Waterboarding Works! Detainee Cooperated After 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques' Were Used

You certainly won't hear Eric Holder or Barack Obama ever make this admission. In fact, I'm stunned that the leftist-leaning Washington Post even allowed this to go to print.

Khalid Shieik Mohammed, who refers to himself as the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, began to reveal a great deal of valuable information after CIA interrogators began using the technique known as "waterboarding" on him. Before that, he managed to resist interrogation quite effectively.

From Peter Finn, Joby Warrick and Julie Tate:

"KSM, an accomplished resistor, provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the waterboard, and analysis of that information revealed that much of it was outdated, inaccurate or incomplete," according to newly unclassified portions of a 2004 report by the CIA's then-inspector general released Monday by the Justice Department. The debate over the effectiveness of subjecting detainees to psychological and physical pressure is in some ways irresolvable, because it is impossible to know whether less coercive methods would have achieved the same result. But for defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general's report and other documents released this week indicate. Over a few weeks, he was subjected to an escalating series of coercive methods, culminating in 7 1/2 days of sleep deprivation, while diapered and shackled, and 183 instances of waterboarding. After the month-long torment, he was never waterboarded again.

But here is what the interrogations yielded:

Mohammed provided $1,000 to Ramzi Yousef, a nephew, to help him carry out the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. In 1994, he worked in the Philippines with Yousef, now serving a life sentence at the federal "supermax" prison in Colorado, on a failed plot to down 12 U.S. commercial aircraft over the Pacific. Mohammed told interrogators it was in the Philippines that he first considered using planes as missiles to strike the United States. He took the idea to Osama bin Laden, who "at first demurred but changed his mind in late 1999," according to the summary. Mohammed described plans to strike targets in Saudi Arabia, East Asia and the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks, including using a network of Pakistanis "to target gas stations, railroad tracks, and the Brooklyn bridge in New York." Cross-referencing material from different detainees, and leveraging information from one to extract more detail from another, the CIA and FBI went on to round up operatives both in the United States and abroad. "Detainees in mid-2003 helped us build a list of 70 individuals -- many of who we had never heard of before -- that al-Qaeda deemed suitable for Western operations," according to the CIA summary. Mohammed told interrogators that after the Sept. 11 attacks, his "overriding priority" was to strike the United States, but that he "realized that a follow-on attack would be difficult because of security measures." Most of the plots, as a result, were "opportunistic and limited," according to the summary.

How many American lives were saved because of that information? How many attacks were thwarted because of the techniques used?

The average lib Democrat would rather see thousands of Americans killed than to see one terrorist suffer the least little bit. It would be nice if the Dems actually rooted for our side for once.

EITs work and we should continue using them. Holder and Obama should get out of the way and let the people charged with defending America do their jobs.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

How A Detainee Became An Asset
Peter Finn, Joby Warrick and Julie Tate
Washington Post
August 29, 2009

John Boehner: Pelosi Should Show Proof Or Apologize

Remember during the Valerie Plame non-scandal when the Dems thought that the CIA was the best thing since sliced bread? Well, it looks like the CIA is back in the Dem dog-house. How does a government agency gain and then fall out of favor so quickly? Well, when dealing with liberals Dems like Nancy Pelosi, it is all about political advantage. During the Plame case, it was politically advantageous to embrace the CIA. Now, the politcal wind in Washington D.C. is such that the CIA is to be shunned.

But, people who are intelligent and clear thinking can see what is really going on here. Pelosi told some rather large untruths and falsehoods about what the CIA breifed her on concerning enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) including waterboarding, the technique that yielded information which in turn may have saved thousands of American lives.

And now, she is being called on those lies. According to CNN:

A key Republican leader demanded Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi produce evidence to back up her assertion that she was misled by the CIA on the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques." ... "Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said on CNN's "State of the Union." "If the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they be prosecuted. And if that's not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence professionals around the world."

It has already been established that Pelosi and some of her aides knew exactly what was going on. But, none of them ever spoke out against these EITs back in 2002 and 2003. No, instead they waited seven years for the issue to become politcally favorable for them.

It should also be noted that Jane Harmon (D-CA) has not to come to Nancy Pelosi's defense. Harmon did protest the use of waterboarding back in 2003.

