Posted on 05/16/2009 2:27:01 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Barack Obama warned Democrats in Congress against making a partisan cause out of the Bush administration's harsh interrogation tactics.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ignoring him - loudly - and the party, from the president on down, may pay the price.
So far, it's Pelosi who's suffered the greatest harm.
It may never be resolved exactly when she first learned that waterboarding had been used against terror suspects - in 2002 when she was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee or five months later after she became her party's leader.
But the Democrats' claim to the moral high ground on the issue has been blemished by her explanation this week that in early 2003 she shifted her attention to winning political control of the House and didn't wage a protest against what she now calls torture.
She says the CIA and the Bush administration misled her about when the waterboarding, which simulates drowning, began. But Republicans don't have to fight that battle. They only have to keep the focus on her, and they have done that well - as evidenced by her multiple attempts to explain herself.
Americans already know the ending to this movie that's being played backward: Detainees were waterboarded, head-slammed, face-slapped, stripped naked and deprived of sleep. If the public isn't outraged already, will hearings to show who did what in the Bush administration gain converts?
And what of former Vice President Dick Cheney's contentions? He says harsh interrogations yielded information that stopped attacks. If that's shown to be true, people may end up thanking Cheney, although he had a setback Thursday. The CIA denied his request to declassify memos that he says would prove him right.
Before this political saga is finished months from now, both sides will score points and Democrats will have their good days. An internal Justice Department report, soon to be completed, may recommend disciplinary action against one or more of the Bush attorneys who wrote memos concluding the interrogation tactics were legal.
That certainly would be grist for Democrats in future hearings.
But it doesn't eliminate the danger signs.
A Senate hearing this week, the first on the interrogations since Obama's warning last month, broke along party lines within seconds.
Democrats called a witness - former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan - who testified with considerable drama from behind a screen to hide his identity.
He said al-Qaida senior operative Abu Zubaydah clammed up under rough interrogation by CIA contractors. Soufan insisted that Zubaydah gave up valuable information about "dirty bomb" terrorist Jose Padilla when his team used a non-threatening approach to gain his confidence and outwit him.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pointed out that Soufan wasn't present for the rougher tactics and said he didn't know the whole story.
Bush administration documents released by the Justice Department say Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times, and Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, waterboarded 183 times, gave up critical information because of the technique.
Last month, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, told employees in a memo that interrogations that included waterboarding had secured useful intelligence. Blair later issued a public statement that said it was not known whether the same information could have been obtained without harsh techniques - the same position Obama has taken when asked.
An incident at a news conference by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., showed just how nervous the Democrats have become.
Asked whether hearings on the Bush policies would open the door for an inquiry into Pelosi's intelligence briefings, Hoyer responded: "What was said and when it was said, who said it, I think that is probably what ought to be on the record as well."
After the news conference, he and aides called some reporters - who thought he was referring to Pelosi - to assure them the comment only meant the investigations should look at the Bush interrogation policies.
But the biggest sign that the effort could backfire politically came from President Obama.
On April 21, addressing congressional proposals for a bipartisan commission to study the interrogations, the president said: "I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively and it hampers our ability to carry out critical national security operations."
If Obama is right, Democrats could be perceived as harming national security. That would be a major stumble that could give the Republicans an issue in next year's congressional elections.
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EDITOR'S NOTE - Larry Margasak has covered Capitol Hill since 1983.
For a democrat the answer is simple: American soldiers are evil and deserve it, unlike the innocent misunderstood terrorists who should enjoy every protection and support.
Oh no, not “terrorists”, they refer to them as “militants”, “gunmen”, “resistance fighters”, “detainees” and on and on. If we had the modern day press and ACLU during World War II, half of us would be speaking German, and the other half Japanese!!
She’s still on her “Bash Bush” crusade. Someone....please inform her that he is no longer President...AND THAT HE KEPT US SAFE FOR 7 YEARS....(IF BY WATERBOARDING...SO BE IT)
Also how about a root canal, spinal tap, bone marrow transplant...all of which normal every day Americans endure and survive...and pay for. Maybe terrorists are right...they could never survive in western society....they are just too weak.
