Justice threw kerosene on those politics yesterday with its release of findings compiled by the CIA’s inspector general in 2004 about the agency’s detention and interrogation of terrorists. The ACLU had won a court order for their release. We were still reading its hundreds of pages at deadline, but most of the supposedly damning details had already been leaked. The new bits include the fact that interrogators threatened terrorists with a gun shot in a nearby room, with a power drill and cigarette smoke, and against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s family. We suspect millions of Americans will be shocked to learn that these unshocking details are all that the uproar over “torture” is about. [...]By threatening to prosecute CIA officials, the Obama Administration is taking ownership of future troubles in a way that will only do itself harm. Like the Church and Pike probes of the 1970s, Americans will once again see that the Democratic Party cares as much or more about settling scores against fellow Americans as it does about fighting the war on terror. Mr. Holder yesterday acknowledged that his decision to reopen the old CIA wounds would be “controversial.” He will soon learn how much.
Comment by Hrothgar on 8/25 @ 7:33 pm #
Let’s see, the interrogator fired a gun into the ceiling, the terorist helped fly a plane into a building in New York or helped to blow up the USS COle. Yes, let’s go after the interrogator. Makes sense to me!
Comment by Darleen on 8/25 @ 7:36 pm #
Makes sense to me!
Well, its a great excuse for Saddam’s old buddies at CNN and the All Barack Channel to do wall-to-wall coverage of BOOOOOOSH and distract from the ObamaCare debacle.
like the dogs in UP…. squirrel!
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 8/25 @ 7:37 pm #
Sure, throw a bone to the radical left and distract from health care debate so the press stops covering it and they can pretend it all went away. Will it work? Well if its up to the people and their anger and frustration, no. If its up to the Democrats just deciding this is their last chance for another huge entitlement program and a step toward socialized medicine, it might.
Comment by sdferr on 8/25 @ 7:49 pm #
Mr Carville, we note, seems to think this may not be a very good idea, politically speaking. That may be because he knows something, not only from his experiences in the Clinton administration but something foreign to most of Obama’s handlers: who those people living in Louisiana and Arkansas — and other Americans like them — are.
Comment by sdferr on 8/25 @ 7:51 pm #
Yet another Obama puke-worthy move. They can’t be gone soon enough.
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 8/25 @ 7:56 pm #
Bush the younger knows what its like to have people working in the CIA who are his enemies, maybe President Obama should ask him how well that works out.
Comment by geoffb on 8/25 @ 8:03 pm #
My take has always been the the Left sees a different entity as their main, mortal enemy than the rest of the nation does. This two year period is their chance to do maximum damage to that enemy in order to win the war, their war. This is simply a part of that.
In this and other actions they are revealing who and what they see as their enemy. Something they have been at pains to hide before now. I pray that they are overplaying their hand, and have, as most have done for over 200 years, underestimated the will to liberty of the American public.
Comment by sdferr on 8/25 @ 8:20 pm #
My old neighbor Juan Williams, who can sometimes be a reasonable sort of fellow albeit a reliable spinner of Obama admin. policy positions (still, his stances can surprise now and then) has been off the hook goofy over this question for quite awhile. Last night on the roundtable he said:
He made the same sort of prove-a-negative-go-on-I-dare-you arguments tonight and threw in “pulling out fingernails” to boot. Some issues seem to engender extreme will-to-moral-superiority positions in people. In this case Juan, I think, is one of those.
Comment by Bob Reed on 8/25 @ 8:44 pm #
B-B-But, they blew smoke in their faces…Known carcinogen smoke !1!!1!eleventy
Effin ridiculous…
KSM and his bros were subject to much worse conditions on any French train car or hip discotheque…
This is all about the bunnies!
O!&Co fiddlin’ while America burns…
Comment by Jim Ryan on 8/25 @ 8:47 pm #
BUT WHAT IF THEY GUY LIES WHEN YOU SCARE HIM!!!!
Comment by Bob Reed on 8/25 @ 8:48 pm #
Th4ey haven’t succeeded in distracting the tea-partyers and Obamacare opponents, so now they need to distract the Rachel Maddow crew so they can make a deal deal and get some bill taht they can call health care reform passed…
Look! Boooooooosh! tortured peaceful middle-eastern people!1!11!eleventy
meanwhile
Hoyer: “The public option is not a non-negotiable component…”
Comment by clarice on 8/25 @ 8:49 pm #
Darleen, that is really wonderful!
