One might say the FBI did a better job, possibly, as far as apprehending and bringing to justice.

Could we have got more conspirators had we tortured McVeigh? Perhaps. Although I think McVeigh would have been happy to die from torture. Jones, his attorney, thinks he had more help even possibly help from overseas terrorists. If it were the case, that was even more reason for McVeigh to want to take all the credit.

I think these were apples and oranges. Having been at ground zero, so to speak, for both, there is very little comparison. If nothing else, they swiftly made an arrest in the OKC case. In another, from the get go, there was an prevalent assumption that this was a homegrown yahoo as opposed to a sinister global terror group with money and connections. Moreover, the loss of life, the targets, the orchestrated planning in multiple cities, the money involved, the prior terrorist attacks, etc. took this to an entirely different level times 1,000. In addition, the culprits remained at large and indicated they weren't done. We weren't expecting another Timothy McVey to show up somewhere and blow up another building. The case was pretty much "closed" very promptly. At least officially.

CNSNews.com - CIA Confirms: Waterboarding 9/11 Mastermind Led to Info that Aborted 9/11-Style Attack on Los Angeles

^^^You're joking, right?
"MRC Chairman L. Brent Bozell III founded CNSNews.com"



You're probably the type who thought it was ok to cite Wikipedia in college.

This coming from the police hating person who posts EFF the ****** police in another thread....

That's just one of the news sources I found. There are many others, and Pelosi and her cronies are no doubt scrambling trying to cover them (and their own azzes) up.

Why don't you go back to bashing the police instead of trying to post meaningful stuff with the adults?

Did I hit a nerve? You really did try to pass off Wikipedia in college, didn't you? (assuming you even attended.)

And yeah, EFF the police. They still suck, and I still hate them. Happy now? lol

And your "sources" still suck. Now run along.

Wow! Seems that we hanged Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American pow's after WWII. Now it's just "enhanced interrogation".

PolitiFact | History supports McCain's stance on waterboarding

They didn't have wikipedia when I went to college.

Run along huh?

Pelosi must be shaking in her pumps.

That woman looks like a little foo foo dog and they shake all the time.

No offense to foo foo dogs.

So what do you think? Should Pelosi and the rest of Dems on the intelligence committees be hung for letting this happen?

Fitting punishment dictates that Pelosi and Cheney be locked in a padded cell together.

No one could be that cruel. Seriously, that has got to violate the Geneva Convention.

Not even considering the fact there could be OFFSPRING!

Oh good lord. I was eating soup. Don't DO that to me!!
Now I have to clean off the keyboard.

Talk about the young eating their parents.

No one could be that hungry. More likely, upon seeing their genetic makeup, they'd off themselves.

Cheney would certainly be trying to kill himself - especially if Pelosi was batting her eyelashes at him. There is a creepy image. For that matter, the ideal of Cheney putting the moves on anyone is, frankly, somewhat alarming. Pelosi might drive him into a final heart attack and, really, he might be grateful given what he was facing.

That's GOOD!

In 2002, Military Agency Warned Against 'Torture'
Extreme Duress Could Yield Unreliable Information, It Said

Must be why they stopped at extreme measures, since it was only extreme measures that might cause unreliable information

^
|________ typed like a good lil' believer ought to type

.oO(yeah, right)Oo.

President Ronald Reagan was for torture prosecutions. Here is what he said in his signing statement when the United States formally adopted the United Nations' Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment:

And thanks to a post on Hot Air, here's some of the provisions from that Convention that Reagan signed and championed:

I can't believe it. I would have thought by now one of the right-wing regulars would have come to the defense of their hero.

Interesting thing about that particular Treaty. I checked 2007 Treaties in Force and it's listed as having entered into force in 1994. Footnotes indicated that we made reservations and declarations upon accepting the treaty.

To see what those reservations were, I went to the Human Rights Library on the University of Minnesota's website and found these declarations and reservations:

University of Minnesota Human Rights Library

Needless to say, this has the potential to be pretty damning. Regarding several administration officials, this declaration:

For several officers in the government... uht-oh.

Torture and the 'Truth Commission'
Why has Congress failed to outlaw waterboarding?

By WILLIAM MCGURN

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) wants a commission that will get to the "truth" about torture. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) says she wants a truth commission too. And so does Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.).

On CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Mr. Leahy said a truth commission would help get to the heart of how the recently released memos on CIA interrogation techniques were drafted. "I want to know why they did that," he said. "What kind of pressures brought them to write things that are so off the wall and to make sure it never happens again. That's why I want [a Truth Commission]."

Mr. Leahy overlooks a small point here: Under our Constitution, the truth commission is supposed to be Congress.

Our Founders didn't look to outsource our most controversial public issues to appointees. They established institutions and arrangements that would hold those who have power accountable to the American people. And when the people's lawmakers believed the people's president was misinterpreting the law, the Founders expected the former to stand up and do something about it.

Over the past few years, the Democrats have moved to ban waterboarding only when it was clear that such a bill would not pass -- or would be vetoed by George W. Bush. In September 2006, Sen. Edward Kennedy introduced an amendment to the Military Commissions Act that would have effectively defined waterboarding as a war crime, and it was defeated largely along partisan lines. In February 2008, when Democrats were in control of Congress, they made a big fuss about sending a bill that would have limited interrogation to techniques found in the Army field manual. They did so knowing President Bush would veto it, and that he had the votes to sustain that veto.

Today the Democrats have an even larger majority -- plus a president who would sign such legislation. So why the call for a truth commission instead? The answer is a nasty one: If Congress made waterboarding illegal now, they would be making clear that it was not illegal before.

Andrew McCarthy is the former assistant U.S. attorney who put Omar Abdel-Rahman (the blind sheik) behind bars for the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Mr. McCarthy explained it this way to me: "When Senate Democrats didn't have the votes, they voted to make waterboarding illegal. Now they have the votes, but there's no effort to ban waterboarding. And the reason is that they are more interested in setting off a partisan witch hunt than passing a principled ban on something they say is torture."

In other words, what the Beltway has planned is a circus -- where the decks are stacked, people are smeared, and conclusions are foregone. In such an environment, the only way to restore some sense of fairness is with fuller and more honest disclosure. Here are a few places to start.

First, former vice president Dick Cheney has called for the release of classified memos that he says show the CIA's interrogation program produced valuable intelligence that helped us break up terrorist plots and save innocent lives. Though CIA Director Dennis Blair fudged his own answer to Mr. Cheney's claim by issuing two separate statements -- one for public consumption, one for internal use -- he did concede that the program yielded "high value" intelligence. Since then, we've had nothing but claims and counterclaims. How about releasing the info and allowing the American people to judge?

Second, Mrs. Pelosi has categorically declared the CIA never told her waterboarding was being used. "My experience was they did not tell us they were using that, flat out," she recently told reporters. "And any, any contention to the contrary is simply not true."

Her claim puts her at odds with Porter Goss, a former CIA director who had at the time of the briefings served on the same House Intelligence Committee with Mrs. Pelosi. In an op-ed for the Washington Post on Saturday, Mr. Goss said he was "slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed."

Surely the CIA kept notes about those briefings. How about releasing the record -- how many briefings there were, when they occurred, who was at them, what was said, how our political representatives reacted -- and let the people judge who's telling the truth?

Finally, thus far all the focus has been on the techniques approved by the White House. The impression is that Mr. Bush allowed every technique to go forward. How about releasing any memos that speak to techniques that were rejected -- and the reasons? If there's information in any of these classified documents we don't want our enemies to see, they can easily be redacted on a case-by-case basis.

And if after all this, members of Congress still insist that waterboarding is a war crime, maybe they could explain to the American people why they don't just go ahead and outlaw it.

Cracking KSM
Americans still should be proud of waterboarding.

By Deroy Murdock

Today, Library Tower looms 73 stories above Los Angeles. But the Pacific Coast’s highest skyscraper might have become a smoldering pile of steel beams had CIA interrogators not waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) 183 times in March 2003, as recently released memoranda reveal. Americans should be proud that our public servants had the patience and persistence to pressure al-Qaeda’s self-described military chief until he cracked, ratted on his homicidal conspirators, and thus prevented a bloody attack that could have murdered thousands of innocents and transformed much of downtown L.A. into Ground Zero West.

[color="Red"]The hardcore hand-wringing among soft-headed liberals over the so-called “torture memos” ignores the fact that these tactics squeezed priceless intelligence from KSM and from al-Qaeda’s Abu Zubaydah (waterboarded 83 times in August 2002). Tough stuff? You bet. But nowhere as nasty as what these killers had up their sleeves.
[/COLOR/]

As former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen pointed out in April 21’s Washington Post, a declassified May 30, 2005, Justice Department memo states: “Before the CIA used enhanced [interrogation] techniques . . . KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon you will find out.’” Waterboarding finally loosened his lips.

