Andy McCarthy Gets My Blood Boiling (UPDATED)

In non-summit related news, Andy McCarthy knows how to get my blood pressure up, and not in a good way. While everyone was busy watching the summit or wondering if Charlie Crist is really going to run as an independent, McCarthy reports on the next chapter of Obama's war on the CIA.

This is typical Obama fashion: distract you with one issue then sneak another in the back door while you aren't looking.

From McCarthy:

While the country and the Congress have their eyes on today’s dog-and-pony show on socialized medicine, House Democrats last night stashed a new provision in the intelligence bill which is to be voted on today. It is an attack on the CIA: the enactment of a criminal statute that would ban “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” (See here, scroll to p. 32.)

The provision is impossibly vague — who knows what “degrading” means? Proponents will say that they have itemized conduct that would trigger the statute (I’ll get to that in a second), but it is not true. The proposal says the conduct reached by the statute “includes but is not limited to” the itemized conduct. (My italics.) That means any interrogation tactic that a prosecutor subjectively believes is “degrading” (e.g., subjecting a Muslim detainee to interrogation by a female CIA officer) could be the basis for indicting a CIA interrogator.

McCarthy suggests that the Democrats waited until after the "politicized witch-hunt against John Yoo and Jay Bybee" concluded because to admit that waterboarding and other tactics were not illegal before would damage that "investigation." We had to "pretend" they were illegal before, but now that the investigation is over, we have to make it offically illegal.

So what does this provision make illegal, exactly? This:

Waterboarding is not all. The Democrats’ bill would prohibit — with a penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment — the following tactics, among others:

- “Exploiting the phobias of the individual”

- Stress positions and the threatened use of force to maintain stress positions

- “Depriving the individual of necessary food, water, sleep, or medical care”

- Forced nudity

- Using military working dogs (i.e., any use of them — not having them attack or menace the individual; just the mere presence of the dog if it might unnerve the detainee and, of course, “exploit his phobias”)

- Coercing the individual to blaspheme or violate his religious beliefs (I wonder if Democrats understand the breadth of seemingly innocuous matters that jihadists take to be violations of their religious beliefs)

- Exposure to “excessive” cold, heat or “cramped confinement” (excessive and cramped are not defined)

- “Prolonged isolation”

- “Placing hoods or sacks over the head of the individual”

Naturally, all of these tactics are interspersed with such acts as forcing the performance of sexual acts, beatings, electric shock, burns, inducing hypothermia or heat injury — as if all these acts were functionally equivalent.

Seriously? You can't "exploit the phobias of the individual"? What if KSM has a phobia of confined spaces? Or of people in uniform?

Prolonged isolation? How long is "prolonged" exactly?

McCarthy concludes with:

Here is the fact: Democrats are saying they would prefer to see tens of thousands of Americans die than to see a KSM subjected to sleep-deprivation or to have his “phobias exploited.” I doubt that this reflects the values of most Americans.

Amen to that.

Update: Thankfully, the bill has now been pulled:

A controversial bill that would have levied criminal punishments on intelligence officers for harsh interrogations was pulled Thursday evening.

House Republicans charged Democrats with trying to sneak a provision into the intelligence authorization bill that would establish criminal punishment for CIA agents and other intelligence officials who engage in “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” during interrogations...

...

Republicans criticized the language and the way it was introduced.

“This will fundamentally change the nature of the intelligence community by creating a criminal statute governing interrogations,” said Rep. Pete Hoesktra (R-Mich.).

He added that it had appeared “out of nowhere” in a manager’s amendment.

“Would someone on the other side please explain the rationale behind this and why the majority was unwilling to have hearings on this issue?" he said.

On Thursday night, Hoekstra lauded the GOP effort against the bill.

"Republicans brought this to the attention of the American people, who were rightly outraged that Democrats would try to target those we ask to serve in harm’s way and with a unified push we were successful in getting them to pull the bill," Hoekstra said in a statement. "The annual intelligence bill should be about protecting and defending our nation, not targeting those we ask to do that deed and giving greater protections to terrorists."

Update: This is now a growing thread at Memeorandum.

