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CIA: Waterboarding Prevented 9/11-style Attack on Los Angeles
by: Scott Martin posted: 2009-04-21 21:46:00
Viewed 695 times. 10 Comments.
Assuming that you think America engaged in torture, which I doubt most Americans do when they've looked at the actual acts, we now have word from the CIA of the fruit of their effort.
The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.Before he was waterboarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, “Soon, you will know.”
KSM was a little less cocky after the waterboarding.
According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack -- which KSM called the “Second Wave”-- planned “ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles...”“In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including KSM and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques,” says the Justice Department memo. “Both KSM and Zubaydah had ‘expressed their belief that the general US population was ‘weak,’ lacked resilience, and would be unable to ‘do what was necessary’ to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals.’"
Next up is a much-needed public debate on whether it was worth it. Since I don't believe it was torture, I obviously am quite pleased. I imagine that if I did think it was torture, I'd still be quite pleased. How about you?
Tags: terrorism, Torture, War on Terror,
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Comments 10
It is a little unclear, did he capitulate after the first try or was it the 153rd attempt that finally got him?
I don't think it matters, John, particularly to the few thousand people in LA that are alive today because of it.
But I guess you value this terrorist piece of crap over the lives of Americans.
I lost friends in 9-11. My cousin was a fireman in Brooklyn - we were together in Canada when it happened. He lost dozens of men he worked with over his 30 years as a fireman.
My priority is American lives. I don't give a rat's ass about some terrorist and how we extract information from him. But you do. That's called a difference of opinion.
Again, I am certain that there are a few thousand people in LA living their lives today that would not be - and plenty more like me that lost friends that have not all because we poured water done some scumbag's nose.
I have no issue with it. None. I think we should still be doing it.
I don't care for your anecdotes, Clyde.
Why must you put words in my mouth? I made no comment for or against torture, yet to even respond you had to assign me to the enemy camp. How does this inspire dialogue, Clyde? Please, can you show how I revealed my disapproval of water boarding or torture?
Two friends and I water boarded each other for fun with a bucket of water and an inclined bench in the garage last summer. It was not real in that I gave the go. I lasted 4 seconds and promptly vomited all over myself. It was unpleasant. I thought I would handle it better. It was worse than exploding capillaries with a medical laser and I also preferred the time I drilled a 3/8" hole into 1st metacarpal, but the bit was quite sharp. This isn't my point.
My snarky question did have purpose however. Based on my experience, you'd get used to the sensation long before the 153rd try. You'd definitely get used to the routine. So what's the purpose? Punishment? That I have a problem with. Just for fun? I also have a problem with that.
I have no problem with torture for utilitarian purposes if you can demonstrate the worth, but its degrading and sad when such actions are dictated by emotion. Probably the main difference between myself and the many is that I have the balls to take a utilitarian approach to morality to its logical and, essentially genocidal conclusion.
JHB
You don't care for my anecdotes? I just share my thoughts as you share yours. No need to take umbrage with them.
My mind is changed - now I am against waterboarding.
That terrorist plot was derailed in early in early 2002, nearly a year before Khalid Sheik Mohammed was arrested. They obtained information about a plan that they had already prevented from occuring.
From President Bush:
"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....
....Their plot was derailed in early 2002 when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al Qaeda operative. "
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060209-2.html >
Khalid Sheik Mohammed was arrested in March 2003. Explain to me again how his waterboarding prevented this attack?
I think it's wonderful, Susan, that you can rely upon presently available public information and see the flow of events so clearly. Having had my security clearances and watching public versus private information, I have no doubt that we gained valuable and timely information in the interrogations, and that the information released so far is nowhere near complete.
"I think it's wonderful, Susan, that you can rely upon presently available public information and see the flow of events so clearly."
LOL. I too think its wonderful, Clyde, that both myself AND Scott can do this.
Have an opinion?
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