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April 17, 2009
Obama Seeking to Destroy Our National Security Releases CIA Interrogation Techniques
So let's start here...............
Obama consulted widely on memos
White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it “a weighty decision.”
“He thought very long and hard about it, consulted widely, because there were two principles at stake,” Axelrod said . “One is … the sanctity of covert operations … and keeping faith with the people who do them, and the impact on national security, on the one hand. And the other was the law and his belief in transparency.”
The president consulted officials from the Justice Department, the CIA, the director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department, according to his adviser.
“It was a weighty decision,” Axelrod said. “As with so many issues, there are competing points of view that flow from very genuine interests and concerns that are to be respected. And then the president has to synthesize all of it and make a decision that’s in the broad national interest. He’s been thinking about this for four weeks, really.”
A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos “unbelievable.”
“It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. … Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again — even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake."
“I don't believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either
1. the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or
2. he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against.”
Obama did not act on an arbitrary timeline. There was a deadline in a court case with the ACLU on Thursday. It had been extended, but the ACLU was not going to agree to another.
Georgetown Says It Covered Over Name of Jesus to Comply With White House Request
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Obama consulted widely on memos BUT hen he sided with the terrorist!!!!
"I don't believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation"
Excuse me sorry you are dead wrong. Traitor in Chief WOULD intentionally endanger our country AND our military that is what this is all about.
Note the deadline Traitor in Chief allowed to enter in with his decision. He wanted to make sure he did it FOR the ACLU. And aren't they a lovely bunch of commie cocoa nuts.
This Muslim president is a disaster. God help us!! He’ll reveal national secrets, but not his own secrets. This man is a menace to free society.
The idiot is peeing in his own pants thinking he is sprinkling on W’s boots. Class shows, as does the total lack of it, and Obama has none.
This Marxist Muslim Kenyan is a foreign and domestic enemy!!
And David Axelrod is a filthy Communist and lackey.
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Obama released a memo today that described US interrogation methods approved for use on Al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah.
Bush-era interrogations: From waterboarding to forced nudity....( link for complete article)
The memos were made public by the Justice Department with assurances from President Barack Obama that the intelligence officials who followed their guidance won't be prosecuted. However, the president's assurances don't apply to the former administration officials who crafted the legal justification for the interrogation program.
CIA Director Leon Panetta told agency employees in a memo Thursday that despite Obama's assurances, "This is not the end of the road on these issues," and agency officials should expect more pressure from the Congress , the public and the courts to release more information.
Panetta said: "The fact remains that CIA's detention and interrogation effort was authorized and approved by our government. For that reason, as I have continued to make clear, I will strongly oppose any effort to investigate or punish those who followed the guidance of the Department of Justice ." Panetta also said the CIA would provide legal representation to any officers investigated for their actions.
Jameel Jaffer , the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project, said he thought the Obama administration left open the possibility of prosecutions.
"There's a remarkable amount of detail in the memos that makes clear that people at the very top of the Bush administration knew exactly what was going on," he said. "President Obama doesn't say anything about the architects of the program. To the extent that it offers anything like immunity, it offers immunity only to CIA interrogators who relied in good faith on legal advice."
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CIA interrogation tactics: a terrifying ordeal
Justice Department documents, which the Obama administration simultaneously released and repudiated Thursday, describe the process from darkness to waterboarding in skin-crawling detail.
Prisoners were naked, shackled and hooded to start their interrogation sessions. When the CIA interrogator removed the hood, the questioning began. Whenever the prisoner resisted, the documents outlined a series of techniques the CIA could use to bring him back in line:
• Nudity, sleep deprivation and dietary restrictions kept prisoners compliant and reminded them they had no control over their basic needs. Clothes and food could be used as rewards for cooperation.
• Slapping prisoners on the face or abdomen was allowed. So was grabbing them forcefully by the collar or slamming them into a false wall, a technique called "walling" that had a goal of fear more than pain.
