Did torture prevent more terrorist attacks? KSM's second wave.
There has been a lot of buzz generated on the recent move by the Obama administration to eliminate enhanced interrogation techniques from the arsenal of the CIA. A premise put forth by the president suggests methodologies bordering on torture are not necessary and inhumane, and furthermore have not been demonstrably linked to any specific preventions.
The story becomes interesting when a report from Marc Thiessen (former Bush speech writer) of the Washington Post outlined a chilling attack foiled in 2002 (or later?). The plot was a 9/11 similar style attack using Asian airliners to take down Los Angeles skyscrapers, specifically the Library tower. This plot was supposedly the brainchild of Khalid Shayk Mohammed (KSM) and something he referred to as the "second wave", KSM originally wanted to include the tower as part of the 9/11 attack, but Osama vetoed the plan as too ambitious.
However dealing in the world of murky CIA operatives and highly classified documents, things are apparently complicated, especially when facts are ignored and preconceived notions are inserted. An article from Slate.com suggests that Marc Thiessen went above and beyond the call of duty and distorted some facts. Timothy Noah suggests that the Library tower plot and this alleged second wave was foiled in 2002, a year before KSM was even captured and therefore torture techniques were used for shits and giggles. This piece has obviously made it's way through the liberal circles and is now being used as a chief counter-argument to Thiessen's original evidence. Mr. Noah of course includes the mandatory Bush bashing by pointing out that Bush called the tower 'Liberty tower' and not 'Library tower', because failing to mention this critical piece of information would be blasphemous.
However if you read the Slate article carefully you quickly realize just how shockingly stupid and dangerous the article is. His main point is that using airliners after 9/11 would not have been practical because security would have been so much tougher. Maybe that is true, but who cares on what Mr. Noah *thinks*? If the terrorist wanted to fly some more planes into towers, then that was their intentions.
Much more importantly however, Mr. Noah ignores the fact that it was Abu Zubaydah that was water-boarded and it was this torture that extracted the information of the Second Wave attack and ultimately led to the capture of KSM! Marc never claimed that we tortured KSM and therefore we foiled the attack, but Mr. Noah either failed to read the piece before trashing it or has significant reading comprehension impairment. Ultimately the water-boarding of Abu Zubaydah and KSM lead to multiple foiled plots, the capture of KSM, the possible capture of Jose Padilla, disrupting and ultimately stopping al-Zarqawi's Iraqi operation and many more. But to liberals itching to jump to a conclusion, life is just too simple:
"How could Sheikh Mohammed's water-boarded confession have prevented the Library Tower attack if the Bush administration "broke up" that attack during the previous year? It couldn't, of course. Conceivably the Bush administration, or at least parts of the Bush administration, didn't realize until Sheikh Mohammed confessed under torture that it had already broken up a plot to blow up the Library Tower about which it knew nothing. Stranger things have happened."
Indeed Mr. Noah, strangers things have happened, some liberals have used their brains in the past.
Stunningly, liberal critics and natural opponents of torture have in their passionate zeal distorted even the most basic facts in order to achieve their ultimate goal, break down and stop the only methods that were effective in curtailing terrorism. I guess they prefer the appeasement policies of Bill Clinton under whom the WTC was attacked in 1993, USS Cole bombed, N. Korea built nukes and Osama bin Laden/KSM masterminded the most devastating attack against America. Will liberals ever learn?
P.S. I do not condone torture and am extremely aware of the fine line between CIA doing it's job or turning into the KGB. However any technique that does not result in long term physical/emotional trauma does not, in my opinion, constitute torture. Specifically if this same kind of technique is performed on our own soldiers. If Navy SEALs can be water-boarded, then a bunch of low-life scumbag murdering terrorists can be water-boarded too.
The story becomes interesting when a report from Marc Thiessen (former Bush speech writer) of the Washington Post outlined a chilling attack foiled in 2002 (or later?). The plot was a 9/11 similar style attack using Asian airliners to take down Los Angeles skyscrapers, specifically the Library tower. This plot was supposedly the brainchild of Khalid Shayk Mohammed (KSM) and something he referred to as the "second wave", KSM originally wanted to include the tower as part of the 9/11 attack, but Osama vetoed the plan as too ambitious.
However dealing in the world of murky CIA operatives and highly classified documents, things are apparently complicated, especially when facts are ignored and preconceived notions are inserted. An article from Slate.com suggests that Marc Thiessen went above and beyond the call of duty and distorted some facts. Timothy Noah suggests that the Library tower plot and this alleged second wave was foiled in 2002, a year before KSM was even captured and therefore torture techniques were used for shits and giggles. This piece has obviously made it's way through the liberal circles and is now being used as a chief counter-argument to Thiessen's original evidence. Mr. Noah of course includes the mandatory Bush bashing by pointing out that Bush called the tower 'Liberty tower' and not 'Library tower', because failing to mention this critical piece of information would be blasphemous.
However if you read the Slate article carefully you quickly realize just how shockingly stupid and dangerous the article is. His main point is that using airliners after 9/11 would not have been practical because security would have been so much tougher. Maybe that is true, but who cares on what Mr. Noah *thinks*? If the terrorist wanted to fly some more planes into towers, then that was their intentions.
Much more importantly however, Mr. Noah ignores the fact that it was Abu Zubaydah that was water-boarded and it was this torture that extracted the information of the Second Wave attack and ultimately led to the capture of KSM! Marc never claimed that we tortured KSM and therefore we foiled the attack, but Mr. Noah either failed to read the piece before trashing it or has significant reading comprehension impairment. Ultimately the water-boarding of Abu Zubaydah and KSM lead to multiple foiled plots, the capture of KSM, the possible capture of Jose Padilla, disrupting and ultimately stopping al-Zarqawi's Iraqi operation and many more. But to liberals itching to jump to a conclusion, life is just too simple:
"How could Sheikh Mohammed's water-boarded confession have prevented the Library Tower attack if the Bush administration "broke up" that attack during the previous year? It couldn't, of course. Conceivably the Bush administration, or at least parts of the Bush administration, didn't realize until Sheikh Mohammed confessed under torture that it had already broken up a plot to blow up the Library Tower about which it knew nothing. Stranger things have happened."
Indeed Mr. Noah, strangers things have happened, some liberals have used their brains in the past.
Stunningly, liberal critics and natural opponents of torture have in their passionate zeal distorted even the most basic facts in order to achieve their ultimate goal, break down and stop the only methods that were effective in curtailing terrorism. I guess they prefer the appeasement policies of Bill Clinton under whom the WTC was attacked in 1993, USS Cole bombed, N. Korea built nukes and Osama bin Laden/KSM masterminded the most devastating attack against America. Will liberals ever learn?
P.S. I do not condone torture and am extremely aware of the fine line between CIA doing it's job or turning into the KGB. However any technique that does not result in long term physical/emotional trauma does not, in my opinion, constitute torture. Specifically if this same kind of technique is performed on our own soldiers. If Navy SEALs can be water-boarded, then a bunch of low-life scumbag murdering terrorists can be water-boarded too.
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