Sunday, December 09, 2007

Waterboarding as a political springboard

Apparently all the hoopla by la Dems on waterboarding is nothing more than political smoke and mirrors.

According to WaPo's
"Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002" article today, four members - including Pelosi - were briefed by the CIA and given a virtual tour of oversees detention camps, and interrogation techniques.... including waterboarding.

Additionally, the CIA gave key legislators over 30 private briefings on that and other techniques. Yet nary a sniff of disapproval made headlines ... until today's election era, that is.

By the time the media and partisan lawmakers started raising public objections, the CIA had abandoned waterboarding as a technique.

Then comes the recent news of the CIA destroying a 2005 interrogation tape in order to protect the identities of the agents. Naturally, it's an event initially seized upon as yet another "hate the evil Bush" moment. Yet that tape was destroyed against the advice of the WH and Justice Department. Oops... lost everyone's favorite scape goat there.

It appears the liberal/progressives have arrived at the waterboarding complaint party late, and prefer to make a non-issue an issue just for political points. As for me, I think waterboarding is far preferable to the enemy's favorite method of torture - mutilation and beheading. After all, the prisoner remains intact, and alive to kill and mutilate again. But we live in strange times - where only the US is expected to adhere to Geneva Convention rules of engagement in times of conflict.

The fact that waterboarding is akin to beating a dead horse, however, does not preclude some media working overtime to find some veteran sailor, blaming his current ills on waterboarding as part of his 1970s survival training. This all to keep the waterboarding non-issue alive and well. If they can only dig up one out of the many who underwent the same survival training to parade in public, then perhaps Mrs. McCant's woes might more readily be a result of his admitted drinking problem... a problem he's had since his honorable discharge from the Navy in 1977. His credibility seems tarnished as the timing of his public complaint - magically naming the new hot button issue waterboarding as the source of all his ills - seems johnny come lately... 30 years after his discharge.

And more equine beating? Leave it to Joe Biden... now demanding newly appointed AG Michael Mukasey appoint a special counsel for the taxpayer wasting dollar investigation into the destroyed CIA interrogation tape. Evidently, since he wouldn't condemn waterboarding as torture during the confirmation hearings, he doesn't trust him to lead the investigation.

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