On Interrogation and Middle Ground

Marc Thiessen, author of Courting Disaster, makes a good argument in his piece in the Washington Post yesterday for finding some middle ground in the interrogation debate. Coming on the heels of reports that new al Qaeda capture Mullah Baradar may not be cooperating under interrogation by the Pakistanis as much as we had hoped, Thiessen reports that the CIA has requested Barader be transferred to US custody.

At one time that suggestion may have put substantial fear into Barader, but no more. Once Obama revealed our interrogation secrets to the enemy, there is no fear of the unknown with which to bargain.

Thiessen points out:

To be clear, Obama did not end waterboarding; it was no longer part of the formal CIA interrogation program he inherited from the Bush administration. Indeed, former CIA Director Mike Hayden says he told Obama's national security transition team, "All those things you think you need to do [on interrogation]? We already did them."

Yet Obama issued his executive order eliminating "effective interrogation techniques that no one could argue were torture: the facial hold, attention grasp, tummy slap, facial slap, a diet of liquid Ensure and mild sleep deprivation (a maximum of four consecutive days)."

His executive order demands strict adherence to The Army Field Manual thereby guaranteeing that any trained terrorist knows exactly the limits and tactics of his interrogators.

Why in the world would Barader cooperate? What's in it for him? He knows he has nothing to fear. All he has to do is sit back and wait for his attorney to come. And should Barader be transferred to US custody the attorneys will be lining up at the doors.

There is even some speculation that Barader is being treated with kid gloves by the Pakistanis. Dana Perino and Bill Burck speculated on this yesterday:

Further, the interrogation of Baradar may not be working. According to the LA Times, which based its account on sources in the Obama administration, the “joint” interrogation of Baradar by Pakistan intelligence and the CIA has not provided information that could lead to the capture of other Taliban leaders or “inform the planning of U.S. military operations.” Maybe this is because, as some have suggested, instead of breaking out the medieval torture devices, the Pakistanis are treating Baradar with kid gloves. Perhaps the Pakistanis have no real interest in gathering intelligence from Baradar. They want to use him as a bargaining chip to enhance their advantage in any post-war settlement, as we have discussed.

So what to do? Theissen suggests returning to some middle ground with regard to interrogation, a move possibly as simple as inserting "unless otherwise authorized by the president" in the original executive order which would at least serve to leave some mystery as to what detainees might expect under interrogation.

This is unlikely to happen, nor is any attempt by this administration to toughen our interrogation tactics. This administration has already proven itself more interested in seeking good will than in seeking good intelligence. It is much more important to Obama that we appear favorably in the eyes of the world as a passive nation that does not "torture" than to be a proactive nation with tough national security.

Related Posts:
Torture Memo Release - Big Mistake
Another Word on the Torture Memos

Do You Feel Safer Now?

While the report from top intelligence officials that a new terrorist attack is imminent is frightening, I don't think it's surprising.

From Day One this administration has seemingly gone out of its way to portray this country as soft on terror, beginning with the Executive Order to close Gitmo. And no, I'm not buying that bunk that Gitmo is a "recruiting tool." Even if the specter of Gitmo is invoked by anyone recruiting for al-Qaeda, they really don't need Gitmo to recruit extremists who hate us.

What does sort of surprise me, and I guess it shouldn't, is that Janet Napolitano didn't even attend the House Homeland Security Committee hearing last week to clarify the actions of her department regarding the Christmas Day bomber. Instead she sent a stand-in while she was in her office "consulting with members of an unspecified think-tank."

Didn't she think it was important to be there? Not to cast stones at her stand-in, who I am sure was probably adequate, or at least as adequate as Napolitano, but it sends a message that she just doesn't think it's important.

Maybe she'll pay more attention to this prediction by top intelligence officials:

The nation’s top intelligence officials warned Congress on Tuesday that terrorists are “certain” to attempt another attack on the U.S. within the coming months...It was echoed by Blair, FBI Director Robert Mueller, acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research John Dinger, and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, Jr.

As I said before, not surprising. What really scares me, though, is who is in charge. The entire National Security front leaves me feeling a little insecure.

