Interesting Conundrum facing Obama & DC Dems

[Kramer]

Truth vs Ideology

Frustrating! That's the appropriate word for what is happening in the wake of the Osama bin Laden raid. Besides the precision of the Navy SEALs, the big story to emerge from the action is that coerced interrogation gave the CIA vital information used to track bin Laden to his lair. Current CIA Chief Leon Panetta has confirmed that.

Of course, that exposition is embarrassing to the left, including President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Clinton, who are all on record as saying coerced interrogation does not work. Apparently, they were wrong in a big way.

The nails-on-the-blackboard part of this story is that some liberal pundits are trying to deny the undeniable. The spin they are using is that a "mosaic" of intelligence led the CIA to bin Laden. It was not just waterboarding or whatever. To paraphrase Panetta: We'll never know if we could have gotten the same intel without the water.

That's true, but who cares? It is the duty of the federal government to protect Americans from harm. And that's what the Bush administration did when it signed off on coercive questioning.

The record shows that just three men were waterboarded:
Khalid Sheik Mohammed,
Abu Zubaydah,
Rahim al-Nashiri,
all al-Qaida big shots.
Under duress, KSM gave up vital information that crippled his terror group and ultimately led U.S. authorities to watch bin Laden's top Pakistani courier. Eventually, that man led the CIA to the compound outside Islamabad.

But still, the far left won't budge. No matter what the facts are about the effectiveness of coerced interrogation, they will deny them. Infuriating.

The sane policy going forward is this: The president and only the president should have the power to order coerced interrogation, including waterboarding, if national security is endangered or American lives are on the line. One man makes the decision, and his orders are carried out by an elite intelligence team answerable directly to him.

So if Obama doesn't want to order waterboarding, fine. That's on him. But the elected leader of the nation should have the power to make the decision.

It is ironic that many on the far left openly celebrated the death of bin Laden. So, guys, let me get this straight: It's OK for U.S. forces to shoot a terrorist in the head, but it's not OK to waterboard him if lives are in danger? Good grief.

It is long past time for Americans to reject ideology that endangers human beings. We live in a dangerous world chock full of doomsday weapons. Common sense should dictate how the federal government defines strategies to protect us. How many times have you heard ideologues say that coerced interrogation does not work?

Well, it does. Ask bin Laden. Wait, we can't.

One would only have to watch the series 24 (Jack Bauer) to know the coerced interrogation works.

[sirs]

Deflection alert!!  See previous post   

[Xavier_Onassis]

Surely a fictional TV series is the authoritative source of all knowledge.

Just ask Mr Ed.

[sirs]

Deflection effort #2!!  Can we expect a strike 3 with the next response?  Time will tell

[Xavier_Onassis]

Up your deflection, you dolt!

[sirs]

And there it was....strike III     

[Xavier_Onassis]

I have never understood what the Hell you mean by deflection, other than it is a way you have of telling the world that you are a smartass.

[sirs]

Deflection as used in debate forums like this.....pretty much posting an opinion or POV that has nothing to do with the thread or point being made.  The show 24 is fiction.  Jack Bauer is fiction.  and, IIRC, Jack Bauer never performed waterboarding.  None of which has anything to do with waterboarding or the acts taken by this and the previous adminstration in recovering vital information to this nation's security, and led directly to the death of the real-life terrorist (read, not Hollywood) behind 911

In other words, the use of Bauer was a complete punt (deflection effort) on your part, to the points being made originally by myself, and subsequent points made, by the likes of O'Reily.  You had no serious or substantive rebuttal, so you deflected with the show 24 and Jack Bauer

[sirs]

[Plane]

     I watched Hoss Cartright dunk a sailor in the bay to improve the guys memory of kidnapping his Pa.

   I think what we can learn from fiction is how accepting the public is of abusive questioning.

    "NYPD Blue" featured a "ticking time bomb " scenario in which Sipowitz beat the truth out of the mad bomberand ticking time bomb seems to be the plot of "24" every time.

        I am glad that just about everyone is listening to the national discussion on this subject because we need to resolve this reasonably. I hope we don't overshoot the goals and write laws that hamstring authoritys who are really faceing a ticking time bomb nor do I want to develop an American version of the Gestapo that gives a beating to every moonshiner and jaywalker.

