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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (71181)	4/17/2009 12:35:33 PM
From: mph	4 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Obama disagreed, saying in a statement, "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past." Obama has an amazing capacity for stating something correctly and lying at the same time. I agree with this statement. However, he doesn't. Everything he does is aimed at blaming Bush for everything. He's done it countless times since taking office. While declining to prosecute is a good decision, releasing the memos was not.

To: Sully- who wrote (71181)	4/20/2009 8:13:40 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

What Releasing the CIA Memos is Really About By Lee Cary American Thinker It's realistic, not cynical, to assume political entities generally act out of their own self-interests. And political self-interests are what the CIA memos are really about. The oldest declassified CIA memo is from 2002, the youngest from 2005. So one question is about timing. Why now? Another is about content. What do they offer that's new? The bulk of material can be grouped under two headings: (1) Elaborate lawyerly parsing of legal terms (like "shocks the conscience") coupled with citations of case law; and, (2) redundant descriptions of enhanced interrogation techniques. The most controversial technique, waterboarding, is a rehash of what we've heard before, and often. It was only used on three high-value captives. The less aggressive techniques won't make headlines, unless a fraternity uses one to haze a pledge and someone dies accidently. The explanations for, and consequences of, publishing the documents spin in two directions. David Axelrod says is all about Obama respecting the law and being transparent. He called releasing the documents a "weighty decision" that took Obama weeks to make as he balanced two principles. "One is ... the sanctity of covert operations ... and keeping faith with the people who do them, and the impact on national security, on the one hand. And the other was the law and his belief in transparency." ("A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests." Niccolo Machiavelli) The Beltway use of "transparent" is similar to "robust." Just saying the word is intended to summon the reality of its meaning. A self-actualizing language event. Political opponents say releasing the documents threatens national security. Any enemy now knows the protocol and self-imposed limits of our most aggressive interrogation methods and can train against them. The documents offer a ready-made outline for an Interrogation Resistance Class. But it's been over seven years since 9/11. Each day since without a homeland attack brings us closer to complacent. The national defense argument won't get the traction it deserves. Self-described neutral pundits (e.g., FOX's Bill O'Reilly) say Obama is playing to the Leftwing of his base. But Obama has no need to do that now. Grumble as they might, they're firmly entrenched in his camp and aren't likely to shift their support to, say, Ron Paul. So all the yin yang to date hasn't told us what this is about. Here's another option: It's about controlling the news cycle, putting opponents on the defensive, and diverting attention away from other, more-timely battles underway. We recently witnessed a similar tactic. The release of the Department of Homeland Security's "rightwing extremism" report, dated April 7, offered the MSM a counterpoint to frame their minimum coverage of the April 15 Tea Parties. The protesters were portrayed as non-violent expressions of rightwing extremism. The transparent intent behind releasing the DHS report a week before the protests was to preemptively diminish their impact. Today, inside the Beltway, there are serious debates involving trillions of dollars and federal programs that will effect America for generations. Oxygen that might fuel coverage of those debates is being diverted to topics like the use of dietary manipulation in interrogating al-Qaida operatives, years ago. It's all about misdirection of public attention, and all sides of the media are conscious, or unconscious, facilitators of the ploy choreographed from inside the Obama administration. (Including me herein.) Most Americans won't take the time to download the CIA material and wade through it. If they did, many would say, "So this is what all the commotion is about?" Days ago, three Somali pirates held an American captive for ransom and threatened his life. The President ordered them shot through their respective heads. Small hole going in, big one coming out. Even though Somali pirates have never harmed an American seaman, it was the right decision. Years ago, the CIA used several enhanced interrogation techniques on 28 captives from an organization that killed thousands of American civilians. When in CIA custody, the al-Qaida detainee would face an interrogator... <<< "...positioned directly in front of the detainee, generally no more than 18 inches from the detainee. With his fingers held tightly together and fully extended, and with his palm toward the interrogator's own body, using his elbow as a fixed pivot point, the interrogator slaps the detainee in the detainee's abdomen. The interrogator may not use a fist, and the slap must be delivered above the navel and below the sternum. This technique is used to condition a detainee to pay attention to the interrogator's questions and to dislodge expectations that the detainee will not be touched. It is not intended to-and based on experience you have informed us that it does not-inflict any injury or cause an significant pain. Medical and psychological personnel are physically present or otherwise observing whenever this technique is applied." (May 10, 2005 memo stamped 0000013, p.11) >>> Head shot, to save a life, versus tummy slaps, to save multiple lives. The question is, away from what is our attention being diverted? americanthinker.com

