Originally posted by The17sss
I'm going against my own rule by responding, but no I'm not wrong. This is what you said PRIOR to me calling you a condescending :
Did you call me a direct name there? No... but you took things in the direction of disrespect, and away from regular dialogue, by talking down to me like that. I hate condescention more than anything, and I'm going to react when people do it.... especially to those who can't help themselves in doing it every single time they get into a political debate with someone on the opposite side.
*Sigh*
Fine. I think I've referenced this fact that you're a die-hard listener of Limbaugh a number of times in the past to you, but if this was the so-called last straw to you, then I apologize. But I will say, someone who opened up this thread with the following:
quote:
For all the bleeding hearts out there who don't realize the world is a dangerous place
To speak of those condescending you is just slightly hypocritical here. If anything, the tone was set right from the beginning. Just because I want full investigation and prosecution of anyone supporting and authorizing the illegal acts of torture does not make me a "bleeding heart."
It just simply makes me an American, IMO.
Alex
quote:
Originally posted by The17sss
I don't pop off on people over a couple of jabs.
I seem to remember you telling me that my opinions were invalid due to my belief in a God (in a thread that had absolutely nothing to do with that), quite rudely I might add, because of a single comment I made.
Just saying
MisterOpus1
Going back to Thiessen's latest rebuttal against Andrew Sullivan and Tim Noah, here's another piece that doesn't seem to square with Thiessen's events:
quote:
But Soufan had poured through the bureau's intelligence files and stunned Abu Zubaydah when he called him "Hani"—the nickname that his mother used for him. Soufan also showed him photos of a number of terror suspects who were high on the bureau's priority list. Abu Zubaydah looked at one of them and said, "That's Mukhtar."
Now it was Soufan who was stunned. The FBI had been trying to determine the identity of a mysterious "Mukhtar," whom bin Laden kept referring to on a tape he made after 9/11. Now Soufan knew: Mukhtar was the man in the photo, terror fugitive Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and, as Abu Zubaydah blurted out, " the one behind 9/11."
It's a very good article, and you should read it. It outlines the fact that we were obtaining some terrific intelligence BEFORE we started torturing him. But this excerpt above directly contradicts what Thiessen claims here:
quote:
In fact, what Abu Zubaydah disclosed to the CIA during this period was that the fact that KSM was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and that his code name was “Muktar” — something Zubaydah thought we already knew, but in fact we did not. Intelligence officials had been trying for months to figure out who “Muktar” was. This information provided by Zubaydah was a critical piece of the puzzle that allowed them to pursue and eventually capture KSM. This fact, in and of itself, discredits the premise of the Post story — to suggest that the capture of KSM was not information that “foiled plots” to attack America is absurd on the face of it.
So which is it?
In addition to FBI Director and the CIA inspector general stating that nothing reliable was obtain from torture, this anonymous FBI official had stated it as well when that original story broke:
quote:
“To take that and make it into a disrupted plot is just ludicrous,” said one senior FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with departmental guidelines.
And something a little smarmy here what Thiessen did. He states:
quote:
Ammar had prepared Jose Padilla for his plot to blow up apartment buildings in America (which was foiled thanks to information from Abu Zubaydah)
What he conveniently leaves out is again, KSM was revealed by Zubaydah BEFORE we started torturing Zubaydah. But hey, I suppose torturing a guy like Zubaydah who was diagnosed with severe schizophrenia who wrote diaries with 3 distinct personalities:
is perfectly okay by the CIA. Definitely mentally fit enough to handle such torture techniques. Yes indeed, I'll bet the info. was totally reliable.....
So the question by the slimy speech writer Thiessen posed is not a matter of believing Sullivan or Noah versus torturing enabling people like Tenet and Hayden who've done nothing but support Bush's illegal actions the entire way, but whether or not we should believe the FBI, CIA inspector general, and others who have knowledge on the matter as well and want a full investigation by an independent panel and/or attorneys.
The17sss
To get back on subject here, I want to reiterate the timeline thing.... and how it DOES work out because the 2nd wave was still in the works by that 2nd cell, which was what KSM gave up after getting waterboarded. Can those of you who claimed it was impossible, needed a time machine, or accused the CIA and/or Bush administration of making up lies please admit now that those claims were a rush to judgement?
Here is more backup to the timeline, that Q5echo re-posted, and which I re-re-posted at the bottom of page 16 in this thread.
First, the May 30th, 2005 memo from the Dept. of Justice stating this (on page 10 of the memo):
quote:
With these caveats, we turn to specific examples that you have provided to us. You have informed us that the interrogation of KSM- once enhanced techniques were employed- led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the "Second Wave," "to use East Asian operatives fo crash a hijacked airliner into" a building in Los Angeles. Effectiveness Memo at 3.
You have informed us that information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member lemaah Islatniyah ceil tasked with executing the "Second Wave," See/d. at 3-4; CIA Directorate of Intelligence, Al Qa'ida's Ties to Other Key Terror Groups: Terrorists Links in a Chain 2 (Aug. 28, 2003), More specifically, we understand that KSM admitted that he had large sum of money.....
To say it was completely disrupted in 2002, therefore the timeline doesn't work out is lazy and it's patently false. The 2nd wave was still in the works by that other cell after KSM's capture, and KSM gave up the goods via waterboarding. The L.A. Times (ironically trying to bury this now) put out an article in October 2005 discussing how the 2nd wave was disrupted! Look:
quote:
Federal counter-terrorism officials on Friday disclosed for the first time that during his interrogations, Mohammed said he hadn’t completely abandoned the prospect of a second wave of attacks, but had turned the idea over to a trusted aide named Hambali, the chief of operations for an Al Qaeda affiliate group in South Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah.