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/25 @ 8:51 pm #
In case you’re not kidding:
Because we can find out if he’s lying, and he knows this (or is told this… and he certainly isn’t going anywhere while we find out).
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/25 @ 8:53 pm #
#10 Jim Ryan
OK, I checked your blog and you’re one of ours channeling a lefty loon.
;^)
Trackback by CatHouse Chat on 8/25 @ 8:56 pm #
Distraction can be very useful……
Darleen is teh AWESOME!!!!…
Comment by sdferr on 8/25 @ 8:57 pm #
“…he certainly isn’t going anywhere while we find out.”
I used to feel fairly confident of that. Anymore, not so much.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/25 @ 9:00 pm #
#16 sdferr
Sad, but true…
Any wagers somebody will call for KSM’s release, because of the TORTURE!!!
Comment by Jim Ryan on 8/25 @ 9:05 pm #
OKAY I READ THE REPORT! I JUST CAN’T STAND IT! I DON’T CARE IF THEY SUCCEED IN SOME HORRIFIC TERRORIST ATTACK IN OUR CITIES! JUST PLEASE DON’T SCARE THE POOR TERRORIST GUY ANYMORE!! PLEASE!! CAN HE NOT FEEL? IS HE NOT MAN?
Comment by takeshi kovacs on 8/25 @ 9:05 pm #
“Dimmesdale”
Comment by happyfeet on 8/25 @ 9:07 pm #
I love it. Your graphic.
Comment by B Moe on 8/25 @ 9:13 pm #
What Would Hugo Do?
Comment by geoffb on 8/25 @ 9:17 pm #
More than likely. These guys are not the Soviets/Russians who were and remain masters of the art of disinformation. Mastered so well that at times, even they, couldn’t find their way in the maze of mirrors they had created. Our guys came up dealing with that. The al Queda bunch can do individual and small group lying but are not the USSR’s equal in organized deception.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/25 @ 9:17 pm #
Dinsdale, you mean, takeshi? He’s currently in an undisclosed location, constantly muttering something about “rendition”.
;^)
Comment by dave on 8/25 @ 9:17 pm #
dwindle slowly down to nothing
Comment by dicentra on 8/25 @ 9:19 pm #
Also from the WSJ:
Also, that Squirrelizer is a gift.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/25 @ 9:19 pm #
Every day, in every way, it’s looking more and more like the Carter Administration redux.
Comment by ichi on 8/25 @ 9:20 pm #
Takeshi is safe. No worries about alter-rendition. So shut your mouth. Cow.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/25 @ 9:21 pm #
He is DEVO.
Comment by sdferr on 8/25 @ 9:23 pm #
Don’t shoot!
Comment by B Moe on 8/25 @ 9:25 pm #
Carter was just an incompetent fool. These fuckers are bordering on treason.
Comment by dicentra on 8/25 @ 9:28 pm #
My take has always been the the Left sees a different entity as their main, mortal enemy than the rest of the nation does.
And that entity is…???
…Imperialist America, which, being the strongest and most influential nation is also by definition the most evil. Unfortunately, the port-side dictionary does not contain the word “hegemony” or its derivatives, because that doesn’t gin up enough outrage. It’s Imperialism or humiliation: nothing in between.
The Enemies Within are the heartland jingoists whose flag-waving is a display of aggression to all brown people. These rubes are too stupid to know what constitutes their best interest and so must accept the rule of Their Betters, whether it be by stealth or by Direct Action.
Also, don’t forget to watch Glenn Beck’s week-long exposee on Obama’s cadre of czars. Yesterday, he profiled Van Jones, a radical’s radical who has discovered the utility of the green movement and AGW as a vehicle for radical revolution.
Comment by sdferr on 8/25 @ 9:31 pm #
McCarthy’s take from January 13, 2009 self-quoted in his post today is kinda like Dennis Green’s proclamation “They are who we thought they were.”
Comment by Noel on 8/25 @ 9:32 pm #
Only seven months into the Glorious Era of HopenChange and reduced to pandering to your lowest-common-denominator fringe supporters to stay afloat = MASSIVE, UNMITIGATED FAIL.