Is The Bus Warming Up for Holder?

Is the bus coming for Eric Holder? I can't imagine the pressure he must be feeling these days. One botched move after another and he continues to make his boss look bad, who, truth be told, doesn't really need any help.

Today on Fox News Sunday, Senator Lamar Alexander suggested it might be time for Holder to step down:

"Perhaps he should step down," Alexander said on Sunday morning.

"(Holder's) doing a better job of interrogating CIA employees than he is of interrogating terrorists, and he's not making a distinction between enemy combatants and terrorists flying into Detroit trying to blow up planes and American citizens who are committing a crime. He needs to go to Congress and say I made that decision, and here's why. And based on that perhaps he should step down," Alexander explained.

The list of grievances against Holder continues to grow. He's had a deplorable record thus far and his boss just can't be happy. It was clear things weren't going to go well back in September when he dismissed the default judgment in the Black Panther case.

Even before that, in August, Holder announced his investigation into an already investigated CIA regarding interrogations and don't forget the controversial release of the torture memos in April.

No, Holder has made lots of damaging decisions in his first year as AG.

Then came the decision to hold a civilian trial, in New York City!, for KSM which has now been almost unanimously beat down by the New York delegation and the American people. Dana Perino and Bill Burck have an interesting look at how Holder can save face on that call.

And on top of all that, the Abdulmutallab interrogation, or should I say, interview. He wasn't really interrogated. I mean, fifty minutes? Really?

And after fifty minutes he is charged as a common criminal rather than an enemy combatant and turned over to the military who could obtain fresh, actionable intelligence from him.

Jennifer Rubin points to this comment from Robert Gibbs this morning:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined several opportunities on Sunday to say whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be tried in a federal or military court. “He will be brought to justice, and he will likely be executed for the heinous crimes he has committed,” Gibbs said on CNN's "State of the Union." “That you can be sure of.” But he dodged repeated questions by CNN host John King about whether the administration might shift the venue back from federal court in New York to a military court, finally saying that “The attorney general believes the best place to try him is in an American courtroom,” but not committing to that option.

"The attorney general believes..." As Rubin says, not exactly "the buck stops here" meme. It's all Holder's fault. The bus is warming up.

Obama has given folks their walking papers for a lot less.

As the 2010 elections creep closer, many are watching to see if Obama will creep to the center just a bit. I don't believe he will. But stranger things have happened. At any rate, rest assured that national security will be a key issue in the campaigns to come and Holder is a weak link on that front.

I, for one, don't believe any of Holder's decisions regarding KSM or the CIA issues were made unilaterally; I believe something so critical simply had to be made with Obama's input, or Rahm's, at the very least.

This back peddling on the KSM trial has got to make Obama testy, and even worse, if it ends up in Gitmo as a military tribunal, as it should have been in the first place, he's going to be in a tight spot.

My prediction? Obama will throw Holder under the bus, ramp up the Gitmo-tribunal option, and say it was all done in the interest of national security. He'll speak well of Holder, maybe even move him to some other diplomatic position, and act like he's only looking out for you.

I can smell the diesel fuel now.

(More at Memeorandum)

There's Nobody Home

Erick Erickson has an interesting post at Red State you should check out regarding Obama's statement about the attack on the CIA in Afghanistan:

People tell me the President’s rush to acknowledge the attack on the CIA in Afghanistan and mourn the deaths openly, publicly, and via press release is a huge no no. The CIA and greater intelligence community would prefer not to have the attention put on them. Additionally, because the President took the time to draft a blanket statement focused on the CIA in general instead of individually and more privately focusing on the families of the victims, it acknowledges the CIA’s work in Afghanistan, acknowledges that the attack has an impact on the CIA, and gives the terrorists a new recruiting tool — “you too can cause America to publicly mourn the loss of their spies.”

To you and me this may not seem like a big deal. But I’m told this is hugely significant and shows just how out of touch the Obama administration is with the intelligence community. I’m told that no other President has issued such blanket statements of public mourning directed toward an attack on the CIA and thereby having the White House itself confirming an attack on our intelligence community.