“...please inform her that he is no longer president...”
The hatred for President Bush motivates the hard-core, left-wing, psychotic base. How could they possibly give it up?
IMHO
Barack Obama warned Democrats in Congress against making a partisan cause out of the Bush administration’s harsh interrogation tactics
Oh come on. Try to at least seem a little honest and non partisan media.
Everything the Obama Administration does is based on partisanship. “We have to do this, because Bush failed at that” and on and on...
Give it a freakin break. Try some honest to goodness actual professional reporting.You may find you like it........
Let it come out that LA was saved from the second wave of 9/11 attacks. Let it come out what was learned about the attack on America and how much was prevented.
Let it all come out and let the eggs drip on the faces of the democrats who fought for the enemies of America.
I love how they say at the beginning how 0bama warned Demonrats not to make it partisan!! This in contrast to his releasing the memos and tactics and saying how he wouldn’t be against going after them for those ‘torture’ practices and everything being ‘Bush’s fault’, on and on and on. Then he’s taken aback by Cheney’s strong criticisms answering to the unrelenting assaults that are right at the issue and make him look like the weakling he is and the harm he is doing to our country. The media are echoing the panic about this issue getting any more play as it makes people a little less ignorant and it is not at all favorable to the jackarses in charge now.
The 'moral high ground' is not using every tactic at our disposal to extract information from senior islamic terrorists that saved thousands of American lives?
“She’s still on her “Bash Bush” crusade. Someone....please inform her that he is no longer President...AND THAT HE KEPT US SAFE FOR 7 YEARS....(IF BY WATERBOARDING...SO BE IT)”
This is all Pelosi and a number of her cohorts are capable of doing so they continually resort to it. They have been very successful in being the opposition and critics over the past 8 years. Their two-bit punk political street hustle got them to where they are today and they show us every day they’re not statemen, just punks.
pelosi couldn’t find her ass with her own two hands.
Bush Vindicated -— AGAIN!
The Dems are trying to make everyone forget about THE WALL by harping on this point. They take responsibility for nothing!!
“The Dems are trying to make everyone forget about THE WALL by harping on this point.”
You’re right. I, too, had temporarily forgotten about that Jamie Gurlick screw-up the enabled 9/11. I wonder how she sleeps at night knowing what she helped cause.
Attorney General Eric Holder admitted under oath in a senate hearing recently that he was aware of the Clinton Administration’s “rendition” program for terrorist detainees when Holder was one of Janet Reno’s deputies. He said he wasn’t specifically privy to what methods foreign powers used on specific terrorists that the U.S. had delivered to them for interrogation. This is another can of worms.
The $26 million she was later paid over six years for helping cook the books at Fannie Mae buys a lot of sleeping pills.
No if about it, it is.
"why do we waterboard thousands of our own troops every year during escape and evasion training"
To train them in resisting torture, of course. Without maiming them for life.
The men who added it to SEAR knew it was torture and added it as torture.
Also, there is world of difference between once by those you know mean you no lasting harm and will soon stop, and 100 times by implacable enemies who never will stop. The duration was about 10 times as long as well.
Everyone defending it should make up their mind whether they think it should be used because it is effective or should be allowed because it isn't torture. Not torture but effective is a round square and a misunderstanding; the entire point is to be so terrifying that is breaks the human will, and that is what torture consists in. If it is effective then it is torture. Pick one please.
In fact all the honest defenders of it acknowledge frankly that it is torture and want to do it anyway because they think it effective. To me it is obvious that principle ends in cutting off innocent men's balls because that too may be effective. No government that gives itself the power to do such things deserves the support of any man with an ounce of morality left.
It is stupid, it is counterproductive, it loses wars. France lost the war in Algeria by using torture. We'd lose this one. We'd also deserve to.
Personally I'd prefer we didn't do it except in the rarest and most necessary of circumstances. And guess what? That was the Bush administration's public policy as well. If we find out differently, and we haven't yet, then we can start equating it with the French in Algeria, whose open policy was torture on a level that makes waterboarding look mild. Until then I'll keep my peace, especially with regard to a monster such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He didn't even bother to use a sharp knife to behead Daniel Pearl.
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