Memos and the Media

The left exists on a mountain of lies, and by the left I mean the main stream media, academia, and the Democratic party. Any reference to the truth is coincidental. The latest example is the "torture memos."

Obama released the memos describing the CIA interrogation techniques. Every CIA director alive has said this disclosure should never have been made. It is of course great for our enemies. They know what to expect and can prepare. Obama first said we must move past this, and no interrogators or advisers to President Bush that gave opinions as to the legality would be investigated. Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff, confirmed it over a week ago, but George Soros and move-on.org wanted blood, so the president reversed himself two days later. Now he appears to have gone back to the first position, but I can't be sure. It really doesn't matter anyway. He is a moving target, too weak to stand up to any constituents, and his position will continue to "evolve".

In either case, the whole thing is a farce. How can an opinion be illegal? Even if the Presidents advisers were wrong (they weren't), should anyone be put in jail for a mistaken opinion? Imus asked Jeffry Toobin of CNN and The New Yorker (I wonder where he comes down on this..jkjk : ) what laws might have been broken. This is not an exact quote, but close. Toobin said..err..ahh..that's a tough one..there...(long pause) might be..ummm..something..err..ahh..to do with..err..ahh..a conspiracy..to umm..deny someone their civil rights. That should be an easy case for the justice department to make. I don't believe this was torture, but no matter what one believes there was no law broken.

The Bush administration did not want any of this information released, arguing it would help our enemies and demoralize our CIA operatives. However, Obama decided to prostrate himself and the country before the world by releasing them, much as he did before King Abdullah. Dick Cheney said that as long as the memos were already out there, we should also release the ones showing the intel we gathered as a result, and the effect of that intel (lives saved and al Qaida leaders captured). The damage had been done by releasing the memos, so now in fairness we should let the public know if the policy worked. Almost in unison the left began to mock him, saying he didn't want them released while in office, but does now, implying inconsistency/ hypocrisy or anything else negative they could imagine. This is nonsense of course, having no relation to the truth, but that is standard for the left.

The fact is that Cheney and 4 out of 5 of the last CIA and FBI directors that weighed in on this said we were successful gathering important information as a result of torture, or enhanced interrogation (take your pick). The problem the left has is that during the presidential campaign when this came up, they claimed "torture" doesn't work anyway. They acted as if it was "proved" (like global warming is "proved"- part of the "everyone knows" big lie technique). But like may of their fictions, no such thing has been "proved," and in this case the preponderance of evidence tends to prove the opposite.

The Republican and Democratic leadership, and the entire intelligence committees in both houses, Nancy Pelosi included, were informed of the opinions supporting the legality of water-boarding etc., and were regularly briefed over a couple of year span (the leadership in greater detail than the committee members). The Democrats now laughably admit they were told, but never thought it would be used. Most likely they were told it was being used (Republicans in the meetings claim the Democrats were 100% on board), but even if they did not know, could they possibly have believed that the executive branch briefed them with no intention of using it? This is the same as those Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq claiming later they never thought Bush would use it. Of course they never made that silly argument when we first invaded Iraq and the war was polling well, but disclosed this well kept secret only after the war became unpopular.

A couple of days ago on the Imus show John Kerry was asked if he knew about the water boarding at the time it occurred (he was neither in leadership nor on the intel committee). Listen to the answer of a scoundrel. I was not on the intelligence committee. I was shocked..I mean they did it 180 times. He wants you to believe he did not know, and at the same time condemn Bush for authorizing it. Based on those carefully chosen words I suspect he is lying but wants an escape hatch if it later comes out that he did know. He could then claim he never said he didn't know, but that he was shocked when he found out how many times it was used.

Have you hear the "we are better than that" argument against torture? Those making it are either deluding themselves, or lying. If your family could be saved, or better yet, if you could increase the likelihood of saving your family 10% by water boarding some fanatic, would you authorize it? So would everyone else on the planet.

The army general in charge of Abu Ghraib prison who was demoted and told to retire because the torture there happened on her watch, said these memos somehow vindicated her claim that what happened was authorized by the CIA. A bipartisan commission concluded otherwise, and I believe properly determined that what went on was the sadistic acts of a few guards acting alone. Nothing in these memos contradicts it.

The ACLU is now trying to get the photographs of the water boarding released under the Freedom of Information Act. Obama can withhold them based on a national security exception (as these memos under Bush were withheld), but I fear he will not (although he will make the claim it was court ordered, not mentioning his right to argue for the exception). He and the ACLU somehow are intent on embarrassing the US, and fanning the fires of hatred towards us (at least among terrorists and those that hate us already).

All the while our own citizenry is being told by the MSM how Bush administration people acted illegally, and your safety after 9/11 would have been the same without water boarding, wiretaps, or wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our great democracy would improve immeasurably if only we got a little more honest news, and opinions/ conclusions were left to the citizenry.