Tortured Logic (President Reveals Secret Prisons program)

The President put American Security at risk today by revealing the existence of a secret network of prisons where high value detainees were taken to be tortured.  He tells us that this was worth it, because the program got a lot of useful information that helped us capture more secret detainees and thwart more possible attacks.  Of course, when the New York Times revealed the existence of the same program, it was called an act of treason that weakened America’s ability to defend itself.  Now that the White House has declassified  the information, it’s yet another example of how effective the Adminsitration has been.   Okay, I’m confused.

1. Keeping it secret is okay until it’s to your benefit for it not to be a secret anymore?  Darned Hamdan decision.

1. He doesn’t want to explain exactly how these people were tortured because then the terrorists would better figure out how to resist.

1. The United States however doesn’t “torture” according to the President, it’s just that we’re proposing a bill that might allow us to try some of these people with “coerced” testimony and we don’t want to let anyone know how we got it.

1. By the way, one of our concerns was that U.S. intelligence officers involved in this might be tried for “war crimes”.  We don’t however torture anyone because we are after all the United States.  We’re only worried because the darn U.S. Supreme Court opened the door to looking at what we’ve been doing this way.

1. Besides, we’re done with our questioning now, which explains why Al Qaeda has all but disappeared and why we’ve caught Bin Laden.  

1. We do have a new interrogation field manual that applies to armed service personnel.  This does not include CIA nor does it appear to include civilian contractors.  

To quote Olivier from “Marathon Man” “Is it safe yet?”

This  made me feel better .  The Pentagon issued this small correction story to explain why they decided to hold up the announcement of  his capture until after the mid-term election campaigns started in earnest.  

This is the same week I learned that Valerie Plame was in charge of a CIA unit looking for the proof of WMD in Iraq.  

I guess they really do expect me to look on waterboarding, threatening to kill detainee’s families, and not allowing them to be confronted with the evidence against them as  good news.  

chancelucky