grok - heh. Perfect comments. So much for Obama's claim of openness and transparency.
I see this as a massive attack by the Obama Gang against the right and really, against the American people, as part of the next election strategy.
First of all - why is he doing this? He already came to power as a reaction against Bush. Why continue this agenda? Why not move into his own era?
Is it that the first reactions to the Obama Era have been so negative? In three months, his approval ratio (between those strongly approve vs strongly disapprove) has dropped from a ratio in the plus high 30's to a mere +2. That is, the proportion of those who disapprove is within 2 points of those who approve.
And the rhetoric! FOX news has rocketed to its highest levels. Even CNN's Lou Dobbs is criticizing him. And opinion pieces and blog criticism against Obama's behaviour - at home and on foreign soil - has been extensive.
Is this agenda, that is, what seems to be an emerging campaign from the White House to denigrate anyone - and I don't mean just 'the right' - but anyone who dissents--is this an attempt to silence opposition?
The whole scenario so far has been to strip the WH of any whiff of Bush, and indeed, any whiff of any past president or policy or program or era..and rapidly try on a new paint job. But this is a dangerous and superficial tactic, for it rejects the deep constructive democratic infrastructure of the US.
With his rejection of the war on terror, Obama is enabling more attacks. With his rejection of the reality of illegal immigration, Obama is enabling a massive influx of such, and an increase in drug wars. With his rejection of the CIA, Obama is disabling the govt from preventing terrorist attacks - and I predict that we'll see one.
With his disabling of foreign alliances, his insults to old US allies and his equation of democracies and dictatorships, Obama is strengthening the latter.
And he expects no dissent?
My suggestion would be to subpoena the thousands of people who would have died had not the torture of an Al Qaeda operative turned up the plot to blow up a dozen American airliners over the pacific in 1995.
They could appear in a sport stadium, as I don't think the Capitol building would hold them.
Jennifer Rubin has a nice column at Pajamas Media, asking whether Obama has 'blown' his election win. She writes, with regard to the release of these papers,
"Fourth, by disclosing the enhanced interrogation techniques memos, Obama has unleashed a furious partisan frenzy and likely opened up the prospect of endless hearings, leaks, and accusations about who knew what and when. Is Nancy Pelosi complicit? Should we have Colin Powell testify about what he knew? Didn’t we prevent an attack on Los Angeles by waterboarding a terrorist?
The spectacle of a divisive and destructive witch hunt now looms before us. Moreover, as respected members of the intelligence community, including former CIA director Michael Hayden, step forward to condemn the decision to selectively release portions of memos which provide a road map to our interrogation techniques to the terrorists, voters may wonder why this was all necessary and whether Obama incited a national catastrophe. Problem: Obama may have swapped his newly minted image as a sober commander in chief for the mantle of netroot bomb thrower".
And the fact that the Obama administration deliberately denies any beneficial results of these tactics, shows that they have only one agenda - that witchhunt against the Bush administrators who, frankly, kept America safe.
Is Obama so obsessed with his image that he thinks that by continually painting two portraits, one of Bush, and one of Himself, and pitting them side by side - that the public will accept his authorship of both - fake and fraudulent as both pictures are?
If we're lucky, Barack Obama will turn out to be an overconfident grad student with a massive ego and not much idea what is going on in the real world.
If we're unlucky, he will turn out to be a Russian and/or Saudi agent, a front man for vast commercial interests including the government of China, or even the Antichrist.
Either way, we're basically screwed unless they manage to impeach the dude before he does all the crazy things he wants to do (and said he would do) ... but on the bright side, Canadians are becoming less anti-American. LOL
Astute observation E T.
On another issue, Obama told Harper the US would not re-open NAFTA.
Any bets how many weeks will pass before Canada will be notified that the NAFTA agreement will be up for re-negotiation?
The man is a shallow, two faced Marxist, hell bent on remaking the USA into a socialist state.
"I was in Airborne Regiment in 70's we practised coercive techniques on ourselves, loud music, kept awake for 48 hours with bright lights, stripped and tied to trees in cool weather etc."
And us Air Force types just thought you guys had a strange way of having fun ;-) After all, nobody who is sane would jump out of a perfectly serviceable plane...