What this technique uncovered, according to the memo, was “a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.” KSM later told Guantanamo authorities that al-Qaeda had targeted the 1,018-foot-tall Library Tower, the highest building west of the Mississippi. KSM’s confessions, the memo says, prompted “the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave.’”

“Information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali,” the memo continues. Hambali supervised the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, which killed 202 vacationers, including seven Americans, and wounded 209 others. Had KSM remained unwaterboarded, Hambali likely would have orchestrated fresh atrocities.

Rough questioning inspired KSM to identify Iyman Faris. He was convicted of plotting to sever the Brooklyn Bridge’s cables with torches so it would crumble into the East River. KSM also fingered 9/11 collaborator Yazid Sufaat. The 9/11 Commission Report states on page 151: “Sufaat would spend several months attempting to cultivate anthrax for al Qaeda in a laboratory he helped set up near the Kandahar airport.”

What about Abu Zubaydah? He long was considered a top al-Qaeda catch, although the insufferable New York Times described him as just “a helpful training camp personnel clerk who would arrange false documents and travel for jihadists, including Qaeda members.” Waterboarding made al-Qaeda’s “travel agent” sing. He squealed on USS Cole bomber Rahim al-Nashiri (17 Americans dead, 40 wounded), 9/11 conspirator Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and KSM — helping snare all three.

Justice’s memo concludes, “The CIA believes ‘the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.’”

Besides waterboarding KSM, Abu Zubaydah, and Rahim al-Nashiri, enhanced interrogations for less hardened terror suspects who ignored simple interview questions involved face slapping, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, and dietary manipulation. Even softer terrorists needed to be leaned on, though more lightly. Are any of these techniques too much? One memo quotes Abu Zubaydah himself on what it takes to crack a terrorist: “Brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship.” Preventing mass murder sometimes requires American security personnel to push these sworn killers past that line.

Meanwhile, the ceaseless whimpering over KSM’s waterboarding almost universally neglects his victims’ agony. KSM masterminded the 9/11 massacre (2,976 dead, 7,356 wounded). He also, he said, “decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the City of Karachi, Pakistan.” KSM financed the February 1993 Twin Towers bombing (six dead, 1,040 injured). According to the March 16, 2007, Wall Street Journal, KSM admitted he was “directly in charge” of “managing and following up on the Cell for the Production of Biological Weapons, such as anthrax and others, and following up on Dirty Bomb Operations on American Soil.”

KSM has no regrets. In a Guantanamo military-commission pleading to U.S. Army Judge Col. Stephen Henley, KSM and four co-defendants wrote on March 5:

Your intelligence apparatus, with all its abilities, human and logistical, had failed to discover our military attack plans before the blessed 11 September operation. They were unable to foil our attack . . .

Our prophet was victorious because of fear. At a month distant, the enemy did not hear from him. So, our religion is a religion of fear and terror to the enemies of God: the Jews, Christians, and pagans. With God’s wiling [sic], we are terrorists to the bone. So, many thanks to God.

The Arab poet, Abu-Ubaydah Al-Hadrami, has stated: “We will terrorize you, as long as we live with swords, fire, and airplanes.” . . .

We will make all of our materials available, to defend and deter, and egress you and the filthy Jews from our countries. . . .

We ask to be near to God, we fight you and destroy you and terrorize you. The Jihad in god’s cause is a great duty in our religion…Your end is very near and your fall will be just as the fall of the towers on the blessed 9/11 day. . . .

So we ask from God to accept our contributions to the great attack, the great attack on America, and to place our nineteen martyred brethren among the highest peaks in paradise.

Thus, my eyes stayed as dry as the Sahara upon learning that American counterterrorists had dampened KSM’s nostrils 183 times. I prefer to cry for the 2,976 individuals whom KSM, Abu Zubaydah, and their colleagues slaughtered on 9/11. Of the 2,752 they killed at the World Trade Center, 1,125 (41 percent) were literally vaporized. These victims’ loved ones do not have so much as bone fragments to bury, nor place flowers upon, nor shed tears over.

Now that is torture.