Video: Why Is It Legal To Shoot Unarmed Bin Laden In The Face, Yet We Cannot Waterboard?

Fair Question.

Especially considering the fact that waterboarding the few terrorists did pave the way to finding Bin Laden's location.



Too bad White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon couldn't provide a fair answer to it.

"Obama Owes Thanks, And An Apology, To CIA Interrogators"

Marc Thiessen weighs in.

In normal times, the officials who uncovered the intelligence that led us to Osama bin Laden would get a medal. In the Obama administration, they have been given subpoenas.

On his second day in office, Obama shut down the CIA’s high-value interrogation program. His Justice Department then reopened criminal investigations into the conduct of CIA interrogators — inquiries that had been closed years before by career prosecutors who concluded that there were no crimes to prosecute. In a speech at the National Archives, Obama eviscerated the men and women of the CIA, accusing them of “torture” and declaring that their work “did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts — they undermined them.”

Now, it turns out that the very CIA interrogators whose lives Obama turned upside down played a critical role in what the president rightly calls “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.”

It is time for a public apology.

Be sure to read the rest, because Marc gives some valuable insight to how interrogations work.

It's easy for the mind's eye to envision scenes from '24' when someone says 'waterboarding' or 'enhanced interrogations'. There's quite a bit more to it than asking in a loud voice, "Where is the bomb?"

As Marc said:

CIA interrogators would ask detainees questions to which the interrogators already know the answers — allowing them to judge whether the detainees had reached a level of compliance.

Don't ask questions you don't already know the answer too.

When the prisoner is cooperating, they are asked many of the same questions, slightly varied to make sure that the prisoner is still giving consistent answers. Even if the prisoner is willingly to give up answers, I think I'm right in guessing that there is still a small amount of 'Trust but verify' when dealing with the detainees. Little checks along the way in the process of gleaming information just to make sure that the person being interrogating doesn't have a little bit of jihad in him.

Another series of checks is to ask about something small, seemingly trivial. If that answer checks out, move on to ask about more important items. The interrogators don't start right in with the finger removing and bamboo shoots under the toenails. There is a science involved with it. It starts with breaking the will of resistance first, then eliciting cooperation.

Waterboarding was one small step along the pathway of killing Osama Bin Laden.

They Told Me That If I Voted For John McCain That There Would Be An Escalation Of Undefined Wars Over Oil In The Middle East . . .

. . . And they were right!

Yeah, the headline. That's all I got.

More: By all indications, the rebels in Libya fighting against Kadaffy seem to be backed by Al-Qaeda and The Muslim Brotherhood. This is were you root for injuries rather than sides.

Update: Linked in the sidebar by P & P Blogging Factory and at The TrogloPundit. No alternative name based on a 90's hip hop group for him yet.

Would Be Suicide Bomber Killed By Spam Text Message And Hellfire Missiles. . .

Well, pretty much by spam text message.

An unexpected and unwanted text message from a wireless company prematurely exploded a would-be suicide bomber’s vest bomb in Russia New Year’s Eve, inadvertently thwarting a planned attack on revelers in Moscow, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The would-be suicide bomber was planning to detonate a suicide belt bomb near Red Square, a plan that was foiled when her wireless carrier sent her an SMS while she was still at a safe house, setting off the bomb and killing her.

Bush Derangment Sydrome Still Going Strong? The Deuce You Say!

Two years after Pres. Bush left office, some people still have to let the hate burn. The video clip is at The Blog Prof.

Maybe the cold fire of disdain for their version of Emmanuel Goldstein keeps their mind off of their own self-loathing. That and how Bush sold as many copies of his memoir in two months as Clinton did of his in six years.

What I think really pains most liberals is that they never had a chance* to try and impeach Bush the way Clinton was impeached. An eye for an eye.

*Or the courage. It would have been over the Iraq War** involving who knew what intel and when. From what I've seen, Bush's staff kept everything on the up and up with the checks and balances in Congress. So it would be show trials more than anything. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi knew what the White House knew going into the war. No matter what they say today.

**Or more accurately, the Global War on Terror's Theater of Operations in Iraq. Nuance.

The War We Couldn't Afford Vs. The Stimulus We Needed

I want to make sure I have this straight. The federal government borrowing from China to fund the War on Terror was bad but the federal government borrowing from China to pay for make work jobs was good. At least that was the working theory as I understood it when the Democrats where trying to sell the idea back at the start of 09.

The only problem is that it didn't work. And the Democrats own this failure now.

Stimulus at work!

According to CBO numbers in its Budget and Economic Outlook published this month, the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom was $709 billion for military and related activities, including training of Iraqi forces and diplomatic operations.

Chart thanks to Fox News.

The projected cost of the stimulus, which passed in February 2009, and is expected to have a shelf life of two years, was $862 billion.

The U.S. deficit for fiscal year 2010 is expected to be $1.3 trillion, according to CBO. That compares to a 2007 deficit of $160.7 billion and a 2008 deficit of $458.6 billion, according to data provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

In 2007 and 2008, the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 1.2 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively.

Read the entire article.

Innsurgents Killed By Needlepoint Accident And Their Own Bomb But Mostly Their Own Bomb.

Maybe if they spent more time at needlepoint, these needless accident's won't happen.

Eight Arab, five Pakistani and two Afghan militants were killed when bombs they were making exploded prematurely inside a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.
The insurgents were assembling bombs in Desi Mosque of Yousifkhela district in the south-eastern province of Paktika on Friday, the ministry said.

The Word Of The Day

Straight out of the The Progressive Dictionary:

Bigotry (n.)—Any belief that might cause people to vote Republican.

