Powered by TypePad

« Free Scalia! | Main | Hope And Change I Am Not So Sure We Can Believe In »

April 21, 2009

Comments

Charlie (Colorado)

So apparently we've got Matt Apuzzo saying they weren't effective, and the DNI saying they were.

Hmmm. It's a puzzlement.

PaulL

Can't say that I follow your reasoning here, TM. Do you think Cheney is going to fret about some political spin?

PaulL

KSM says he was waterboarded 5 times. The report supposedly says 183 times.

I don't buy the explanation given so far that he was waterboarded 36 or 37 times per session, and that KSM only counted the session as a whole, and the CIA counted each time any water was introduced to his system.

lurking

I love it. It's OK to crash bullets through the brains of three men when one US citizen is in imminent danger, but not to waterboard one man when all the denizens of an LA highrise are in imminent danger.

Maybe we are going to get the national discussion we need about security. It's broached in interrogation techniques, in surveillance techniques, and in response to hostage situations. Maybe will get around to contemplating NoKo and Iranian nukes, and Russian troops massing in Georgia. Don't expect Obama to star in the debate.

verner

imminent appears to be the key word.

Now are we going to have to argue over how imminent the attack was suppose to be?!?

Two weeks? 24 hours?

How about we stop them the minute we find out about them. I like that.

The fact that the plots exist is imminent enough.

verner

And this sounds real imminent:

"Soon, you will know".

verner

"Sure, the CIA called in the four senior oversight committee members to chat about things they thought were legal but had no intention of doing.

Doesn't that sound like the "we voted for Bush to have the authority to attack Saddam, but we didn't think he'd actually do it" defense.

verner

"I don't buy the explanation given so far that he was waterboarded 36 or 37 times per session, and that KSM only counted the session as a whole, and the CIA counted each time any water was introduced to his system."

Do you think KSM is trying to make the CIA look good?

If you watch one of the numerous videos of various journos getting WBded, it makes sense. They start with a very short pour that only lasts a few seconds, quickly repeat it four or five times, and then stop.

He might have been WBded on five different days, with two "sessions" a day. With 18 pours a session, it works.

 Ann

Tom, I like this title better:

Releasing The Torture Memos - Be Careful What You Step IN, President Obama

Shovel Ready

And just for a snort, according to the linked article Michelle Obama is quoted as saying:

"We have the biggest tree," :)

verner

Hey Link to Blair memo by Peter Baker NYT

Interesting...

LUN

Daddy

Well now that we know that Nancy (Alzheimer) Pelosi and the vacuous Bob Graham were at these "Interrogation Discussions" but can't remember anything, is that enough cover yet for the memory addled Richard Armitage to finally step forward and admit he too was at these meetings? Hard to say, but I think so.

With Pelosi and Graham having memory dumps, and with Armitage currently cruising on his "If I'd'a Known I'd'a resigned" bluster to Al Jazeera, now seems the perfect time for this State Department doorknob, who famously forgot during the Libby witchhunt that he was the guy who leaked to Woodward and Novak, to re-spring his Andrea Mitchell quality amnesia upon a gullible public and Media.

By buttressing Pelosi and Graham's cock and bull amnesia story with his own formidable ignorance, he'd be able to stick another knife in the back of Cheney and the Bush Administration 1 more time, plus get invited on Andrea Mitchell's show to chit-chat about the faulty memory's of Conservatives. What's not to like?

That's why I think some reporter somewhere in America, will finally find the motivation today to get off his duff, dial up the former Deputy Secretary of State, and ask the all important question of Richard Armitage: "What did you not know, and when did you not know it?"

kate

I'd like to make a modest request. Can we stop calling them the "torture" memos. Must we let the left win the framing argument everytime.

How about the "Keep American Safe" Memos, or perhaps the more neutral "Enhanced Interogation Memos".

PeterUK

Just give them a choice,"Waterboarding or the Botox and the face lift,we'll send you back looking Nancy with the staring eyes".

PeterUK

"How about the "Keep American Safe" Memos, or perhaps the more neutral "Enhanced Interogation Memos".


Perhaps "Earnest Inquiry" would be better.

PMII

I thought this interesting Bybee vs. Gorlick
- not being a lawyer, are any of you worried?

PMII

Corrected link

Bybee vs. Gorelick

Jane

I love it. It's OK to crash bullets through the brains of three men when one US citizen is in imminent danger, but not to waterboard one man when all the denizens of an LA highrise are in imminent danger.

I for one am already gearing up for the post presidency trial of The Won based on this incident alone.

Of course that assumes there will be a post-presidency. It seems to me we are headed in a different direction.

Jane

OT: They just found a senior Freddie Mac guy dead.