Read the whole thing.

One amateurish blunder after another from this White House is simply incredible. Even the picture on the White House home page seems to be broadcasting the message: There is nobody home.

The Cheneys Speak Out on the Holder CIA Witchhunt

The Cheneys were out in force on the talk shows this morning. Liz was with George Stephanopoulos and her father was on Fox News Sunday.

I thought Dick Cheney's interview was interesting. Chris Wallace probed the former Vice President on the release of the IG report on the CIA this week and about the appointment of a special prosecutor.

I have to agree with Cheney on a couple of points. The most obvious thing to me seems to be the fact that it is odd that we are expected to believe that Eric Holder is running with this investigation all on his own. Cheney points out that "The president is the chief law enforcement officer in the administration" and he is ultimately responsible. That led, a moment later, to this exchange:

[Wallace]: A top Obama official says, “Hey, maybe in the Bush White House they told the attorney general what to do, but Eric Holder makes independent decisions.”

CHENEY: Well, I think if you look at the Constitution, the president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer in the land. The attorney general’s a statutory officer. He’s a member of the cabinet.

The president’s the one who bears this responsibility, and for him to say, “Gee, I didn’t have anything to do with it,” especially after he sat in the Oval Office and said this wouldn’t happen, then Holder decides he’s going to do it, so now he’s backed off and is claiming he’s not responsible, I just -- I think he’s trying to duck the responsibility for what’s going on here, and I think it’s -- I think it’s wrong.

I have to agree with that. The Buck Stops Here. Eric Holder was not elected to office by the American people; his boss was. He bears the responsibility.

That said, one must look back at the next point which is that if the buck DOES stop with Obama, and he IS ultimately responsible for what happens and for what Holder does, the fact remains that Obama is back-tracking on what he said back in April. In April he said "there wouldn’t be any investigation like this, that there would not be any look-back at CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the prior administration."

On February 9, Obama said, "If there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen, but generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backward."

The Washington Post has a report this morning that morale at the CIA is low: "Morale has sagged at the CIA following the release of additional portions of an inspector general's review of the agency's interrogation program and the announcement that the Justice Department would investigate possible abuses by interrogators, according to former intelligence officials, especially those associated with the program. "

Well why wouldn't it?

The IG report was reviewed five years ago and put to rest. As Cheney points out, what this really means is that there will never be any end to the review process. Despite what Nancy Pelosi says, Congress was briefed. Everything, now matter how distasteful the intelligence business may be, and it is, was carried out properly. American lives were saved. Holder's move to reopen this all again is simply a political move rather than a letter-of-the-law move and a thinly veiled one at that.

But here we are. An investigation.

On This Week with George Stephanopoulous, the roundtable included Liz Cheney and George Will, among others. Will pointed out that Team Obama wants it to appear as if Obama is a disinterested bystander in this investigation and that simply is not the case.

Liz Cheney pointed out, of course, that this investigation has already been done by career prosecutors and they decided not to prosecute except for one case which has been handled; the offender is in jail.

Jennifer Rubin, writing for The Weekly Standard, makes clear the prosecutors findings five years ago: "Those reasons were summed up in a letter from Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney General Brian Benczkowski to Senator Richard Durbin dated February 7, 2008. In each case, Benczkowski wrote, the decision rested on "one or more of the following reasons: insufficient evidence of criminal conduct, insufficient evidence of the subject's involvement, insufficient evidence of criminal intent, and low probability of conviction. The federal prosecutors involved in reviewing alleged CIA misconduct were seasoned professionals who would not have hesitated to go public if political appointees had influenced their decision-making, according to multiple former Justice attorneys."

Holder has no new evidence to support reopening the investigation. He simply has a newly declassified report. There is no new information in there to be gleaned by a new prosecution. Only new public perception. He's making a political decision to reopen the investigation, to drag individuals through such an investigation with a very low chance at conviction, for what end?

Sam Donaldson, also speaking at the roundtable, seems to believe that since the IG report was reviewed under the Bush administration it is invalid; that the career prosecutors who did the investigaton were less than objective in their review simply because they were under the Bush administration. This would support Dick Cheney's fear that investigations and reviews would never end. They could be rehashed under each administration ad nauseum.