I don't know about everyone else but I am getting tired of the great "O" dumping everything on the past administration. I fear this dude is not just an empty suit but is actually a puppet with someone else pulling his strings (or hand up his butt).
Times of India tortures O; O "stunned".
Times says Taliban Jack Layton is ram-pant. Smell Jack?
Inteligence has one l or two?
...-
"Panicky US asks Pakistan to take stand against terrorists
The Times of India
WASHINGTON: A stunned Obama administration said on Wednesday that Pakistan posed a "mortal threat" to the United States and world even as a rampant Taliban moved to within 60 miles of Islamabad by taking control of Buner district just outside the capital region."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2235460/posts
I won.
With his rejection of the CIA, Obama is disabling the govt from preventing terrorist attacks - and I predict that we'll see one. ~ET
Why would any savy terrorist want to attack so long as the dude in the White House is playing into their hands?
I don't know about everyone else but I am getting tired of the great "O" dumping everything on the past administration. I fear this dude is not just an empty suit but is actually a puppet with someone else pulling his strings (or hand up his butt).
Posted by: Texas Canuck at 4:19 PM
===============================================
sorry, but I said that last october, it was that apparent:-))))
I saw it too GYM but was kind of hoping that once the great "0" started working at a real job and not just voting "present" he would wake up.
Darn, since I moved back to Canada I haven't been taking my Soma pills.
glasnost - because the terrorist knows that Obama won't retaliate. Remember what Bush did to the Taliban after 9/11. Obama won't do that; he'll ask them to the WH to share their thoughts.
So, after an attack on the US, the rest of the world, knowing that the US won't assist them against the terrorists, will be vulnerable to more and more terrorist attacks.
"If we're unlucky, he will turn out to be a Russian and/or Saudi agent, a front man for vast commercial interests including the government of China, or even the Antichrist."
Heh, the Saudis help put O in WH (100's of million $'s campaign contributions) so you may be on to something here...
It is very frustrating to put a true face on Obama and what his true motives are...The MSM sent hundreds of reporters to Alaska to find dirt on Palin; as a matter of fact they still persist to this day with tabloid smears. Yet, they did nothing to analyse "MysteriO" or even try today now that the honeymoon is said to be pretty much over.
All his school docs are sealed and we don't even know for sure if he's a natural born American.
IMO, the least painful solution to remove MysteriO out of the WH would be to persue the Birth Certificate issue. The tea partiers should launch a massive lawsuit.
I am convinced he is hiding the fact he was born in Kenia and thus inneligeable for POTUS (or even TOTUS ;-)) under the 11th of the Constitution. That's the only logical explanation as to why to this day, he has 3 law firms working on keeping everything sealed. He has spend thousands so far. I have read in the neighborhood of $800,000 so far.
Did you know that Obama had paid a law firm some years ago to study the ins and out to find potential loopholes on the natural born citizen clause?
It just occurred to me that I flew trans Pacific, LA to Sydney, three times during the time frame of the Al Qaeda plot to blow up airliners that was discovered by torture. My entire family flew there and back once.
Many of my co-workers made even more flights during that time.
I guess the Democrat line is that it would be better if I and or my family and friends died than that poor terrorist be tortured. At least we would have died with honor standing for principle. Even my two and ten year old, at the time, daughters.
By the way, speaking of Obama's 'authorship' of his identity, apparently he's going to appear 'shirtless' (gasp) on a magazine cover. That's the President of the USA.
As for his birth certificate and education records, he's still controlling both, and I'd say that these avenues are best left to the historians, for any steps taken, now, on these roads would polarize the nation.
I think the best way to take him out - and he's already started his next electoral campaign - is by elections of Congress.
It would be a real shame if these memos were "leaked" to the press....
ET, what I meant is that savvy terrorists might not find it in their best interest to attack when they have a man in the White House who is doing the kind of damage to the USA and the western world that is in the terrorist’s long term interest. I think the Jihadists, at least, are certainly willing to be patient in the near term, for long term gain. So why would they do anything to make their useful idiot look bad to his voters; thus the terrorists may want him there for a full 8 years of self-destructive behavior. Then they’ll attack.
This may sound like goofy logic, but then who knows these days?