To: Sully- who wrote (71181)	4/20/2009 12:53:26 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

General Hayden on Fox News Sunday Andy McCarthy The Corner Former CIA director Mike Hayden was tremendous in his Fox News Sunday interview by Chris Wallace, explaining why the Obama/Holder decision to reveal the details of our enhanced interrogation tactics to our enemies is indefensible. It can be seen, here. Highly recommended. foxnews.com corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (71181)	4/20/2009 12:53:56 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Ditto & What Could Have Been Jonah Goldberg The Corner Andy — I though Hayden was really exceptional yesterday as well. My only complaint amounted to sour grapes: Why the hell wasn't the Bush administration better at making arguments like this when they were still running things? The failure of the Bush White House to more aggressively defend itself was one of the great examples of political malpractice in my lifetime. It's not that they didn't try, but they didn't try nearly enough. corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (71181)	4/20/2009 1:15:32 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Inexcusable Lapse By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Friday, April 17, 2009 4:20 PM PT War On Terror: Imagine a president of the United States, within his first hundred days, revealing secrets that help terrorists kill. The secret memos on enhanced interrogation, now made public, do exactly that. We are told by President Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod that the president agonized for four weeks over the "weighty decision" to make public memoranda detailing the specifics of the CIA's tough interrogation of high-value terrorist detainees such as 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. For most other presidents, it would have taken maybe four minutes, required little soul-searching and resulted in the opposite choice. What on earth could the president have been thinking in revealing the nuts and bolts of how we extract information from al-Qaida operatives to prevent the success of their terrorist operations? What could have possessed him to make public the steps our interrogators go through, the limits of pain and discomfort they (but not the prisoners) know they will not exceed, and the analytical classification and specific purpose of each of the various techniques? These top secrets will arm Islamist jihadists with knowledge that will be invaluable to them. Future terrorist detainees will now know, for instance, that their interrogations are under continual video surveillance to make sure no lasting medical or psychological consequences result from the techniques used. Will they now teach themselves to fake such ill effects? Terrorists will know that when they are placed in a tiny container in "cramped confinement" it will last only "up to two hours," as a declassified memo from the Justice Department to the CIA noted. They will know that "stress positions" are used "only to induce temporary muscle fatigue" not "severe physical pain." They will now know that when subjected to "water dousing" they need not have the slightest fear of hypothermia, because every precaution is taken to keep the temperature of both the room and the water itself far above freezing. They will know sleep deprivation inflicted by the interrogators seldom exceeds 96 hours, and they'll know the specifics and purposes behind the relatively mild technique of "dietary manipulation." What the president has given to our enemies is a treasure chest of defensive weapons. Within the caves of the mountainous Pakistan/Afghanistan border, Islamofascist plotters must wonder how self-destructively corrupt their American adversaries have to be to allow such materials to land in their hands. The piece of information that may be of most value to terrorists is the government's assessment that waterboarding was "the most traumatic of the enhanced interrogation techniques" and implicitly the most effective. Terrorist groups around the world will now know that waterboarding was "authorized for, at most, one 30-day period, during which the technique can actually be applied on no more than five days" with "no more than two sessions in any 24-hour period." Each session lasted no more than two hours, consisting of, at most, six applications of water for 10 seconds each time, for a total of no longer than 12 minutes per each 24-hour period. Presumably the issue is academic since the Obama administration has officially prohibited waterboarding. There is no more valuable tool for subjects of interrogation than to know what they will be subjected to. How in good conscience could our president have given this gift to those trying to destroy us? ibdeditorials.com