Today's news is filled with reports about "torture" tactics used by the CIA in questioning high value al Qaeda prisoners in the years right after 9-11. ABC and Yahoo news breathlessly tell us that it wasn't just waterboarding. Both news organizations report that prisoners were deprived of sleep, kept in the dark or isolated, put in tiny cells that kept them in cramped positions, and threatened or even beaten. Of course, none of the reports tell us whether these tactics were common, occasional or rare. Nevertheless, the reports talk about all of this like it's news, but the reality is that it is not. Anyone who saw the movie Zero Dark Thirty watched the CIA operatives use all these tactics. Obviously, a movie is not the same as a Senate committee report (although I sometimes wonder which has more validity.) In truth, however, the fact that each of these methods was shown in the movie tells us that the report is just rehashing old news. I could have told anyone who asked that I had seen prior reports of the use of these tactics. And lets be clear: not all of this even comes close to torture.
So what's the point of the Senate Committee report? Remember, what was released today is an Executive Summary of the report, a summary that goes on for over 500 pages. There was no need to include all that detail, particularly since it just rehashes things that have been discussed for years. The only reason to release the report now is so that the Democrats on the committee can make their far left base happy by officially embarrassing the CIA and the USA. The fact that the report hurts our intelligence capabilities doesn't matter to these folks. Nor does the fact that the report will likely result in allies refusing to share intelligence with America in the future. Politics has won over the good of the country.
Just remember this: When president Obama took office in 2009, he had enormous majorities in both houses of Congress. If Obama had really wanted to change the process used by the CIA, he could have issued a directive to the CIA on this subject. Obama did not do that in any meaningful way. If the Democrats had really wanted to change the law so that this could never happen again, they could have passed such a statute without any problem. Of course, they did not even attempt to do so.
Let's ignore this for the political side show that it really is.
So what's the point of the Senate Committee report? Remember, what was released today is an Executive Summary of the report, a summary that goes on for over 500 pages. There was no need to include all that detail, particularly since it just rehashes things that have been discussed for years. The only reason to release the report now is so that the Democrats on the committee can make their far left base happy by officially embarrassing the CIA and the USA. The fact that the report hurts our intelligence capabilities doesn't matter to these folks. Nor does the fact that the report will likely result in allies refusing to share intelligence with America in the future. Politics has won over the good of the country.
Just remember this: When president Obama took office in 2009, he had enormous majorities in both houses of Congress. If Obama had really wanted to change the process used by the CIA, he could have issued a directive to the CIA on this subject. Obama did not do that in any meaningful way. If the Democrats had really wanted to change the law so that this could never happen again, they could have passed such a statute without any problem. Of course, they did not even attempt to do so.
Let's ignore this for the political side show that it really is.
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