Hambali, also known as Riduan Isamuddin, in turn is believed to have chosen several men to launch the attacks, including a pilot, and had set aside some money to pay for them, according to one senior counter-terrorism official.
Those men were soon captured, however, and the plot never progressed past the planning stages, according to several counter-terrorism officials.
How far along its progression was is a separate debate, but by KSM's own ominous admission before getting waterboarded, "Soon you will know". Do brush it aside simply because it may have been "in the planning stages" is foolish. As Phillip Klein says:
quote:
If we’re able to disrupt such plots in the early stages, isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that precisely what successful counterterrorism looks like? Isn’t that the kind of detective work that we failed to do on Sept. 11? In the early stages, if you had read that a group of terrorists was planning on sending men to hijack airplanes with box-cutters and fly them into buildings, destroying the Twin Towers and damaging the Pentagon, and killing 3,000 people, it probably would have sounded far fetched to most people.
You have to admit that there is a substantial, very real possibility that if KSM hadn't been waterboarded, another 9/11 type attack would have happened in L.A.
Clovis
quote:
Originally posted by MisterOpus1
To speak of those condescending you is just slightly hypocritical here. If anything, the tone was set right from the beginning. Just because I want full investigation and prosecution of anyone supporting and authorizing the illegal acts of torture does not make me a "bleeding heart."
It just simply makes me an American, IMO.
ing +1
The17sss
quote:
Originally posted by Alex
I seem to remember you telling me that my opinions were invalid due to my belief in a God (in a thread that had absolutely nothing to do with that), quite rudely I might add, because of a single comment I made.
Just saying
haha... no man come on, I wasn't popping off on you at all. The whole point of me doing that in a thread that had nothing to do with religion was a sarcastic attempt by me to say "I don't have a valid argument in this thread at the moment, so I'm going to say something off the cuff." Obviously, I would be a fool to actually try to use a statement like that to refute an argument. I thought you'd laugh but you took it as bein offensive. It's hard to read peoples' tone sometimes when looking at typed words rather than listening to spoken ones.
The17sss
quote:
Originally posted by Clovis
ing +1
good lord! I didn't single anyone out. I said "for those bleeding hearts out there." I didn't say, "for the specific bleeding hearts, MiserOpus, Clovis, Lebez... yeah you!" LOL... my beef is with the personalized attacks that get started.
The17sss
quote:
Originally posted by MisterOpus1
It's a very good article, and you should read it. It outlines the fact that we were obtaining some terrific intelligence BEFORE we started torturing him. But this excerpt above directly contradicts what Thiessen claims here:
I read that article already. But I remain skeptical about Soufan because I also read this by Tom Mcguire after doing some fact checking on Soufan (this is just a piece of the article):
quote:
Ali Soufan, an FBI interrogator of Abu Zubaydah joins the torture debate on the NY Times op-ed page and explains that the Bush era enhanced interrogation techniques were unnecessary and ineffective. Torture doesn’t work, and Mr. Soufan is today’s darling of the reality-based community. However, based on earlier Times reporting and the DoJ Inspector General report Mr. Soufan is, well, misleading us.
So, the Times has run an op-ed that dovetails with their current agenda but is contradicted by other strong evidence and their own reporting - does anyone think we will see a clarification or follow-up? Neither do I.
Eventually patient readers will also find my rebuttal to Marcy Wheeler and Andrew Sullivan, who claim that these latest revelations bring down the whole legal structure crafted by the OLC memos. Not to jump ahead, but since the Soufan story is bogus, conclusions based on that story are also shaky. It's castles on sand and another day in reality-world.
...... cont.
Mr. Soufan says that "I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August." As we have seen, something like harsh techniques were already in place. But what happened in July? This high value target of so much attention was left to rock out to the Red Hot Chili Peppers while shivering in his underwear? Probably not. Based on the DoJ IG report the Times story is roughly accurate.
If Mr. Soufan is credible at all then there were divisions within the original CIA team, some members were convinced a tougher approach was warranted, and Bybee was working with them. Or perhaps after the fact some CIA officials involved in the interrogation decided that someone else must have been responsible. CYA at the CIA. Go figure.
And do note that ater the fact the FBI team may have been absolutely correct in their assessment of Zubaydah's compliance but that does not mean that the CIA people requested the legal guidance in bad faith.
MORE ON THE INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT:
Mr. Soufan makes an interesting claim in his op-ed:
Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).
Well, if the DoJ Inspector General's report is reliable, the Soufan story is full of holes. Starting at p. 110 of 438, we see that two FBI agents, Gibson and Thomas (pseudonyms) were involved in the Zubaydah interrogation.
The CIA showed up and took over quickly. Thomas had objections to their techniques, which he described as "borderline torture", and left somewhat thereafter. Gibson was authorized (or instructed) to leave but hung around until early June, several weeks after Thomas left. So let's tentatively infer from that that "Gibson" is Mr. Soufan (the story hardly changes if "Thomas" is Soufan.)
The whole article is long, but fascinating. I only included a couple of pieces but it goes through the whole process and provides links to all of those reports mentioned in the article. I suggest taking a look.
Originally posted by The17sss
good lord! I didn't single anyone out. I said "for those bleeding hearts out there." I didn't say, "for the specific bleeding hearts, MiserOpus, Clovis, Lebez... yeah you!" LOL... my beef is with the personalized attacks that get started.
Yeah, even better, you single handedly labeled each of us, and anyone else who might enter the thread who doesn't agree with your point of view in one fell swoop.
Krypton
I'll say this. If my government breaks the law, I want to know about it. Perhaps even see the evidence, which is what these pictures provide me. Why sugar coat a crime done by my government?