Congratulations, Rush–you got your wish.
Comment by B Moe on 8/25 @ 9:48 pm #
Didn’t the Democrats say all out of this same kind of shit about Lincoln back in the day? They had more sense than to actually follow up on it, though.
Comment by Great Mencken's Ghost! on 8/25 @ 10:14 pm #
Obama’s REAL Squirrel Nightmare!
Comment by David R. Block on 8/25 @ 10:28 pm #
Dear Great Mencken’s Ghost,
My anti-virus thinks that you have a virus somewhere on your site and got all ticked at me for going to the home page.
Thought you might like to know.
Comment by Great Mencken's Ghost! on 8/25 @ 10:34 pm #
Thanks for the heads-up. I’m running a scan now.
Pingback by What Does Obama Have To Gain By Reopening The CIA Abuse Investigation? « Nice Deb on 8/25 @ 10:37 pm #
[...] EIT Investigation/squirrel photoshop, here. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Are We Witnessing An Obama Meltdown?The [...]
Comment by serr8d on 8/25 @ 11:29 pm #
Bill Clinton: “Ah LOATHE the MILITARY! and cankles.”
Baracky, Pelosi, Reid: “We LOATHES the MILITARY. AND the CIA. AND THE COPS. AND JUDGES WHO AREN’T OURS. AND DOCTORS WHO WON’T ENDORSE US. AND THE MOBS! THE ANGRY MOBS WITH PITCHFORKS! OH, HOW WE HATES THEM ALL, YES WE DO, DON’T WE MY PRECIOUS KOS, HUFFPOST, DU LOVELIES !!11!1!!
Harrumph. But we like big(er) butts.
GOOD DAY~!”
Comment by maggie katzen on 8/25 @ 11:37 pm #
whoa, Ted Kennedy died.
Comment by maggie katzen on 8/26 @ 12:27 am #
oh, and for more randomness, hf, I overheard a girl asking where to find The Hunger Games at Half Price Books tonight and I thought of you.
Comment by dicentra on 8/26 @ 12:41 am #
Yeah, I just heard about Ted. I didn’t know he was that far gone.
The CBS radio news spot actually mentioned Chappaquiddick and how it, er, sank his presidential ambitions and how he left her there for 10 hours and plead guilty for leaving the scene of a crime. I was astonished to hear the inclusion.
The rest of it laid on the hagiography pretty lightly, actually, for an MSM news spot.
Comment by Jeff Y. on 8/26 @ 12:43 am #
O! has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. He hamstrings the intel agencies. And he makes enemies in all the wrong places, like NSA and CIA.
Personally, I’d like to see all the civilian intel agencies disbanded. Put it all under DIA, with an FBI liaison.
Why do I advocate DIA only intel agencies? Because leaking state secrets can be punished up to death, under the UCMJ. Intel employees shouldn’t’ get the protections of the Civil Service Act.
I mean come on. We have intel agencies that can’t’ even keep secret the locations of detention facilities. Vanity Fair can get turn CIA agents. It’s a fucking joke, people.
Comment by dicentra on 8/26 @ 12:44 am #
And if you haven’t seen it yet, this is one of Whittle’s best.
He totally nails The Truth behind political correctness. And then I heard Dennis Prager’s Ultimate Issues Hour tonight (12-hour tape delay), where he went ahead and defined political correctness as the avoidance of saying true things because they might cause pain or offend.
I had to shut it off and dash off an e-mail telling him that he was wrong, wrong, wrong, and that Whittle had it right.
He’ll not correct himself, though. Dennis has been pretty fixed in his ideas for about 30 years.
Pingback by Ted Kennedy Dies, leaving Barack Obama with.... on 8/26 @ 12:54 am #
[...] maggie katzen Posted by Serr8d @ 6:54 am | Trackback Share [...]
Comment by Jeff Y. on 8/26 @ 1:08 am #
dicentra, I treat of Political Correctness as Cultural Marxism, myself. And Whittle is truly The Man.
But the best explanation of Cultural Marxism and Political Correctness is still Moxton’s The Woman Racket, which shows how the most preposterous lie – the historical oppression of women – was used by Frankfurt School feminists to destroy the traditional family. By and large, it’s succeeded.