More:

On Thursday, Pelosi said the briefing she received from the CIA was incomplete and inaccurate, and she called on the agency to release a full transcript of the briefing. She also accused Republicans of jumping on reports of the briefings to cause a distraction. The speaker's comments prompted CIA Director Leon Panetta to stand up for the agency on Friday and challenge Pelosi on her assertion that the CIA had misled her. "There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I'm gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress." Panetta said in a letter to agency employees.

When faced with such a scathing backlash from the CIA, Pelosi simply switched her criticism from the CIA to the Bush Administration.

Cleary, Pelosi is in a tail-spin and can no longer hide the fact that she has been lying all along. Now that so many people have called her on her lies, she is getting desperate to save whatever is left of her face.

And this little tidbit shows how deeply into the lie Pelosi is willing to go:

Pelosi wants the classified notes of her 2002 briefing on waterboarding declassified because, she has said, they will show that she wasn't told that harsh techniques such as waterboarding were being used. The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee said he has read the notes from Pelosi's disputed 2002 briefing and insists to CNN that she's wrong. "The record shows Speaker Pelosi was briefed that the techniques were used on Abu Zubaydah," Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri, said in a written statement. That appears to back up CIA records declassified last week, which say that on September 4, 2002, Pelosi and Republican Rep. Porter Goss of Florida were briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques.

My personal view? If it is a choice between saving thousands of American lives or worrying about the comfort level of one worthless, waste of flesh terrorist, then I choose saving American lives. It seems as though the average Democrat is more concerned for the terrorist.

Pelosi should not only apologize, but she should at the very least step down as Speaker of the House for lying to the American people. I understand that Democrats would normally call for a politician to step down when caught lying. I wonder if they would apply that same standard to one of their own.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

GOP Leader: Pelosi Should Show Proof Or Apologize
CNN
May 17, 2009

View From The British Media: Why Does Obama Hate America?

I've got to give the Brits credit for one thing. Their mass media isn't afraid to tell it like it is. Whereas here in America our mass media is acting like Obama's cheerleading squad, the Brits are not afraid to bring hard facts to the forefront and ask questions that would surely embarrass Obama.

Gerald Warner is one such journalist and penned the following column for the Telegraph back on April 24:

If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter. Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail. That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda. "Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed. So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers. Obama promised his CIA audience that nobody would be prosecuted for past actions. That has already been contradicted by leftist groups with a revanchist ambition to put Republicans, headed if possible by Condoleezza Rice, in the dock. Talk about playing party politics with national security. Martin Scheinin, the United Nations special investigator for human rights, claims that senior figures, including former vice president Dick Cheney, could face prosecution overseas. Ponder that - once you have got over the difficulty of locating the United Nations and human rights within the same dimension. President Pantywaist Obama should have thought twice before sitting down to play poker with Dick Cheney. The former vice president believes documents have been selectively published and that releasing more will prove how effective the interrogation techniques were. Under Dubya's administration, there was no further atrocity on American soil after 9/11. President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

If only American reporters had such courage and fortitude to stand up to the socialist Obama like that. But, they will never ask hard, reality-based questions of The One.

You can access the original column on-line here:

Barack Obama And The CIA: Why Does President Pantywaist Hate America So Badly?
Gerald Warner
Telegraph UK
April 24, 2009

Pelosi Lied About Not Being Briefed On Waterboarding

Man! If it isn't lying on their taxes, the Dems will find other things to lie about.

The latest lie comes from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Although she claims she never knew about the enhanced interrogation technique known as waterboarding, newly released CIA documents now show she did indeed know.

Oh, and if you are one of those who keep repeating that this is some sort of right-wing conspiracy, check out the names of the sources first.

From the New York Times:

The new chart of briefings, prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was the first full listing of briefings to members of Congress and their aides. It appears to call into question the longstanding assertion of Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she was never told that waterboarding and other methods were actually used, only that the Central Intelligence Agency believed they were legal and could be used. ... The chart shows that in addition to Ms. Pelosi, Democrats briefed on the methods included former Senator Bob Graham of Florida in 2002 and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Representative Jane Harman of California in 2003.