The View From Iraq

UPDATE: Bob Belvedere is kind enough to link up.

A high school buddy of mine is in the middle of his tour in Iraq right now. He was kind enough to share his photos for this. Obviously, these aren't from the same day.

Early morning.

Birds on the ground.  Bird in the air.

Sandstorm brewing.

Still a ways out there. 

One more day in the life of. . .

Thanks to Chris for the photos and for his service.

After The Third Marriage Starts To Fall Apart, Chances Are It's Not The Other Person

Both Ace and Robert Stacy have the story on 'Jihad Jamie'.

On Sept. 11, she suddenly left Leadville, Colo., a small town in the Rocky Mountains, for Denver, then for New York, to meet and marry a Muslim man she connected with online, her family says. Ms. Paulin-Ramirez, who is 5-foot-11 and blonde, phoned her mother and stepfather in Leadville, providing them with an address in Waterford, Ireland, they say.

Now, she is in the custody of the Irish police, along with six other individuals, arrested as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to commit murder, according to officials familiar with the case.

Sudden Jihad Syndrome?

Ms. Paulin-Ramirez is the second American woman to be linked to an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of the Prophet Mohammed. An indictment was unsealed this week against Colleen R. LaRose, 46, a suburban Philadelphia woman who authorities said used the Web alias "JihadJane."

Ms. LaRose was accused of plotting to kill the cartoonist and attempting to recruit jihadis via the Internet.
[. . .]
Ms. Paulin-Ramirez had married several times over the years—some of her relatives estimated she was married four times.[Emphasis mine]

I can understand and am willing to give a little leeway to someone who is divorced once, maybe twice. But when the third marriage starts to dissolve, they need to do some soul searching on who to look for in a mate.

Besides, you can never get ahead in life by division.

Taliban Leader Dead Due To Sad News Of Scientists Finding That There Is No G-Spot And Air Strike From Predator Drone. But Mostly Air Strike From Predator Drone.

Via The Other McCain and Barce Pundit.

Another terrorist is finding out if it was 72 virgins or raisins awaiting him in Paradise. Or Hell.

The head of the Taliban in Pakistan, who was linked to the murder of seven CIA agents, has died after being wounded in a US drone attack, according to reports.

And the G-spot thing is here. The link to the article. Not the actual G-spot. You're on your own with that. Sadly, the terrorist never heard the news that there is one. Not that he would know what to do with it if he found the G-spot.

Talk About Getting In Their Face

Marc Theisen goes on CNN to talk about his book and proceeds to call Christiane Amanpour out.

The book is Courting Disaster, by the way.





Human Events has the transcript of the key exchange.

Fourteen Terrorists Die Due To Kittens And Blowing Themselves Up. But Mostly Blowing Themselves Up

Heh.

Fourteen suspected terrorists died Tuesday night when the bus they rigged with explosives blew up prematurely, police said.

Those young jihadists blow up so fast, don't they?

Hat tip from Twitter.

Speaking of Gitmo

About the 1:30 mark everyone in the room shuts up and listens to Dr. Rice speak. Note to punk college kid. Never try to match wits with someone who has a resume bigger than the Playboy magazine you have stashed under your mattress.



Unless you are a pimpled face ambulance chaser old named Scott Horton. Horton is best known for representing Bilal Hussein. A terrorist who would take pictures of the enemy forces in Iraq firing on US troops then selling them to the Associated Press.

He has it in for anyone in the Bush administration. For a lawyer, he doesn't seem to realize that this can set a bad precedent.

In a meeting with Stanford students at a dormitory reception on April 27, the school’s former provost got off to a shaky start and ended in a train wreck. She may in fact have her last words in the exchange quoted back to her some day in a law court.

It's not so much as he was against enhanced interrogation techniques as he seems to be against anything Pres. Bush did.

Heh

For this, I would take a trip to Gitmo.

We hung out with the guys from the East Coast and they showed us the boat inside and out, how they work and what they do, we took a ride around the land and it was a loooot of fun!

We also met the Military dogs, and they did a very nice demonstration of their skills. All the guys from the Army were amazing with us.

We visited the Detainees camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books. It was very interesting.

We took a ride with the Marines around the land to see the division of Gitmo and Cuba while they were informed us with a little bit of history.

I didn’t want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful.

Gitmo does sound nice. Shame about the rest of the place.

An Attack On US Soil?

I must be getting jaded. After I envisioned what might happen, I asked myself, "How will Obama and Rahm handle this crisis and not let it go to waste?"

There is a "100% chance that there will be . . . an attack on U.S. soil," conservative author David Horowitz said Thursday.

Horowitz made the prediction while speaking to a George Washington University student group, after being asked about the possibility of U.S.-Iranian conflict. In the event of such a terror attack against the American homeland, Horowitz predicted, there will be widespread public outrage against U.S. liberals.

Read the rest.

When Names Matter

Good news. There will be no more enemy combatants in Gitmo anymore. Not because the camp was closed down but the Obama Administration will no longer be using the term, 'Enemy Combatants'.

The Justice Department said in legal filings that it will no longer use the term "enemy combatants' to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
[. . .]
Retired Army Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, a former Guantanamo official who has since become critical of the legal process, said it's a change in nothing but semantics.

"There's absolutely no change in the definition," Abraham said in a telephone interview. "To say this is a kinder more benevolent sense of justice is absolutely false. ... I think the only thing they've done is try to separate themselves from the energy of the debate" by eliminating Bush's phrasing.

Why not call the current economic downturn another word to make it bright and cheery. Crisis averted.

"This Is Diet?"

H/T, Hot Air.