And Whittle’s right. It’s just what people believe. Moxton has to deal with a lot of linguistic issues, it’s so corrupted the very meanings of common words. I’ve even heard otherwise conservative ladies, right here on this blog, regurgitate Frankfurt School feminist lies. They have absorbed the narrative without even knowing it. Scary.
Comment by Jeff Y. on 8/26 @ 1:09 am #
Link to The Woman Racket.
Comment by dicentra on 8/26 @ 1:19 am #
OMG.
Treacher on the passing of You Know Who.
“Rest in Chappaquiddick” — Twitter
“If they get to bring up Camelot, we get to bring up the lady in the lake.” — AoSHQ
The thread at Ace’s is pretty good readin’. But there’s a bit o’ grave dancing if you’re not into that.
As for the Moxon book, it’s now on my wish list. Looks interesting.
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 8/26 @ 1:56 am #
Funny, Valerie Plame left and suddenly the left hates the CIA. I did too, For tolerating Plame and her Vanity Fair spread and then all their leaks. Goes around comes around comes to mind.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 8/26 @ 4:49 am #
“Didn’t the Democrats say all out of this same kind of shit about Lincoln back in the day? They had more sense than to actually follow up on it, though.
Don’t be too sure about that….
“After four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war….humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities…”
-Democratic Party platform for 1864
Comment by N. O'Brain on 8/26 @ 4:50 am #
“Comment by maggie katzen on 8/25 @ 11:37 pm #
whoa, Ted Kennedy died.”
How could they tell?
Comment by N. O'Brain on 8/26 @ 5:06 am #
Oh.
There’s your distraction
The MSM will have 24/7 coverage and haigiography of the death of a murderer.
Comment by TheGeezer on 8/26 @ 6:06 am #
Wall Street Journal online article is factually interesting.
Everything Clinton did to set us up for the 9/11 hits are now back into place. What is it about contemporary liberals that wants to set up the nation for death and destruction by the nation’s enemies? I have concluded that it is because the nation’s enemies are their friends. The Comintern and all that.
The political fallout will be delicious. Obama has misunderstood “majority Americans” again.
Comment by -Ed. on 8/26 @ 6:45 am #
Great graphic!
Comment by McGehee on 8/26 @ 7:52 am #
They do not understand that the less civilized tend to confuse gentleness for weakness — especially when there is no underlying steel, as is typical with Democrats in charge.
In fact I once had a progg scold me for even using the word “weakness” when it came to discussing national defense and deterrence of our enemies.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 8/26 @ 9:19 am #
Where’s moose?
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/26 @ 11:44 am #
Probably because you made it seem like a bad thing.
Shame on you McGehee.
Comment by McGehee on 8/26 @ 1:11 pm #
Quite right, Spiny.
I denounce myself.
In private, with the shades drawn.
Comment by william on 8/26 @ 4:34 pm #
1) Matthew Alexander, a US 14-year military interrogator who oversaw more than a thousand interrogations and credited with finding the notorious Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, leader of Al Qaida in Iraq, stated that he achieved this information by using relationship-building approaches and non-coercive law enforcement techniques. He also stated that “One of Al Qaeda’s goals, it’s not just to attack the United States, it’s to prove that we’re hypocrites, that we don’t live up to American principles. So when we use torture and abuse, we’re playing directly into one of their stated goals. Torture does not save lives. And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool…These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse….literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfYov5o5_2s
2) If there was any doubt that Bush lied about torture consider that on June 26, 2003, GW Bush stated:
Prior to that statement, Bush authorized torture: Abu Zubaydah had already been waterboarded over 80 times in August of 2002 and Kalid Sheik Muhammed was waterboarded some 183 times in March of 2003 and we still don’t know the full extent of their torture program. The sick thing about these particular cases was that Bush was not torturing these individual to “protect America” but were torturing them to elicit a confession of a non-existent Saddam – al Qaeda link. Torture for political gain for the Bush Iraq policy. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html
3) There is NO question that Bush ordered torture which is clearly a war crime. Manfred Nowak, who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said Washington is obligated under the U.N. Convention against Torture to prosecute U.S. Justice Department officials who wrote memos that defined torture in the narrowest way in order to justify and legitimize it, and who assured CIA officials that their use of questionable tactics was legal. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D97OTG5G0&show_article=1
4) The US’s own military inspector Gen. Taguba stated:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/06/retired-gen-tag.html
5) The International Red Cross confirmed Bush Administration torture: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4944094/
6) US torture did not produce intelligence that “saved lives” as Cheney had claimed. According to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations of Abu Zubaida stated: “not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions”
7) If you voted for John McCain, you’ll know that he pointed during his campaign that waterboarding IS torture and that Japanese Officers were hanged for these crimes in WWII.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/29/politics/main3554687.shtml?source=RSSattr=Politics_3554687
8) As many as 100 prisoners have been killed in US custody.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/30/torture_deaths/index.html
These are the facts, here is the proof, read it for your self.