Yes,waterboarding is bad.Yes,torture is bad...But what do you do to save lives? The islamic terrorists will not give up info with a promise of a pony that farts rainbows,or a mortgage that is payable at their leisure. These killers have been hard-wired to kill for their (holy)cause 5 times a day,every day...Saddam,though was above torturing his prisoners. He would bring in their children and cut off fingers until the man talked. This is the real world,real children,real lives,folks.You can pontificate long and loud about morality,but if my butt is on the line,I want someone with the parts to save it,not someone who is worried about niceties.
It is never the crime but the cover-up...
BO has really ticked-off the CIA and they will get their revenge. Just as Nixon tried to hang Watergate on the CIA and got hung-out to dry by Helms. (and kennedy recieved similar treatment after the bay of pigs - a catastrophe that JFK caused.
Don't mess with the spooks, especially in public.
[Obama’s] going to appear 'shirtless' (gasp) on a magazine cover.
That way we can see for ourselves some of his unique identifying features, rather than reading about them in a deposition as was the case with Monica and Willy’s willie.
BTW, been watching the Bruins Montreal game. You guys can boo our anthem any time. It is sort of cute. Besides, it is written about our last war, so a little animosity is to be expected. We even boo yours now because, well, we just want to be liked by you.
I got a kick out of the radio announcer on 990 out of Montreal saying "They elected Obama, there is no reason to boo anymore."
" Don't mess with the spooks, especially in public.
Posted by: Gord Tulk at April 22, 2009 6:28 PM "---OMG,another racist comment.
It's so cute. Kate links to an article by Cheney biographer Stephen F. Hayes, also author of a book detailing the extensive partnership between Al Queda and Iraq, who stated "There can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda to plot against Americans".
MMMmm-hmmm. Likely Hayes' article here is of the same unimpeachable veracity as is contained in his book.
It's fitting though, isn't it, that among the flood of revelations about America's torture which have come out in the last 24 hours, we've learned that a fair amount of torture took place with the noble goal of trying to buttress Cheney and Rumsfeld's lies about an Al Queda-Iraq alliance?
Torture'em again, goddamn it! Keep on torturing till someone gives us a lie we can retail to the American people to support our war!
Obama has 'rejected' the CIA, has he, ET? Well,the'rejected' were giving him a pretty good rock star welcome the other day.
What it comes down to is: in the battle between Western values and barbarianism, Bush - and you guys - collaborated with the barbarians. In assenting to pointless torture, you put our values and moral standing on a platter, presented them to Al Queda, and said: here - take'em!
Now the truths coming out and all your shills are squawking. But one revelation will lead to another, all the way to the top, ensuring that the Bush years will live on in (more) infamy and disgrace. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks.
It's Obama's show now.
The jury's still out as to how dignified he will be able to handle this situation.
So far, not too brilliantly.
set you free - Obama doesn't handle anything by himself; he leaves it up to others to make the policy and program decisions. He's just the up-front Smoothie Guy. Notice how, when he says something that the Backroom Boys don't like, he flips his words the next day. Obama hasn't a clue about the results of these policies; he's just the Car Salesman.
As Michael Barone of the Washington Examiner says, that Obama's leaving everything up to Congress means that Washington now sees a profusion of lobbyists 'such as Washington has never seen'. So - all the special interest groups are now involved in decision-making, ..another promise broken by Obama.
ET:
Understood.
Seems like bleet doesn't quite understand that once a US president takes the oath of office, the show is all his.
I have noticed that no matter what happens in the world, he sticks to his pre-written script and will take days to react to developing events.
The US president has always been a figurehead and a public relations director for the country. Obama suits that particular role quite well, but people will soon tire of the BS and snake oil.
Already have? I hear you.
Yeppers.
The show sure is all Obama's. That's why he's opening the doors to the prosecution of Bush officials in order to restore the rule of law to the country.
Whassamatta, dudes? Nobody's here defending the use of tactics such as were used by the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge?
What the heck - they were used for the noble purpose of tryin' to buttress up Cheney's lies connecting Iraq to 9-11...can't you patriots get behind that?
Come on, guys! Let's have some lusty defences of torture here! You-all never did like Western civilzation anyhow. Don't leave the American Pol Pots twisting in the wind. They need your support as they're marched to trial and then off to jail!
