How Can CNN Get It Wrong All the Time?

CNN actually tried to be objective and granted, the reporter was put on the spot by the studio tossing it to her but didn't anyone in Atlanta pay attention to the fact that the National Anthem was playing while the busybody was wandering around jabbering?



That's CNN in a microcosm; they try to get it right and fail miserably.

Note the guy they interviewed who agreed with Eric Holder bringing KSM here is the same as in this video by FOX:



Via Gathering of Eagles--NY

Cheney - 1, Obama - 0

The CIA has confirmed that enhanced interrogation techniques--specifically water boarding--led directly to thwarting a plot to slam a plane into a building in LA:

The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.

Before he was water boarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, “Soon, you will know.”

According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack -- which KSM called the “Second Wave”-- planned “ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.”

before the interrogations KSM was mute or cocky, afterward we had the intel that saved perhaps thousands of lives. It wasn't torture but was successful. I think that the majority of Americans can agree with that especially since many fly and many still remember 9/11 like it was yesterday. The can't even begin to imagine the fear that the people trapped on those planes that hit the WTC, Pentagon and the field in PA were experiencing and to make KSM uncomfortable five times as KSM himself said not the absurd 183)to get the info was the cost, I'm sure many would agree it was worth it.

This is a battle Obama doesn't want as Cheney will eviscerate him. When the docs are released that Cheney asked for, Obama will look pretty damn lame and even more amateurish than usual. This has the fingerprints of Rahm Emanuel all over it and he's definitely doing his boss a grave disservice by pushing this line and forcing the release of only the portion of the docs that made the Bush administration look bad.

This make Obama look bad in fact:

Before they were subjected to “enhanced techniques” of interrogation that included waterboarding, KSM and Zubaydah were not only uncooperative but also appeared contemptuous of the will of the American people to defend themselves.

“In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including KSM and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques,” says the Justice Department memo. “Both KSM and Zubaydah had ‘expressed their belief that the general US population was ‘weak,’ lacked resilience, and would be unable to ‘do what was necessary’ to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals.’ Indeed, before the CIA used enhanced techniques in its interrogation of KSM, KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon you will know.’”

More here and here.

On a similar note, Obama is looking like he will allow the prosecution of those who green lighted the water boarding at Gitmo in what will surely be a stunning blow to our intelligence services. The next guy we get with intel that is critical will not be subjected to the enhanced interrogation and Americans will die because we didn't get the info that would have saved them.

Obama has to stop acting on emotion and start acting like a man who has Americas best interests at heart. I'm not holding my breath.

Cheney Ups the Ante on Obama

Dick Cheney is not only smart but he is ruthless and is a shrewd politician. Obama is an amateur and not even remotely in Cheney's league, he should have left well-enough alone but opted to embarrass the Bush administration and neuter our intelligence efforts in one fell swoop by releasing the torture memos that, as I noted earlier, are dubious at best.

Here's Cheney:

“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified.”

“I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven't announced this up until now, I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.”

“And I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions.”

Brilliant. Cheney will effectively show that we didn't water board as much as the NY Times said and we gleamed high-level intel that may have saved lives when we did. Hell, even Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said we only water boarded him five times. The left-wing blogosphere repeats the 183-times idiocy as if it were actually possible but I digress..

Most Americans will look at the carnage avoided and admit to themselves that it was worth it to use a method of interrogation that did not injure and did not have long-term effects. In other words, he may well lay the whole farce that Bush sanctioned torture to rest and all because Obama made an egregious error in releasing the memos he did.