Comment by william on 8/26 @ 4:37 pm #
Sorry, forgot one link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/28/AR2009032802066.html
Comment by geoffb on 8/26 @ 4:46 pm #
Can’t think of a better name for a thread where so many nuts are linked with such elegant HTML.
I prefer the ones in my backyard.
Comment by Abe Froman on 8/26 @ 5:03 pm #
How lucky we are to have a dweeby, balding beta male like William Yelverton to provide us with the wisdom that can only come from having a high school education and three music degrees. You have to wonder how the students and faculty of his fourth-tier institution will react to all the hatefulness he spews here.
Pingback by Daily Right 8/26/09 « The Quantum Conservative on 8/26 @ 5:18 pm #
[...] *Your Daily Dose of Awesome: SQUIRREL!!!! (Stolen from Protean Wisdom) [...]
Comment by JD on 8/26 @ 5:21 pm #
Wee willie wanker is back arguing with the voices in his head. I love how Leftists love to declare things as facts, that are simply their opinion. I wonder if he gets kickbacks for all of his link-whoring to the Barcky/Soros sites?
Comment by sdferr on 8/26 @ 5:44 pm #
I kinda liked Maguire’s take: “Shorter Newsweek – if you ignore the parts of the reports that say that enhanced interrogation was effective you are left unsure as to whether enhanced interrogation was effective.”
Comment by SDN on 8/27 @ 6:06 am #
#50: There’s a reason I call them Copperheads.
Comment by sdferr on 8/27 @ 12:00 pm #
Paul at Powerline quotes the Washington Post:
He then objects:
Ah, but Paul! Look to what Obama himself believes
dummyman!:Comment by Abe Froman on 8/27 @ 4:36 pm #
Haha. William put everyone in their place on this one. Great to see someone rubbing truth in the face of the ignorant. You can’t argue with the truth so what does Abe Froman do? He smears like a good Repugnit and true Bushie. Why is he and everyone so jealous of this guy. Funny as shit! Oh, I see, he has a doctorate … and they don’t. Smear away dumbasses.
You sort of remind me of a mentally disturbed troll named thor who used to infest this place. Most of us don’t even bother reading William Yelverton’s links anymore because he’s repeatedly demonstrated himself to be an imbecile, so “smear” is hardly the word for the mockery he’s subjected to.
Comment by sdferr on 8/27 @ 5:26 pm #
Perhaps in future Abe, we may be wont to ask “How stupid?” and answer “Theas stupid, that’s how stupid.”
(an aside Abe, Theas resembles william as much as anyone if you compare their posting tics. However, I can’t imagine william being as insistent as Theas is that the US make better war in Afghanistan. william strikes me as more of a pacifist sort, except where it comes to those he perceives as his political enemies, Republicans or conservative Americans, then it’s all hands on deck.)
Comment by Abe Froman on 8/27 @ 5:57 pm #
(an aside Abe, Theas resembles william as much as anyone if you compare their posting tics. However, I can’t imagine william being as insistent as Theas is that the US make better war in Afghanistan. william strikes me as more of a pacifist sort, except where it comes to those he perceives as his political enemies, Republicans or conservative Americans, then it’s all hands on deck.)
Yeah I’m sure it isn’t actually thor because the writing isn’t quite bad enough. But I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the possibility that it’s William Yelverton sock puppeting. Theas being hawkish with regard to Afghanistan is classic moonbat disingenuousness.
Comment by sdferr on 8/27 @ 6:04 pm #
If actual sock puppeting this
will instantly thrust it into the list of classics.
Comment by on2u on 9/3 @ 2:46 am #
I love that darn squirrel…its popping up everywhere.