No wonder CIA morale is low. A.B. Krongard, a CIA official at the time of the interrogations, said "agency personnel now may back away from controversial programs that could place them in personal legal jeopardy should their work be exposed."

Do we feel safer now?

(More at Memeorandum)

Eric Holder and the CIA

Eric Holder and Barack Obama need to get on the same page. Obama is on record as saying he doesn't want to look backward - he want's to move forward. Eric Holder didn't get that memo.

We have word today from The Washington Post that Holder is reopening already investigated cases regarding CIA interrogations. The Washington Post reports that Holder is prepared to appoint John Durham from Justice to investigate nearly a dozen cases of supposed violation of anti-torture laws. These cases were already reviewed during the Bush administration and only one was recommended to the grand jury. What else could this be now but political shenanigans?

In addition to this news we also learn that the Obama administration is releasing a 2004 report by the then-CIA-Inspector-General John Helgerson which looked at such things as waterboarding and other interrogation techniques. The story is that that a federal judge required the release of the report based on a lawsuit by the ACLU. Of course, we know that the administration could get around this in the name of national security should they so choose. They don't.

NRO's The Corner has highlighted some key passages from the 2004 report, among them

Pt. 17:

The Agency’s detention and interrogation of terrorists has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world. The CTC Program has resulted in the issuance of thousands of individual intelligence reports and analytic products supporting the counterterrorism efforts of U.S. policymakers and military commanders.

There's much more here, some of which, of course, puts the interrogators in a negative light and would serve as much as ammunition for those bound to attack us as release of the torture photographs would. Why choose to further arm our enemies?

Kathryn Jean Lopez has a statement from Rep. Pete Hoesktra, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee:

"At the same time the situation in Afghanistan is getting decidedly worse and the Taliban is advancing, the Obama Justice Department is launching an investigation that risks disrupting CIA counterterrorism initiatives. This is the last thing that should happen when the president is sending more troops into harm’s way, and the nation’s top military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said over the weekend that al-Qaeda still remains a threat to America and our interests abroad.

"Attorney General Holder should know that as he increases the focus on America’s past counterterrorism efforts, he is distracting from the CIA’s current counterterrorism efforts. Having recently been forced to drop cases due to prosecutorial misconduct at DOJ, the attorney general argued that these were rare instances and not part of a broader problem. The same can be said of the CIA, where the agency initiated the investigation, reported cases of misconduct and disciplined the officers involved.

"It is important to note that incidences of inappropriate, unauthorized conduct cited in the 2004 IG report were dealt with. The unauthorized conduct has been exhaustively reviewed in the past, including by the committee. That the Obama administration apparently is planning to reopen these cases after thorough review by nonpartisan prosecutors raises serious questions.

"President Obama has said repeatedly that he wants to move forward, but his Justice Department seems intractably stuck in reverse. The message from the administration is completely confused, and the men and women at the CIA who we ask to protect our nation have been left in the lurch.

"The attorney general needs to stop his zealous attempt to make this out to be a systemic problem, when unlike cases such as the 2001 Peru shoot down, the CIA IG did not find evidence that there was a systemic problem. Disgruntled lawyers at DOJ, having lost the debate that America’s counterterrorism efforts should be focused on prevention not prosecution, need to put an end to this bureaucratic turf battle.

"The American people have made it clear, they want the CIA to focus on exactly what its mission should be—disrupting and defeating our nation’s enemies and preventing the next attack."

So you have to wonder what this is all about? Is it a distraction meant to keep us from thinking about ObamaCare? If it is, it could prove very costly to our national security. Why does Team Obama seem so intent on waging war against the CIA?

Some on the left, not all, but some, get all wrapped up in this terrorists-have-rights-too attitude that they are willing to sacrifice our own national security and American lives so that terrorists are treated better than Americans. I just don't get it. It goes back to my position that terrorists have no rights under our Constitution even though the left seems bent on providing them.

Call me cold-hearted but I don't think Khalid Sheikh Mohammed deserves the same Constitutional protections as American citizens.