• Water hoses were used to douse the prisoners for minutes at a time. The hoses were turned on and off as the interrogation continued.
• Prisoners were put into one of three in "stress positions," such as sitting on the floor with legs out straight and arms raised in the air to cause discomfort.
At night, the detainees were shackled, standing naked or wearing a diaper. The length of sleep deprivation varied by prisoner but was authorized for up to 180 hours, or 7 1/2 days. Interrogation sessions ranged from 30 minutes to several hours and could be repeated as necessary and as approved by psychological and medical teams.
Some of these techniques, such as stripping a detainee naked, depriving him of sleep and putting a hood over his head, are prohibited under the U.S. Army Field Manual. But in 2002, the Justice Department authorized CIA interrogators to step up the pressure even further on suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah.
Justice Department lawyers said the CIA could place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box. Because Zubaydah appeared afraid of insects, they also authorized interrogators to place him in a box and fill it box with caterpillars (that tactic ultimately was not used).
"We find that the use of the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death," Justice Department attorneys wrote. "From the vantage point of any reasonable person undergoing this procedure in such circumstances, he would feel as if he is drowning at the very moment of the procedure due to the uncontrollable physiological sensation he is experiencing."
But attorneys decided that waterboarding caused "no pain or actual harm whatsoever" and so did not meet the "severe pain and suffering" standard to be considered torture.
Ex-CIA Chief Criticizes Release of Interrogation Memos The documents also offer justification for using the tough tactics. A May 30, 2005, memo says that before the harsher methods were used on top Al Qaeda detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he refused to answer questions about pending plots against the United States. "Soon, you will know," he told them, according to the memo. It says the interrogations later extracted details of a plot called the "second wave" to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into a building in Los Angeles. Terror plots that were disrupted, the memos say, include the alleged effort by Jose Padilla to detonate a "dirty bomb" spreading nuclear radiation.
. Wild Thing's comment....... There's nothing to what they were getting authorization to do that even REMOTELY approached torture. “Among the 10 techniques approved for use on Mr. Zubaydah was one tailored to his fear of insects. Mr. Zubaydah would be placed in a box with an insect, according to a partially redacted section in one memo. Mr. Zubaydah would be told it was a stinging insect, but it would actually be a harmless, such as a caterpillar, according to the memo.” Wow ....... Caterpillar torture. How low can they get? “that they won’t be prosecuted by the Justice Department.” That caveat is what worries me. It says they won’t be prosecuted by the Justice dept, but once they give the names to the private prosecutors, watch out! What a sleaze Obama is! This has just destroyed our national security. Our intelligence gathering will be destroyed for years and years over this because intelligence demands complete secrecy not only about what we know, but about how we know it. From now on all of our allies and even some of our enemies who give us Intel on mutual enemies will no longer trust us. If we can’t keep our own secrets then how in the hell our we going to keep theirs? Even the former Soviet Union passed us intelligence when it benefited them, do you think the Russians , the British, and even Iran who passed on Intel about the Taliban will ever tells us anything again? They will be to afraid that Obama will use it to score political points and any leaked intelligence reveals how we got it. This is a sad day for America and Obama has just removed our most effective line of defense. This was no election - it was phase one of a coup. Mark Posted by Wild Thing at April 17, 2009 06:50 AM
More of our military's blood (and probably American citizens before too long) on the Democrats' hands. These people don't want to secure this country - they want to bring it to it's knees so that we are all dependent on the government to save us. Absolute control of every aspect of our lives. Posted by: yankeemom at April 17, 2009 09:25 AM