Jane

David Kellerman, 41, CFO - responsible for all aspects of mortgage portfolio activity.

clarice

Suicide?

Captain Hate

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who in 2002 was the ranking Democrat on the House committee, has said in public statements that she recalls being briefed on the methods, including waterboarding. She insists, however, that the lawmakers were told only that the C.I.A. believed the methods were legal — not that they were going to be used.

How can any of this witless whore's constituents justify voting for such an obvious dumbbell? The CIA was just randomly brainstorming in front of these clowns, tossing out things like "have them play really really hard sudoku puzzles" just to see if a certain Baltimore mafia princess was paying attention or contemplating her next cosmetic surgery.

Pofarmer

Of course that assumes there will be a post-presidency. It seems to me we are headed in a different direction.

I've been thinking that too, but then I start worrying that I have ODS. The next step will be the bankruptcy of the energy industry. He needs more crisis.

sbw

Waterboarding or Barney Frank?
Waterboarding or Barney Frank?

Torture is relative.

PMII

We are starting to sound like a third world country.....

Jane

I think The WOn has turned us into Latin AMerica in less than 100 days.

Pretty big accomplishment when you think about it.

Bill in AZ

Suicide?
Obamicide - a lot of that going around. But every socialist/fascist racks up a few million of those.

bad

Clarice, it was suicide.

Bruce

suicide?

Could be. Anyone know where Hillary Clinton was at the time?

"Paging Vince Foster! Paging Mr. Foster!"

PeterUK

An open vein in a hot bath?

Extraneus

The Rasmussen presidential approval index is about to go negative. The 2010 elections are only 18 months away, after which the Dems will probably be taken down quite a few pegs unless they start tacking back very soon. Instead, they're over-reaching, probably afraid that they'll never be given this much power again.

Interestingly, the Rasmussen strongly-disapprove number seems to have leveled out. It's the strongly-approve number that hasn't. This implies that he's losing independents continually. A lot of people voted for something besides this.

PeterUK

" A lot of people voted for something besides this."


They didn't vote for "Change you can never get rid of".

George Ditter

Sounds like in the future any briefing for the benefit of a Democratic Congressional member should bypass the actual elected Democrats and just involve their staffer and should be secretly videoed for furture reference.

Fresh Air

The entire Mediacrat delegation is a troupe of goddamn cowards. They make me sick to my stomach. Evidently, national security was only a political ploy for them. They were never serious about it, as they certainly aren't serious now and it's not possible to shift your opinion on something so important; you either believe in protecting the people of the country to your utmost or you don't.

The only question I have about KSM is why, after we got the information he had to give, we didn't put a large caliber bullet through this skull.

bad

Fresh Air, I agree. Let's treat alleged terrorists the way the president treats alleged pirates... bullets through the brain, 75% of the time.

bad

Before you scoff, think about it. Gitmo and Bagram and renditions would be greatly reduced.

It's a win/win....

Old Lurker

Wonder how Grassley feels about the Freddie Mac guy's suicide.

Now the President is going to criminalize the policy differences of previous administrations.

This is an ugly road we are traveling, folks.

bad

Old Lurker, I'm just paranoid enough to wonder what the Freddie Mac guy knows that we don't know.

I wonder about Grassley as well.

bad

Make that "knew".....

Prayers for his family, he was only 41.

Rick Ballard

"Can we stop calling them the "torture" memos. Must we let the left win the framing argument every time."

Hear. Hear.

Ceding the language on interrogation works to the same end as describing the "consensus opinion" by stakeholders in climate fraud as "science". The interrogation techniques are to torture as climate crapscience is to science or "journalism" is to honest reporting. Slop begets slop.

Danube of Thought

Dorothy Rabinowitz is once again a must-read. LUN

bad

from DoT's link:

Since that bridge too far to Europe, ordinary Americans, including some who voted for Mr. Obama, have shown evidence of a quiet but durable resentment over the list of grievances against the United States that the president brought to the world's attention while overseas. There are certain things that can't be taken back. There are images that are hard to forget. Anger of this kind has an enduring power that could, in the end, haunt this presidency.

I hope she is right.

Thanks for that link DoT.

The man is a fool and our president. God help us all.

cathyf
I don't buy the explanation given so far that he was waterboarded 36 or 37 times per session, and that KSM only counted the session as a whole, and the CIA counted each time any water was introduced to his system.
I have an alternative explanation that I posted on the other thread which also makes the numbers come out. The CIA waterboarded KSM twice the usual length of time. Didn't work. Then the waterboarded him the length of time which is whatever counts as "a long time" given our experience with SERE school. Didn't work. Then they waterboarded each other 100 times working out a protocol for a 2-minute waterboard session. Then the waterboarded KSM for two minutes, didn't work. So then they waterboarded each other another 78 times working out a 3-minute protocol. KSM broke after 2:40 in his fifth waterboard.