All Holder is doing here is putting Americans at risk and crippling the CIA. Or is that what they intend to do?

There's tons more at Memeorandum; check it out.

Update: The Weekly Standard has reaction from Lieberman and McConnell.

Outing CIA Agents

Scroll down for UPDATES

ABC News tonight had a story on Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, the two psychologists who helped design the CIA waterboarding program.

It seems that with the release of the torture memos there is now a new focus on these two. ABC lurked outside their office, then followed them around with cameras but both declined comment, citing confidentiality agreements with the CIA.

So what was the focus of the story? I'm still trying to figure it out. But here's a quote that helps:

"It's clear that these psychologists had an important role in developing what became the CIA's torture program," said Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Does Jaffer think that somebody should take legal action here? Is he going to try to hold them responsible for doing a job they were hired as private contractors to do? Here's more:

"But it turns out neither Mitchell nor Jessen had any experience in conducting actual interrogations before the CIA hired them.

"'They went to two individuals who had no interrogation experience,' said Col. Kleinman. 'They are not interrogators.' The new documents show the CIA later came to learn that the two psychologists' waterboarding 'expertise' was probably 'misrepresented' and thus, there was no reason to believe it was 'medically safe' or effective."

They "misrepresented" their expertise? Is THAT the point of the story?

Then, finally, there's this:

"A federal judge in New York is currently considering whether or not to make public the written logs of the interrogation sessions.

"The tapes were destroyed by the CIA, but the written logs still exist, although the CIA is fighting their release. "

I'm not surprised the CIA is fighting their release; I think we've given out enough information already.

Vanity Fair did a hit piece on Mitchell and Jessen in June 2007:

"Two psychologists in particular played a central role: James Elmer Mitchell, who was attached to the C.I.A. team that eventually arrived in Thailand, and his colleague Bruce Jessen. Neither served on the task force or are A.P.A. members. Both worked in a classified military training program known as sere—for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape—which trains soldiers to endure captivity in enemy hands. Mitchell and Jessen reverse-engineered the tactics inflicted on sere trainees for use on detainees in the global war on terror, according to psychologists and others with direct knowledge of their activities. The C.I.A. put them in charge of training interrogators in the brutal techniques, including 'waterboarding,' at its network of 'black sites.' In a statement, Mitchell and Jessen said, "'We are proud of the work we have done for our country.'"

The whole thing has rather a witch hunt feel to it and in a way reminds me of the outing of Valerie Plame. While these guys weren't necessarily agents or spies, they were attached to the CIA and worked an extremely sensitive operation. We might as well paint a target on their backs in case anybody wants to get revenge. ABC News splashed their faces all over the news and on their website.

I'm not sure what would be gained at this point by dragging them further into the spotlight. The release of the torture memos was bad enough without continuing to dump more information into the hands of our enemies.

Update: Allahpundit has now put this up on Hot Air:

This one's a closer call than when the Times outed KSM's chief interrogator against Michael Hayden’s wishes. That was really a story about America’s counterterror apparatus after 9/11; the interrogator was a minor character, which made the outing gratuitous. ABC’s piece is about how these two guys masterminded the CIA’s program — while allegedly not really knowing what they were doing. Can you break a story like that, affecting national policy on a subject of public interest, without saying specifically who you’re talking about?

Memeorandum has other blog links on this as well.

From Weekly Standard:
"ABC's conduct here, exposing two men who will now become obvious targets for terrorists and left-wing extremists, is deplorable. Will the Obama administration investigate who leaked their identities? Or is it now open-season on Americans who were only doing what their government asked of them in order to protect their country from attack?"

Related:
Torture Memo Release = Big Mistake

Porter Goss Speaks Out

Be sure to read Porter Goss in the Washington Post today:

"Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

-- We understood what the CIA was doing.

-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately -- to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser -- and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have."

Nancy Pelosi is lying when she says she didn't know. She knew. We knew she knew when she said she didn't know. She's a buffoon. (She's the same buffoon that Obama left in charge of the Porkulus bill.)