It's mind boggling how Obama got elected. With all that came out on his connection to terrorists, anti-American church, questionable citizenship, and lack of experience, he still gets elected. This is probably the first time a presidential election was rigged on a national level. Posted by: BobF at April 17, 2009 09:36 AM
"Looks like I'm going to be a 'racist, right wing extremist...'" Not a problem; I've been called worse than that by people that liked me. Annnnd I've got an ex-wife that's pretty sarcastic, too. That's right, lefties, you just keep pokin' that bear. Posted by: Rick at April 17, 2009 09:57 AM
Well if there's a 'Right-wing-gun loving-Constitution supporting-Pro-life' club, then I am joining it too. This release of CIA documents to the terrorists(made public it may as well be e-mailed to the Terrorists) amounts to FDR releasing the outline to the D-Day invaison to the Nazi's. If this isn't treason, then it has been redefined. Where are the Republicans, the Supreme Court. Obama should be brought up on charges. Posted by: Mark at April 17, 2009 10:31 AM
This creep is turning out to be a better friend to terrorists than the New York Slimes. We will have to keep count on which releases info first, Barack Hussein Osama or the Slimes. Posted by: Bob A at April 17, 2009 11:27 AM
What is he going to give up next? The codes to the nuclear football? The man has no conscience. Posted by: Lynn at April 17, 2009 11:42 AM
He is giving away secrets because of his promise of transparency? Well what about that birth certificate you Kenyan asshole! Of course Obama consulted with the experts, his hand picked experts. Now we know for sure his entire administration is infected with his anti Americanism. Posted by: TomR at April 17, 2009 12:39 PM
Yankeemom, that worries me too, our troops Posted by: Wild Thing at April 17, 2009 11:50 PM
BobF., I agree and I don't see an honest Posted by: Wild Thing at April 17, 2009 11:52 PM
Rick, hahaha that is funny. Posted by: Wild Thing at April 17, 2009 11:54 PM
Mark, "If this isn't treason, then it has been redefined".......Amen to that!!! Posted by: Wild Thing at April 17, 2009 11:56 PM
Bob A., yes the N.Y. Times must be loving Posted by: Wild Thing at April 17, 2009 11:58 PM
Lynn, oh my gosh you know he might do that Posted by: Wild Thing at April 18, 2009 12:03 AM
Tom, yessss he gives away these secrets Treason big time. Posted by: Wild Thing at April 18, 2009 12:06 AM
His purpose is the destruction of this nation. What say we in the .mil and the intel communities do our job anyway? Hmmm? It must happen, if we are to survive. Do your job anyway. REMEMBER YOUR OATH! ALL enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC! Posted by: cmblake6 at April 19, 2009 03:21 PM
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden says release of the memos will give terrorists a precise guide for what to expect in a CIA interrogation if those methods are ever approved for use again.
Michael Hayden, who led the CIA under George W. Bush, said CIA officers will now be more timid and allies will be more reluctant to share sensitive intelligence.
"If you want an intelligence service to work for you, they always work on the edge. That's just where they work," Hayden said. Now, he argued, foreign partners will be less likely to cooperate with the CIA because the release shows they "can't keep anything secret."
Hayden told The Associated Press the release will give terrorists a precise guide for what to expect in a CIA interrogation if those methods are ever approved for use again.
Last month, former Vice President Dick Cheney said that Obama's decisions to revoke Bush-era terrorist detainee policies will "raise the risk to the American people of another attack."
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Comments
The only time this administration will do anything positive for us is if it's a political move that furthers their agenda. So don't count on seeing much of that.
Looks like I'm going to be a "racist, right wing extremist" for the next 4 years. (God forbid, any longer.)
I just have such a hard time knowing that so many people in this country just don't get it.
But it is heartening that a lot of folks are now reading the Constitution and also about what the Founding Fathers fought for. And "Atlas Shrugged" is still flying off the bookstore shelves.
Go John Galt!!
Bob A.
and how much this will make it even harder
for them now. Obama could cares less about
that or our country.
election in the future either. I hate
saying that but the dems can't play fair
no matter what.
Good one Rick!!!
all of this.
too. I just won't put anything past this
guy and how low he would go.
but not his own. So much for transparency
from this horrible person.