[sirs]

I like O'Reily's plan....the President, and the President alone, should have the only authority in authorizing techniques, such as waterboarding.  If a President, like Obama chooses not to, for any reason, that's their call. 

But don't hamstring the safety of his nation, based on an ideological chip regarding such techniques, with legislation preventing subsequent administrations from making that tough call

[Xavier_Onassis]

In each and every show in which there is a ticking time bomb, the maker of the bomb always courteously provides a handy decreasing  LED counter so we can appreciate how very little time Jack Bauer or whoever has left to go before the bomb goes "BOOM!". This seems like a useless expense for the bombmaker. Having the counter count in rising numbers would be more useful, if there were a counter at all, since telling the victims how little time they have left rather spoils the purpose of terrifying the victims. Everyone is always more terrified of the unknown. It is like the evil villain who has to describe his nefarious plan to James Bond before killing him: why bother? An informed and deceased James Bond no more useful to the baddies than an ignorant one.

I did not bring up Jack Stupid Bauer.

[Plane]

I like O'Reily's plan....the President, and the President alone, should have the only authority in authorizing techniques, such as waterboarding.  If a President, like Obama chooses not to, for any reason, that's their call. 

But don't hamstring the safety of his nation, based on an ideological chip regarding such techniques, with legislation preventing subsequent administrations from making that tough call

It requires a presidential order each time?

That would make it a seldom thing wouldn't it?

When have you made it so seldom that it becomes useless?

[sirs]

Not at all

[sirs]

Obama Values: Kill But Don't Waterboard

At the end of his "60 Minutes" interview, President Obama said of Osama bin Laden's death, "Justice was done. And I think that anyone who would question that the perpetrator of mass murder on American soil didn't deserve what he got needs to have their head examined."

The longer he serves in office, the more Obama sounds like George W. Bush.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd also has started to sound like Bush. In her Sunday column, "Killing Evil Doesn't Make Us Evil," Dowd writes that when Navy SEALs shot and killed bin Laden, it seemed like "the only civilized and morally sound response."

To review: Obama and Dowd long have claimed that it was morally reprehensible for U.S. intelligence operatives to waterboard 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Candidate Obama said that waterboarding was "never acceptable" because it contradicts our values. Obama even dished his now-Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, for having said in 2006 that she would authorize brutal interrogation measures to prevent a terrorist attack.

Apparently, it is consistent with Obama's and Dowd's values to shoot and kill an unarmed bin Laden -- as long as you don't waterboard him to learn possible intelligence that might prevent a terrorist attack first.

It's amazing how partisan politics can make the medicine go down.

Don't get me wrong. I support the president's decision to order the mission that resulted in bin Laden's much-deserved death. Besides, going through the logistics necessary to apprehend bin Laden might have jeopardized a Navy SEAL's neck -- and that's a price too rich.

In this alternate political universe, the Bushies are reduced to making the now-abandoned liberal arguments.

UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who wrote memos authorizing waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques when he worked in the Bush Justice Department, penned a piece last week in The Wall Street Journal that criticized Obama for not trying to take bin Laden alive. Yoo wrote that Obama "would rather kill (al-Qaida) leaders -- whether by drones or special ops teams -- than wade through the difficult questions raised by their detention." Yoo argued that Obama squandered a valuable intelligence opportunity.

Of course, Yoo knows that under Obama's terms, U.S. officials likely would not learn much from a captured bin Laden. The late al-Qaida founder knows that intelligence officials can't threaten him or try to strong-arm him; they can only read him his Miranda rights.

Any operatives tempted to assert themselves need only think about the fate of their predecessors: harsh litigation techniques.

In August 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder reopened criminal investigations into CIA interrogations -- four years after the Department of Justice, which had investigated instances of possible abuse, chose not to prosecute most cases. (The probe had resulted in a successful prosecution and disciplinary actions against some individuals.)

After the White House announced that bin Laden was dead, National Security Adviser John Brennan saluted Obama for one of the "gutsiest" political moves ever. On "60 Minutes," Obama said he could not praise intelligence officials enough.

If the president wants to be truly gutsy, he should tell Holder to take his heavy-handed re-investigation and shove it.