Goss is absolutely correct in pointing out the long term detrimental consequences of this mess. We will pay. Obama may have scored some political points with his base, but the payback will be hell. Too doomsday for you? Just go back to those days right after 9/11, when the smoke was still in the air, and all those people were asking how we did not know something like this was coming. All the blame that was placed for not being informed. Goss again:

"The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.

Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to non-state actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost. "

Another Word on the Torture Memos

Since Obama released the torture memos last week there has been a lot of Monday Morning Quarterbacking and analysis of it all and I doubt my own two cents will matter much in the whole scheme of things.

We've all digressed into the merits of torture and whether or not it works, and what may or may not have been gained or lost by the release of the memos. We've even argued about whether or not it's "torture" or "extreme interrogation." I posted my opinion that I thought releasing the memos was a big mistake, and I'm probably repeating some of that here.

I've spent much of my time today reading opinions of the whole thing and on the issue of torture in general. Memeorandum has been filled with articles and postings on this topic.

What I want to do, for the moment, is to focus on the issue of the future rather than the act of torture. To me, what the release of these memos does is to absolutely cripple and handicap our military and the CIA from doing their jobs. And what do you think the result of that will be?

David Ignatius at the Washington Post wrote:

"One veteran counterterrorism operative says that agents in the field are already being more careful about using the legal findings that authorize covert action. An example is the so-called "risk of capture" interview that takes place in the first hour after a terrorism suspect is grabbed. This used to be the key window of opportunity, in which the subject was questioned aggressively and his cellphone contacts and "pocket litter" were exploited quickly.

"Now, field officers are more careful. They want guidance from headquarters. They need legal advice. I'm told that in the case of an al-Qaeda suspect seized in Iraq several weeks ago, the CIA didn't even try to interrogate him. The agency handed him over to the U.S. military.

"Agency officials also worry about the effect on foreign intelligence services that share secrets with the United States in a process politely known as "liaison." A former official who remains in close touch with key Arab allies such as Egypt and Jordan warns: 'There is a growing concern that the risk is too high to do the things with America they've done in the past.'"

His assertion that agents are "slow-rolling" isn't corroborated anywhere else and so I can't actually verity what he is saying except by my common sense.

There's more: "Sad to say, it's slow roll time at Langley after the release of interrogation memos that, in the words of one veteran officer, "hit the agency like a car bomb in the driveway." President Obama promised CIA officers that they won't be prosecuted for carrying out lawful orders, but the people on the firing line don't believe him. They think the memos have opened a new season of investigation and retribution. "

So yeah, if I'm an agent, or a soldier, and I know that political whims shift every four or eight years, why am I going to expose myself to possible legal retaliation based on a political stunt that might come down the pike? I capture a guy in the field and rather than put myself at risk and interrogate him, let him go; turn him over to someone else... pass the buck and the responsibility to someone else.

Meanwhile, our nation becomes more vulnerable.

Another problem I see with the release of the memos is this. Our enemies got them too and they will be used against us. They'll be copied, photoshopped, reproduced, altered, and no telling what they'll say by the time the enemy gets through with them.

Yet another problem: our very own military undergoes Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training (SERE). This training includes everything the Gitmo Gang endured. They are waterboarded, deprived of sleep, forced to stand in heat and in cold, dropped in remote locations and expected to find their way out...probably even saw a caterpillar or two. None of this compares to what the North Vietnamese did to Leo Thorsness, John McCain, or any of our other POWs, by the way.

I'm not saying what they went through at Gitmo was torture or it wasn't - that's not even my point. My point is whatever was in those memos, our enemies will train and prepare for. And they will now KNOW that there is a limit to whatever they must endure and that no lasting harm will come to them.

In other words, the simple version is this.

Obama's release of these memos is devastating. He has declared open season on America. He has broadcast our weakness, our limits, and our secrets to the entire worlds. Why? Why would he do it?

The only answer so far has so the world will like us better and forgive us. That, and he promised transparency. If he wants transparency, open all the freakin' memos up, then. Show everyone about the lives that were saved from foiled plots. Show everyone the details on the plot to attack Los Angeles. If all he wants is transparency, throw the whole damn book out there! Otherwise, it's just a political stunt. It's crap.