ET:
I think I hear a mosquito.
bleet, I agree with you, torture cannot be justified under any means, so long as it is you and your lefty friends who are the only ones to be killed by the terrorists that you wish to take the moral high ground defending.
However, because you support people who would kill me or my family, then I not only support torture of terrorists but also numpties like yourself.
I do realize there is no useful information to be gleaned from your brain, but one can't be to choosy when torturing lefties, gotta get them all!!
sarge here come on bleet dincha see john wayne waterboardin in all them movies its american as apple pie to drown some dude 84 times even after he done talked jest sarge guess not about some sadam dude he never met
sarge remebers old sadam hisself liked to torture islamic extremists and the like heckuva a roll model georgie wonder why we didnt hire old sadam ourselves oh wait we did till we fired him anyway damn that was one hell of a pink slip
When we are talking about 3000 incinerated fellow Americans at the World Trade Center, 184 more at the Pentagon and on the planes a little water torture or buggy visits to Akhmeds cell hardly computes. War is War and on the field of battle it is kill or be killed. Instead, they got arrested and put into detention at Gitmo. Evil , slimy, greasy creatures who, when returned to their countries many times returned to the battlefield to kill our soldiers.
And they are whining about a little water? A few bugs? Something is seriously wrong with people who do not care about burning bodies from bridges, beheadings ( and filmed the horrors at that!) These evil creatures should be dead. ANYTHING other than that is better treatment than they could ever deserve.
Mr. Obama IS a Muslim and will bring Muslim and Sharia Law while dismantling the Constitution to do it. He is in the process of re-distributing the wealth of the USA and funnelling many billions to not only his 'citizen army' but the ACORN bunch who have already demonstrated they know how to rig elections and bully those who don't go along with it, while placing their operatives in key positions in every state to ensure elections go the way they want them to go. Moving the Census to the direct conrol of the White House. These all have a tale to tell and the ultimate aim of it all is in enslaving the USA to a perpetual democrat government ala Chavez.
The United States ended on January 20,2009. The bloodless coup is an accomplished feat.
NOW it's time to get the country back and kick out the Usurper. I seriously do not believe we have 4 years to do it. The country is already almost unrecognizable in less than 100 days. 1000 days will reveal a country akin to Soviet Russia or North Korea if they are left to their devices.
sarge here 1st off snowbunnies yer nutz but sarge digresses...though sarge would mention that in the US of A a snow bunnie is a slang term for coke whore so maybe try a new name?
so far we has tortured a minimum of 26 folks to death including at least one innocent man and probabably a whole bunch more sarge is tempted to ask why you folks hate america so much you want us to be the chinese north viets nazis or some other dispicable bunch of torturers well sarge guess jest because bush and cheney and rummie and condee are murderers via US law shouldnt bug ya hell if someone cop caps old rush limbaugh while beating the location of his viagra/oxy stash outa him its all about the same aye?
when ya lie down with dogs ya get up with fleas or is that too tough fer you nuts to figure out
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A little known Pentagon agency that trained US troops to resist torture promoted the use of some of the same interrogation techniques on Al-Qaeda, which were aired and quickly authorized at high levels of the US government, a Senate investigation has found.
Warnings by military lawyers about both the legality and the effectiveness of techniques that were modeled on methods used by China to extract false confessions from US prisoners in the Korean War were ignored, the report found.
I hope the left gets their way. I hope there are trials. It is not like 15 years ago when they controlled what everybody hears. I think they could easily lose control of Congress over this.
You are right Tim, if they started to hold trials the flow of information would be hard for them to control and it would let everyone know just how petty minded and dangerous the dems are.
It would make it hard to believe someone who stand ups and says "I will protect the USA" when they are busy publicly knee-capping the guys who actually do.
That us why this won't ever go to full trial,as this is just not how the left operates. The left usually avoids such direct and public legal confrontations where the "truth" might actually come out. They much prefer drive by smears, threats, or intimidations -you know, the things they are good at and most of which is usually performed in the dark, away from public eyes.
Heres the thing about information gained through interrogation and torture. Its usually very sensitive.
Age old dictum in any war: you never let your enemy know what you know and how much you know.
But don't let that get in the way of your conjecture and Republican hackery.