And the Washington Post has this:

A top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a CIA briefing in early 2003 in which it was made clear that waterboarding and other harsh techniques were being used in the interrogation of an alleged al-Qaeda operative, according to documents the CIA released to Congress on Thursday. Pelosi has insisted that she was not directly briefed by Bush administration officials that the practice was being actively employed. But Michael Sheehy, a top Pelosi aide, was present for a classified briefing that included Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking minority member of the House intelligence committee, at which agency officials discussed the use of waterboarding on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaida.

Clearly, despite Pelosi's attempt at spinning this situation, she knew about waterboarding at least 6 years ago and most likely, 8 years ago. She only came out against the technique when it became politically advantageous to do so.

But, I guess you should expect that from a Democrat. Political advancement above the security of the American people. That seems to be their new credo.

You can access both articles on-line here:

List Says Top Democrats Were Briefed On Interrogations
Scott Shane and Carl Hulse
New York Times
May 8, 2009

Top Pelosi Aide Learned Of Waterboarding In 2003
Paul Kane
Washington Post
May 9, 2009

McCain: Bush Should Veto Torture Bill

Despite Sen. McCain's opposition to waterboarding as an interrogation technique, he voted against a bill that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh techniques and is now calling on President Bush to veto the measure.

From the Associated Press via GOPUSA:

McCain voted against the bill, which would restrict the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual. His vote was controversial because the manual prohibits waterboarding -- a simulated drowning technique that McCain also opposes -- yet McCain doesn't want the CIA bound by the manual and its prohibitions.

Is this the same Sen. John McCain that Ann Coulter claims is more liberal than Sen. Hillary Clinton? Did not this same Ann Coulter say that Sen. McCain's opposition to waterboarding was a major piece of evidence for said claim? (Anyone care to guess whether or not Sens. Clinton and Obama supported this bill?)

Seems to me that if Sen. McCain were more liberal than Sen. Hillary Clinton, then he would have voted for this measure and would now be calling on President Bush to sign it.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

McCain: Bush Should Veto Torture Bill
Libby Quaid
Associated Press via GOPUSA.com
February 21, 2008

Nancy Pelosi Was Okay With Waterboarding Back In 2002 And Dems Concede Tax Increases

So, the Dems were okay with waterboarding as an interrogation technique back in 2002 but waited until 2007 to come out against it? Why? Due to the secretive cloak that the Dems use to surround their true agenda, we may never know. But Fox News has this:

Four top members of Congress, including now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, got a close look at CIA overseas detention sites and interrogation techniques in September 2002 and offered no challenge to their legitimacy, according to a news article out Sunday. On the contrary, at least two lawmakers involved in the briefing that day questioned whether the CIA was pushing hard enough, even after hearing the details of the now widely criticized technique known as waterboarding, two U.S. officials told The Washington Post. "The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," one official is quoted saying. ... "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," Porter Goss, a former CIA director and congressman who chaired the House intelligence panel at the time of the briefings, told The Post. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

Perhaps a member of Old Media will go back and ask Pelosi about her reaction during these briefings and then ask to reconcile that reaction to the fact that only one member of the Congressional delegation raised any objection at all: Democrat Jane Harman.

But then, that would require integrity on the part of the Dems and on Old Media.

Not likely.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Report: Top Members Of Congress Were OK With Waterboarding In 2002
FoxNews.com
December 9, 2007

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And the Dems are quickly knuckling under as it has become apparent that the American people do not want higher taxes nor more government spending.

From the Associated Press:

Cracks are emerging in congressional Democrats' solidarity, as frustrated lawmakers concede their majority status is not enough to overcome Republican resistance on taxes, spending, Iraq and a host of other issues. The fissures, which became obvious this week, are undermining Democrats' hopes for several key achievements this year. They also point to a bruising 2008 election in which Democrats will say Republicans blocked prudent tax and spending plans to score political points on immigration and other hot-button issues. Republicans say they simply want to prevent higher taxes of any kind, even if the targets are not-so-sympathetic groups such as oil companies and hedge fund managers.

And the Dems also think we are stupid enough to buy their criticism. No nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity, but many have taxed themselves into poverty. Thus, no tax plan that includes higher taxes can ever be called "prudent." Too bad the Dem leadership just doesn't seem capable of grasping that.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Democrats Cry Uncle On Taxes, Spending
Charles Babington
Associated Press via GOPUSA.com
December 7, 2007