That is total crap. Total weakness and we are so screwed. So screwed.


Related Post:
Torture Memo Release = Big Mistake

The Obama Doctrine

There's been a lively debate on this blog of late regarding the release of the torture memos. (I've linked it on the top of the sidebar if you want to participate without scrolling down and searching for it).

One side (mine) believes that the release of the torture memos was a bad idea; yes, much, but not all, of the information was already out, however, now our enemies know our limits. This is new information. For more on that, see this IBDEditorial.

The other side, and pardon me if I'm oversimplifying it, seems to think that the release was a good thing because now we are kinder and more benevolent and Big Bad Bush is gone and the world will love us. The US was evil in the past, we're "better than that" and now that we don't torture anymore (i.e. bother to gather intelligence), the terrorists will think twice about killing us.

On the talk shows yesterday, Michael Hayden reaffirmed his WSJ piece by saying:

Michael Hayden, who served as former President Bush's last CIA director from 2006 to 2009, said releasing the memos outlining terror interrogation methods emboldened terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.

"What we have described for our enemies in the midst of a war are the outer limits that any American would ever go to in terms of interrogating an al Qaeda terrorist. That's very valuable information," Hayden said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday."

"By taking [certain] techniques off the table, we have made it more difficult -- in a whole host of circumstances I can imagine -- for CIA officers to defend the nation," he said.

An article by Con Coughlin of the Telegraph recognzies the release of the memos for what it is:

"But a change of leadership at the White House does not mean the world has suddenly become a safer place. Al-Qaeda is still devising plots, the Taliban continues to murder coalition forces and rogue states such as North Korea, Syria and Iran persist with efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction while supporting Islamist terror groups.

So Mr Obama must take care when he attempts to score cheap political points on national security issues, as he did last week with his unnecessary decision to release previously classified details of the legal opinions authorising the use of the extreme interrogation techniques – torture, to you and me – that were drawn up by the Bush administration."
Then this from Brietbart:

But Obama is outpacing even Gorbachev. After just three months in power, the new American leader has, among many other things:

—Admitted to Europeans that America deserves at least part of the blame for the world's financial crisis because it did not regulate high-flying and greedy Wall Street gamblers.

—Told the Russians he wants to reset relations that fell to Cold War-style levels under his predecessor, George W. Bush

—Asked NATO for more help in the fight in Afghanistan, and, not getting much, did not castigate alliance partners.

—Lifted some restrictions on Cuban Americans' travel to their communist homeland and eased rules on sending wages back to families there.

—Shook hands with, more than once, and accepted a book from Hugo Chavez the virulently anti-American leader of oil-rich Venezuela

—Said America's appetite for illegal drugs and its lax control of the flow of guns and cash to Mexico were partly to blame for the drug-lord-inspired violence that is rattling the southern U.S. neighbor.

I guess the Obama Doctrine is shaping up.

The Panetta Pick

The choice of Leon Panetta as Director of C.I.A. baffles me. Yes, he's yet another Clinton crony so that part doesn't shock me, but he has NO intelligence experience. In this very critical timewhy are we are getting a CIA Director with no intelligence experience?

According to the New York Times, Obama had a difficult time finding someone with "no connection to controversial counterterrorism programs of the Bush era." His first pick, John O. Brennan, withdrew his name after criticism over his role in developing detention and interrogation programs after 9/11. Representative Jane Harman of CA was considered and then abandoned because of her support of some Bush policies.

The Obama transition team points out that CIA directors have been named before that had little intelligence experience, such as George H. W. Bush, but seriously - times were different then.

Panetta, writing in the Washington Monthly, took a strong stand against torture in interrogation techniques. He said, "We cannot simply suspend these beliefs in the name of national security. Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don't. There is no middle ground." This seems to be Obama's draw to him.

Dianne Feinstein is not pleased.

During the campaign, Obama stressed the importance of finding Osama and criticized Bush for seeming to abandon his focus. It seems to me that the best intelligence we could get is the right course and I'm far from convinced that Panetta is the choice to lead us in that direction.