Posted on 04/20/2009 4:10:27 AM PDT by billorites
President Obama made what a spokesman called a "weighty" decision last week. He released a Bush administration memo that lists and precisely describes the harsh interrogation techniques the CIA was allowed to use when questioning al-Qaida suspects. What could he possibly have been thinking?
Although the President signed an executive order halting the use of these methods soon after he took office, he and his CIA director both acknowledged that the administration reserved the right to use them in the future should they be needed. Now, they cannot be used even if this or any future administration finds them necessary.
As former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Friday, Obama's release of detailed descriptions of these interrogation methods "assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them, and can supplement their training accordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques as they have the ones in the Army Field Manual."
For example, one of the techniques, called "walling," is to slam a detainee's shoulder blades against a fake wall designed to make a loud bang "that will make the impact seem far worse than it is and that will be far worse than any injury that will result from the action."
Al-Qaida now knows the wall is fake and that the technique won't harm a prisoner.
The President has rendered useless techniques that, although seldom used, could have come in extremely handy in the future. Sometimes simply threatening to use a particular method can get a prisoner to talk. The President has not only made these methods useless, he has made the threat to use them useless as well.
The President has handed our enemy extremely valuable information that will almost certainly make it harder to extract intelligence from reluctant prisoners in the future. He has, in short, made America less safe.
“Harsh interrogation”. Uh-huh. Why the need for doublespeak?
He and his wife are ashamed to live in this country. I invite them to go live in a middle-eastern country of their choice.
A seven word summation of the Obama presidency.
The biggest thing here is that there was nothing to gain by this release except to bad mouth George Bush, so the fact is that in order to place George Bush in a bad light, Obama has given away secrets that could have been used.
Releasing the documents is BO’s way of attacking the GWB admin without the usage of a Congressional inquiry (will be the first, a presidence that the moderate Dems hesitate because the GOP can use it on them). Once individual’s involved are identified, the EU will prosecute them, openning the door for lawsuits and inability to travel to Europe without the threat of arrest, trial and prison. In other words, these individuals must be prepared to spend lots of money defending themselves as the EU will raise charges in US courts and the state bars where the individuals have law license. In other words, releasing the memos is the indirect way BO can placate the extreme left in his party who are demanding war crimes trials against the GWB admin.
I’m not sure why we don’t have a room set up to look like a scene from Saw or a Tarantino horror film. Walk into room with prisoner....loudly “Whoops” and hustle the guy into a room that looks the same without the mess.
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