Obama thinks so, but of course, “harsh” to liberals means anything uncomfortable like making someone watch the View or listen to Janeane Garafalo for an hour. The left says that we can’t torture because we need to be the “moral” leaders in the world, which is funny considering they usually chastise people who talk about being moral. The right says these interrogations are necessary to save American lives from more terrorism.
What does an Admiral, an intelligence director, think of this?
“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.
Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of interrogation methods that the Obama White House has deemed to be illegal torture. Among other things, the Bush administration memos revealed that two captured Qaeda operatives were subjected to a form of near-drowning known as waterboarding a total of 266 times.
Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the media last Thursday. Also deleted was a line in which he empathized with his predecessors who originally approved some of the harsh tactics after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Interesting that details like this were left out of the media report. I mean, certainly Obama, the “transparent” President would want all the facts to be known, wouldn’t he?
I mean, he would tell us if waterboarding stopped another terrorist attack, right?
On Tuesday, the CIA confirmed to me that it stands by assertions credited to the agency in this 2005 memo that subjecting KSM to “enhanced techniques” of interrogation—including waterboarding—caused him to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to stop a planned 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles.