BeAChooser
Banned
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- Jun 20, 2007
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Read this article: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDE5YTNmZTg5OWUyOTlkMGUxOTk3OGMxY2I4ZDQ4YWQ=
Summarizing the facts claimed in it one could say ...
1) On 9/11 a terrorist plot horrifically murdered over 3000 innocent men, women and children in the United States.
2) We captured the mastermind of that plot, a man with the initials KSM. He was a man so evil that he actually plotted the death of 30,000 people and managed to murder over 3000.
3) KSM was interrogated by conventional means for weeks and then months. Yes, he did reveal some information, but apparently nothing that he didn't already think we knew. They were totally unable to get him to reveal information about any ongoing or still planned plots, and he did not give up the names of any other terrorists that he thought we didn't already know.
4) After all those weeks and months, when asked what al-Qaeda plots were in the works, KSM told the interrogators that "Soon, you will know". So there was a terrorist, who they already knew masterminded the killing of 3000+ people; who destroyed a complex of skyscrapers; who caused a trillion dollars in damage to an economy; and who damaged the psyche of an entire nation, and he was leading investigators to believe that "soon" there would be other such calamities.
5) And those investigators knew that there were indeed other plots underway. They knew that the terrorist organization was large, with many members. They knew that KSM was high enough in the al-Qaeda organization to know about some of the plots. In fact, they'd already discovered was looked into crop dusters before he was caught ... planes whose only terrorist use might be to spread some form or biological or chemical weapon. So if nothing else, they suspect that might be an ongoing plot.
So quite clearly, you are wrong. To those interrogators, a time bomb was indeed ticking. Perhaps several. And they were responsible to an entire nation to make sure none went off and kill large numbers of their fellow citizens. And they couldn't be sure that one wasn't set to go off tomorrow. Only that it would be "soon", from a man who gloated as he said the word. A man who had already killed thousands of innocent Americans in such a plot. A man who they knew had associates on the loose who were still hard at work trying to kill Americans.
6) So they decided to waterboard him. And after all those months of getting nothing out of KSM that he didn't want to tell them, that he didn't think they already knew, he broke in minutes and started telling them things about ongoing plots and the names of other terrorists. Sure, he continued to resist, so they had to waterboard him repeatedly. But in the ensuing weeks they learned many things that indeed did prevent the loss of many additional lives (and not just Americans).
7) The article I linked lists some of the life saving facts they learned from waterboarding KSM and the two other top al-Qaeda members. As result of the information they obtained, they captured multiple additional terrorists ... terrorists who they hadn't known anything about even after months of conventional interrogation ... terrorists who were actively plotting additional mass murders at the time they were caught ... terrorists who were involved in the mass murder plots that had already taken place or that had been involved in plots that had been stopped.
8) And as pointed out in that article, one the plots (carrying out simultaneous attacks on the consulate, western residences and westerners at the local airport in Karachi) was stopped only days before it was completed. And the only reason that happened is that we used enhanced interrogation techniques on another captive.
So you are just plain wrong. Ticking time bombs do indeed happen. And the use of torture ... specifically the temporary pain and discomfort of waterboarding ... has proven to be successful in defusing those bombs.
Now you can argue that the facts in that article aren't true ... that the CIA agents who provided those facts are liars. If that's the way you want to view it, then the best we can say is that the verdict is out. And the only way to resolve this is for Obama to release whatever information is necessary to resolve it. At this point, I can see no reason for his not doing that unless the CIA version is true and would thus show Obama's policy is flawed.
