CIA Memos: Obama Releases What Makes Us Look Bad, Conceals What Makes Us Look Good

Start Thinking Right ^ | April 21, 2009 | Michael Eden

[Michael Eden]

President Obama released legal memos revealing our interrogation methods of terrorists, essentially referring to the Bush years following 9/11 as a "dark and painful chapter in our history."

Thus we found out that:

Prisoners could be kept awake for more than a week. They could be stripped of their clothes, fed nothing but liquid and thrown against a wall 30 consecutive times.

In one case, the CIA was told it could prey on one prisoner's fear of insects by stuffing him into a box with a bug. When all else failed, the CIA could turn to what a Justice Department memo described as "the most traumatic" interrogation technique of all, waterboarding.

What Obama refused to allow the American people to learn was that these things worked and kept us safe.

Cheney Calls For More CIA Reports To Be Declassified Mon Apr 20 2009 16:20:53 ET

In a two part interview airing tonight and tomorrow night on FOX News Channel’s Hannity (9-10PM ET), former Vice President Dick Cheney shared his thoughts on the CIA memos that were recently declassified and also revealed his request to the CIA to declassify additional memos that confirm the success of the Bush administration’s interrogation tactics:

CHENEY: “One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified.”

“I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven't announced this up until now, I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.”

“And I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions.”

In short, Obama wanted to release only the stuff that made America and the Bush administration look bad. He DID NOT want to release the stuff that made America and the Bush administration look good. And that should really bother you.

Mind you, we shouldn't have released ANYTHING.

WASHINGTON - Four former CIA directors opposed releasing classified Bush-era interrogation memos, officials say, describing objections that went all the way to the White House and slowed release of the records.

Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch all called the White House in March warning that release of the so-called "torture memos" would compromise intelligence operations, current and former officials say. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to detail internal government discussions.

The Obama mentality seems to be that the terrorists aren't our enemy; George Bush is the real enemy, and anything that discredits him - even if it provides aid to terrorists and allows them to be more successful in the future even as our own ability to stop them is undermined - is worth pursuing.

Former CIA Director General Michael Hayden - a career intelligence professional unlike the career political hack Obama appointed to head the CIA - offered the following in an op-ed entitled, "The President Ties His Own Hands On Terror":

[On the impact of the CIA as an institution]: "The release of these opinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound as a matter of policy. Its effect will be to invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on Sept. 11, 2001."....

[On the ability of the terrorists to resist American interrogations in the future]: "[P]ublic disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus of the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them, and can supplement their training accordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques as they have the ones in the Army Field Manual."....

[On the morale and effectiveness of our CIA officers in the future]: "The effect of this disclosure on the morale and effectiveness of many in the intelligence community is not hard to predict. Those charged with the responsibility of gathering potentially lifesaving information from unwilling captives are now told essentially that any legal opinion they get as to the lawfulness of their activity is only as durable as political fashion permits. Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA operations personnel would take the risk? There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that legal guidance is durable."...

The money quote of the Hayden piece has got to be this:

"fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those [harsh] interrogations."

In short:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A former head of the US Central Intelligence Agency insisted Sunday that harsh interrogation techniques widely condemned as torture had succeeded in battling Al-Qaeda and saving American lives, something he characterized as "an inconvenient truth."

Michael Hayden, who was replaced as CIA chief earlier this year by President Barack Obama, assailed Obama's decision last week to release "Top Secret" memos detailing the interrogation techniques as "really dangerous" for US intelligence efforts.

We had darned good reason for waterboarding terrorists such as Abu Zubaydah. Our guys washed the defiance right out of those murderers' hair.

I demand that Barack Hussein address the nation and assure us that the comfort of a terrorist is more important to him than an American city, and that he would rather that ten million Americans perish in a terrorist attack than that one terrorist with "ticking time bomb" knowledge be waterboarded. Let's lay it on the line. Let's allow the American people to decide, "Our lives and the lives of our families aren't worth the 'torturing' of a terrorist. The president is right." Or NOT.

But that won't be the kind of honesty we'll get. We won't get any real honesty at all. Rather, in the guise of "openness," and "transparency," Obama will only let us have enough information to lead us to a false conclusion that America and George Bush really were evil.

Finally, if we are attacked again, I further demand that Barack Hussein be impeached and removed from office for refusing to uphold his sworn Constitutional duty to defend and protect America. I demand that he be held personally responsible for his dismantling of our intelligence capability. And I demand that he - rather than the officials who tried to protect us following the worst attack in American history - be criminally prosecuted for depraved indifference by abandoning measures that successfully protected the citizens of this country in favor of political ideology.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I just posted this:

Why Obama Won’t Release ALL the CIA Memos on “Torture”

[Michael Eden]

There are some fantastic source articles on this link. It’s frankly hard to believe that Democrats can be so utterly incompetent and foolish and get elected.

[SECURE AMERICA]

President Obama released legal memos revealing our interrogation methods of terrorists, essentially referring to the Bush years following 9/11 as a “dark and painful chapter in our history.”

So the current President of the United States thinks that actions during a war that saved thousands of American lives is a dark and painful period?
I think America’s dark and painful period has just begun........

[Huskrrrr]

“dark and painful chapter in our history.”

You aint’ seen nothing yet, terrorists around the world are licking their chops.

[Michael Eden]

I’m not going to hope that an American city gets nailed. There are too many heroic people desperately trying to keep such a thing from happening to hope for it (although, having said that, we Obama DID TALK about “hope” without ever really getting into content details, didn’t he?).

But a terrorist attack would almost certainly be the quickest path back to conservative rule. People will be so damn angry at the undermining of American domestic security that they will be all in favor of hunting down Democrats with dogs.

I hope our intelligence professionals continue to strive to protect this country.

But if there IS an attack, I will hopefully be just one among hundreds of millions of Americans who will be on Obama and Democrats like flies on the festering sore on a horse’s ass. Because NOBODY will be more personally responsible for such an event than Barack Hussein.

[LaineyDee]

But a terrorist attack would almost certainly be the quickest path back to conservative rule.

It would also be the quickest path for Obama to declare Martial law and suspend that pesky Constitution, eh?

[Michael Eden]

But a terrorist attack would almost certainly be the quickest path back to conservative rule.

It would also be the quickest path for Obama to declare Martial law and suspend that pesky Constitution, eh?
- - - - - - - - -

Man, that would be fun. Imagine the Civil War we’d have, as the guy who caused us to get attacked by terrorists imposed martial law to protect us from rightwing extremists (see DHS report)?

[LaineyDee]

He’d find a way to blame it on Bush.... and unfortunately... 50% of the population would believe it...

[Huskrrrr]

Yes, I agree. We saw what Americans were made of after the 9/11 attacks, both Dems and Republicans. Nothing compares to the resolve we Americans will display during a national crisis. I try to remember we are all Americans first when being critical of liberal politics. I hope we would return to a strong defensive posture before another attack takes place. Our public schools have demonized the military and failed to point out what the world would be like w/o the US military's present in potential trouble spots around the world. I not optimistic at this time.