See, all the numbers add up. KSM was waterboarded 5 times just like he said, and the CIA "used the waterboard 185 times that month" just like the memos said. And the odd mixture of direct quotes and obfuscating paraphrases is the "journalist's" attempt to hide the fact that the CIA interrogators used "torture" on each other far more than on any detainee.

bad

O/T but Andy McCarthy has a good question:

Is DHS Secretary Napolitano Just an Ignoramus?

Apparently, she believes crossing the border illegally is NOT a crime.

LUN

Danube of Thought

He is, indeed, a fool, Bad. It's very troubling.

The most troubling attribute to me is his apparent belief that he is here to wash away our sins, and that we must somehow debase ourselves to achieve that lofty goal.

He clearly believes that American before Obama had very little to commend it.

bad

He clearly believes that American before Obama had very little to commend it.

His wife repeatedly and honestly pointed that out on the compaign trail before they finally muzzled her.

clarice

cathy, I caught that post yesterday and think it is entirely plausible.

DoT Rabinowitz is always good..I especially liked this:

"Turning aside the quest for answers to knotty questions -- including several on the point that most of what we now know about al Qaeda had been gleaned precisely from these enhanced interrogations -- Mr. Emanuel indicated that the Obama administration was guided by higher concerns. He proceeded patiently, to explain. By revealing the memos, with their detailed information on those interrogation techniques (now banned), we had elevated our moral status in the eyes of the world. More important, we had improved our standing in the eyes of potential terrorists. This would undermine al Qaeda, Mr. Emanuel explained, because those interrogations of ours helped to enlist terrorists to their cause. All of which was why the publication of the memos -- news of which would presumably touch the hearts of militants around the world -- would make America safer.

There is always danger in repeating propositions like this often, among them the likelihood that their irrationality will begin to make itself clear to anyone hearing it over time.

Any number of people listening to Mr. Emanuel -- those acquainted with terror's recent history, at any rate -- would have recalled, instantly, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the attack on the USS Cole, and the rest of the unending chain of terror assaults mounted against Americans long before anyone had ever heard of enhanced interrogation techniques."

cathyf
By revealing the memos, with their detailed information on those interrogation techniques (now banned), we had elevated our moral status in the eyes of the world.
I was disappointed that Rabinowitz didn't mock this notion. To anyone who is not a narcissist honestly convinced that the entire rest of the world is obsessed with his every little thought, feeling, and intestinal moment, the obvious effect of bringing up long-ago events that people might hate us for is to remind those people that they hate us and reinforce the hatred.
MayBee

Any number of people listening to Mr. Emanuel -- those acquainted with terror's recent history, at any rate -- would have recalled, instantly, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the attack on the USS Cole, and the rest of the unending chain of terror assaults mounted against Americans long before anyone had ever heard of enhanced interrogation techniques."

Precisely.

clarice

Which people was this to appeal to anyway?

The French whose detainees sit in secret prisons on their own soil and now and then are found dead in the Seine or having someone slipped the bonds and jumped from the third floors of police stations?


The Dutch and Belgians who regularly sit by as massacres take place before their impotent troops eyes on missions abroad?

The MiddleEast where beheadings of opponents are rather quotidian and simple thievery results in chopped off limbs?

The man is mad.

clarice

And Napolitano is another certifiable moron:

< a href=http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090421/USA_Border_090421/20090421?hub=TopStories>Don't know much about history"

clarice

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090421/USA_Border_090421/20090421?hub=TopStories>Don't know much about history

bad

What's with Napolitano? What was she smokin' when she did that interview....

anduril

clarice, I was wondering where a good thread would be for that very worthy story: The border for dummies: How did she get her job?

But a point of clarification: impotent eyes or impotent troops? Or both? :-)

centralcal

The Border For Dummies

Just to add to Clarice's link.

bad

Some official from Texas was on FOX much earlier today saying the border issues in Texas and Arizona were very different because Texas handled things much better.

Wonder how much Napolitano had to do with border procedures in Arizona?

maryrose

Napolitano is a moron, you've got that right clarice. After her shot at the veterans she obviously knows nothing about border control. I was especially amused by her question about what the National Guard would do if sent to the border. The incompetence in this administration is frightening!

Bill in AZ

She didn't need to do anything - they come in from Canada.

MayBee

Maryrose!!!!!!!!!!!

bad

San Francisco is unhappy about bio diesal made from animal parts in a plant there.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Wilson/Plame