I think the following sort of sums up the status of the debate thus far over the mechanisms used to eliminate bin Laden:
Some plaintiffs “preventively detained” for an “indeterminate” period at “al-Qaeda’s chief recruiting tool” in a lame-duck Guantanamo offered critical information about bin Laden’s otherwise not very important “pawns” and “couriers”; some even did so after being subject to superfluous and not very legal “enhanced interrogation techniques.” We then dispatched a questionable “assassination” team into a sovereign nation without its consent, executed bin Laden and various unnamed others, praised our “partnership” with Pakistan, apparently for allowing bin Laden to live with impunity among their retired military for five years — and have finally established a narrative that the problem with Bush-era antiterrorism protocols was never their efficacy, morality, or legality, but simply the president who established them. Keep or expand the former, change the latter, and we have a new national consensus on the tools necessary in the War on Terror.
Sorry I must have missed when Obama was waterboarding people.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOf course you did, bobbytwotimes. For you it's OK to give Obama 100% credit for getting bin Laden, even though he opposed, tooth and nail, the mechanism which brought us the information to do it. If he, and apparently you, had your way all along, there would have been no such info and bin Laden would still be at large. And who knows what other bad things would not have been stopped in the interim.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNow we'll finally get to learn just how disabled or ambulatory Osama really was. Also interesting was the late spo-ok (really, you can't write "spo-ok" on this comment section?) moves between Petraeus and Panetta in the days leading up to the kill.
btw, no wonder the Obama admin. screwed up the storyline about the raid. Seals don't bring teleprompters on missions.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@bobby, maybe you can find that information when you find your missing brain. Until then, here is the point. Bin Laben would not have been found without enhanced interrogation (i.e. waterboarding) from which Obama benefited. It doesn't matter whether he or his predecessor ordered it - no waterboarding; no dead bin Laden.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse“It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”
- Donald Rumsfeld, yesterday
I guess facts never get in the way of bitter partisan spin though...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFirst, there is evidence to the contrary that enhanced interrogation was responsible for the information. Rumsfeld himself has denied it.
Second, regardless... Is the GOP really trying to find some ownership of this victory by looking to torture as their contribution?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat I want to know is, what if Pakistan had shot down the US helicopters, who were flying in Pakistani airspace without (we suppose) authorization and without (we suppose) knowledge of the purpose?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou're so far gone, and so eager to tar Obama with something, anything, that you'll gleefully defend torture just so you can call him a hypocrite for 'relying on it'. Even when it turns out it wasn't torture that led to Osama's death.
The problem with torture, of course, is that when it's instated as a policy it *always* ends up getting used on people who are innocent. Unless of course you believe in a country where people aren't innocent until proven guilty. Which you do, of course.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDavidJ and Kyle, maybe you should read more newspapers and watch less sean hannity. Waterboarding had nothing to do with this information. As every newspaper has reported.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusebobby,
You also must have also missed when Obama:
- Closed Gitmo
- Ended renditions
- Stopped Predator drone attacks
- Pulled all our troops out of Iraq by his preset date
- Pulled all our troops out of Afghanistan by his preset date
- Didn't invade any foreign, sovereign nations, without permission, using U.S. personnel on the ground
- etc. etc.
How do you know he's not waterboarding people? What do you know that we don't?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInterested Observer: Second, regardless... Is the GOP really trying to find some ownership of this victory by looking to torture as their contribution?
I doubt you would take the position that an omelette can be made without cracking a few eggs. Not to be too indelicate, but in this example, Kalid Sheikh Mohammed is an egg.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I doubt you would take the position that an omelette can be made without cracking a few eggs. Not to be too indelicate, but in this example, Kalid Sheikh Mohammed is an egg."
That would be great if people like him were the only eggs that get cracked when torture is instituted as an intelligence gathering policy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI see the liberals are still trying to claim that there was torture during the Bush years.
They never let a good lie go.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs every newspaper has reported.
Good God, now they are trying to claim that the NYT is actually a reliable source of information.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMarkW, Donald Rumsfeld isn't reliable enough for you? One of us is ignoring the facts and its not me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusebill30bill: That would be great if people like him were the only eggs that get cracked when torture is instituted as an intelligence gathering policy.
You are aware that only three people, including KSM, are even claimed to have been waterboarded during the entirety of the Bush years, right? Not admitted to--but claimed. Since you think it would be great if it was only people like KSM, then I guess we're in agreement.
Or is three people really your definition of an institutional policy?
(My captcha on this one was "egg on." Really.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHere is the bigger problem. Obama has stopped "enhanced interrogation" which is apparently partially responsible for providing the initial thread which led to Osama and his demise. This means for terror acts committed now or in the future, we won't be able to pick up those "threads" which ultimately may lead to the death of the next Osama---and there will be another Osama. (For those on the left who think water boarding is torture, then why did many of us going through survival schools and resistance training get to experience it---oh, by the way, it didn’t kill us and those not killed in combat are still here. It isn't torture you clowns, but it does help get information which may save American lives; which should be the desired goal of all American's, but based upon the statements and actions of some on the left I honestly don't believe some on the left consider that a "desired goal”.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I see the liberals are still trying to claim that there was torture during the Bush years.
They never let a good lie go."
It's of course a fact, and not a lie, that waterboarding was used as well as extreme sleep deprivation. Those both constitute torture in my opinion and in the opinion of many experts. It's also a fact that prisoners were tortured in other ways (beaten, for example) and unlawfully killed. And no amount of puerile taunting about 'lies' from people like you is going to change that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusemrindie, you're hanging your hat on a heavily sanitized and untruthful version of history. Aside from plenty of documented evidence of torture apart from the '3 waterboardings' you cite, it would be incredibly naive to think that a lot of very rough stuff we'll never know about didn't happen at the CIA's many black sites.
Just google Guantanamo and torture and spend an hour or so convincing yourself that every single news story about it is the product of the left wing media, then pour yourself a nice warm glass of milk and continue living in your little cocoon of denial.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"For those on the left who think water boarding is torture, then why did many of us going through survival schools and resistance training get to experience it"
Because you were being trained to withstand torture, would be my guess. As one tires of also pointing out, survival training is very different from being tortured at a black site and unaware of the torturers intent or when/at what point he will stop. There is an additional and very serious psychological element in real torture that isn't there in a training session.
As one also tires of pointing out, when torture becomes the policy, innocent people will be tortured. This is the biggest reason not to use it.
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