Stephen King

Water-Boarding Saved Lives (Helped Kill Osama Too)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Cleaned Up A bit — Originally Posted May 2, 2011)

I posted this on my Facebook:

  • This capture and killing of Osama would not have been possible without Bush being in office. We water-boarded a handful of people, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being one. He is the guy who gave up the codename for the courier that led to this “justice being served.” …. Confirmation came through other interrogations at Guantanamo Bay — something Dems wanted to close as well.

Firstly, we know that Democrats/liberals are against water-boarding, except if it were done to Bush’s daughters. You think I am kidding? Stepephen King, novelist and outspoken Democrat, said this:

Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn’t think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture.

I RESPOND:

I agree with Stephen King, IF Jenna Bush had detailed information about a plot that was already under-way to destroy the Library Tower in L.A., by all means, waterboard her. But don’t ask if it is torture after… one should, rather, ask her if she is allergic to peas. Because that’s one staple she will be getting with her meals a few times a week in her lifelong prison cell.

You see, Democrats have what Thomas Sowell calls first tier thinking, they never make it to the second tier. They simply act upon how something makes them feel: “this makes me feel uneasy, therefore, I will act against what engenders my feeling.” They do not make it to the second tier, which asks “how does this affect society and other people besides me.” Many do not understand even how they make decisions. Dr. Sowell isn’t worried as much about Johnny not being able to read, rather, he is worried about how Johnny makes decisions: “The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.” This applies to Democratic decision making. It is this thinking that muddled the proper historical application of torture and the Geneva Convention (see: WWII, Nazi’s, Torture, & Rights (4 Imported Articles — Very Important Read To Formulate Proper Views of History and Responses to Revisionist History). One of my favorite lines from the linked post is comparing key information gotten from Nazi’s captured during WWII is this:

  • If anyone believes that SIS persuaded each of these 19 hard-bitten Nazi spies to fall in with Operation Fortitude by merely offering them tea, biscuits, and lectures in democracy, they’re being profoundly naïve.

One of the problems with Democratic thinking is in regards to “moral equivalency.” I point this out in a post about water-boarding and how the Democratic leadership views our military:

The Obama administration is backtracking on its statement that some may be open to legal prosecution for their involvement in the “torturing” three members of Al Qaeda. The problem of the Democrats is moral equivalency. While they say Republican see thing in black-and-white, and they see things in shades of grey (with thanks to Dennis Prager), they in fact see all torture techniques — putting a guy in a small cell with bugs — as morally wrong. They do not see gradations of “torture” like they do not see gradations between cultures and social-issues (moral equivalency of marriage, for instance).

See for instance Democrats calling our military Nazi’s and Terrorists:

I can here recommend a book by Michelle Malkin entitled,  “Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild“; and another book by an ex-dem entitled,  “Leaving the Left: Moments in the News That Made Me Ashamed to Be a Liberal.”

Later in this same post Peter Hoekstra points out that, “Perhaps we need an investigation not of the enhanced interrogation program, but of what the Obama administration may be doing to endanger the security our nation has enjoyed because of interrogations and other antiterrorism measures implemented since Sept. 12, 2001.”Thankfully we had a President that knew at what cost information comes and was willing to implement the program that stopped sooo many deaths! This can be exemplified in Marc Thiessen debating Democrats on the issue:

Marc Thiessen

  • FLASHBACK: Mark Thiessen Waterboarding (C-SPAN 2010)

  • FLASHBACK: Marc Thiessen Confronts CNN’s Waterboarding Propaganda (Jan 2010)

Waterboarding Success Stories: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Library Tower: (This excerpt is from a site that has lost this page, but the gist is found at NATIONAL REVIEW and FREE REPUBLIC)

The waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is often cited as one of the major waterboarding “success stories”. ABC News reporter Brian Ross credited waterboarding for the crucial information used to avert the destruction of Library Tower.

ROSS: That has happened in some cases where the material that’s been given has not been accurate, has been essentially to stop the torture. In the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the information was very valuable, particularly names and addresses of people who were involved with al Qaeda in this country and in Europe. And in one particular plot, which would involve an airline attack on the tallest building in Los Angeles, known as the Library Tower.

The US Bank Tower plot was revealed to the public by President Bush on February 9, 2006 in a speech to the National Guard Association:

In the weeks after September the 11th, while Americans were still recovering from an unprecedented strike on our homeland, al Qaeda was already busy planning its next attack. We now know that in October 2001, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad — the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks — had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door, and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West Coast. We believe the intended target was Liberty [sic] Tower in Los Angeles, California.

Rather than use Arab hijackers as he had on September the 11th, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad sought out young men from Southeast Asia — whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion. To help carry out this plan, he tapped a terrorist named Hambali [Riduan Isamuddin], one of the leaders of an al Qaeda affiliated group in Southeast Asia called “J-I” [Jemaah Islamiyah]. JI terrorists were responsible for a series of deadly attacks in Southeast Asia, and members of the group had trained with al Qaeda. Hambali recruited several key operatives who had been training in Afghanistan. Once the operatives were recruited, they met with Osama bin Laden, and then began preparations for the West Coast attack.

Their plot was derailed in early 2002 when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al Qaeda operative. Subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations made clear the intended target, and how al Qaeda hoped to execute it. This critical intelligence helped other allies capture the ringleaders and other known operatives who had been recruited for this plot. The West Coast plot had been thwarted.

Which aspects of this plot could Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s waterboarding have revealed?

  • We learned about Al Qaeda’s interest in flying planes into buildings on September 11, 2001.
  • We knew about Al Qaeda’s use of shoe bombs from Richard Reid, captured in December 22, 2001.
  • We knew about Jemaah Islamiyah at least since the Bali Bomb attack on October 12, 2002.
  • The “key al Qaeda operative” and pilot for the plot, Zaini Zakari, was arrested by Malaysian authorities in December 2002.

“His sufferings must be that of a

man who is drowning, but cannot drown.”

— Lt. Grover Flint —

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on March 1, 2003 — after the plot was discovered, after the plot was “derailed”, after the pilot of the plane was captured. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed could not have “provided valuable information and saved lives” when all aspects of the plot were well-known and the attack had been foiled prior to his capture. Coercive interrogation is extremely effective at obtaining confessions. Evidence obtained from coercive interrogation is highly dubious and must be corroborated with reliable sources. The claims of interrogators who coerce their prisoners should be treated with as much skepticism as the claims of the prisoners themselves.

You can add the death of a terror mastermind (Osama) to the above list of positives!