Targeting The CIA

On the subject of the CIA, here are some more things you need to know:

Waterboarding played a role in loosening the tongues of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri, but the CIA was reluctant to specifically claim it as the sole reason for gaining more intel.  With Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, they had no such reservation (via Power Line and Weekly Standard):

The waterboard has been used on three detainees….Prior to the use of EITs, Abu Zubaydah provided information for [redacted] intelligence reports. Interrogators applied the waterboard to Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times during August 2002. [The report explains that each application of water is counted separately, and most of the 83 applications lasted less than ten seconds.] During the period between the end of the use of the waterboard and 30 April 2003, he provided information for approximately [redacted] intelligence reports. It is not possible to say definitively that the waterboard is the reason for Abu Zubaydah's increased production, or if another factor, such as the length of detention, was the catalyst. Since the use of the waterboard, however, Abu Zubaydah has appeared to be cooperative. ...

With KSM, the CIA clearly believes that they never would have gotten his intel in time without the specific use of the waterboard.  That vindicates what Cheney has said all along — that the waterboard and the other EITs prevented terrorist attacks in the US and did significant damage to AQ.  In effect, Cheney and apparently the CIA called Obama's bluff, with the agency finally getting the other side of the argument on EITs in the open.  EITs and specifically the waterboard saved American lives without costing the terrorists being interrogated any lasting physical damage.

Here's how ridiculous these investigations are going to be:

The DoJ apparently wants to investigate an interrogator who blew cigar smoke into the faces of terrorists, another who used a drill and a gun to intimidate a detainee, and yet another who threatened to get a terrorist's family members and kill them.

Seriously??  I heard a report on the radio that some of these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' included firing a gun next door to a terrorist, then walking him past that room's open door, where a hooded CIA agent was laying down playing dead.  Oooooooh...!  How torturous.  That poor widdle tewwowist might have been scaredey-waredey!

Um...ISN'T THAT THE WHOLE DAMN POINT?!

These guys killed 3,000 civilians in cold blood.  They're not exactly softies.  The only way to get useful intelligence from them -- which the CIA did, thus saving American lives -- is to break down those murderers into thinking that they're genuinely in danger.  You don't have to actually do anything to them, but you do have to make them believe you're willing to do something to them.  The fact that Obama is now green-lighting these investigations is not only setting an historic precedent of Third World-ism in America by retaliating on the previous administration, but it's also telling interrogators that they will not be protected by the very government they serve while conducting lawful and legal interrogations (remember, at the time those techniques were legal).  Most critically, Obama is sending a crystal clear message to all terrorists who might possibly face interrogation in the future: don't worry, you won't be harmed, no matter what.  Do you think that makes an interrogator's job easier, or harder?

And how many American lives will pay for this message?  What information are we missing out on now that could prevent future attacks on American cities?  Will those attacks kill anyone you know?  Your friends or family?  You?

At this point, these are rhetorical questions.  Unfortunately, I suspect that Barack Obama will, by virtue of these new policies, thrust them from the realm of the rhetorical into the real world before too long, because we will be attacked again.  Say what you want about George W. Bush (and I'm not fond of everything he did), but he kept America attack-free for seven years.  We are constantly under siege, and it is the CIA and other intelligence and law enforcement services who protect us.  Barack Obama is doing everything he can to undermine those people, which puts Americans at risk.

Think about it this way.  Let's say you knew that two terrorists with a nuclear weapon were running around in a city where you and your children lived.  The FBI catches one of them and finds out that the bomb was set to go off in one hour, which isn't enough time to get your family out.  How far would you want interrogators to go to determine where that other terrorist with the bomb is hiding?  Would you want them to scare that terrorist with threats of using a power drill on their hand, or stage a 'death' in the next room?  Would you want them to pour a little bit of water up his nose?  Think carefully, because in the real world, lives depend on the answer.

Barack Obama is the biggest danger to America, and these actions prove it once again.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Prosecuting the CIA
Liberals and the CIA