Abu Zubaydah’s Come to Allah moment
Don’t miss the WaPo’s interview with John Kiriakou, an ex-CIA agent who helped interrogate al Qaeda biggie Abu Zubaydah and described the religious effect of waterboarding on the jihadist. Reader Steve G. calls it Zubaydah’s “Come To Allah Moment:”
In an interview, Kiriakou said he did not witness Abu Zubaida’s waterboarding but was part of the interrogation team that questioned him in a hospital in Pakistan for weeks after his capture in that country in the spring of 2002.
He described Abu Zubaida as ideologically zealous, defiant and uncooperative — until the day in mid-summer when his captors strapped him to a board, wrapped his nose and mouth in cellophane and forced water into his throat in a technique that simulates drowning.
The waterboarding lasted about 35 seconds before Abu Zubaida broke down, according to Kiriakou, who said he was given a detailed description of the incident by fellow team members. The next day, Abu Zubaida told his captors he would tell them whatever they wanted, Kiriakou said.
“He said that Allah had come to him in his cell and told him to cooperate, because it would make things easier for his brothers,” Kiriakou said.
Ed Morrissey boils down the choice Congress faces–a choice that moonbats in fantasy land pretend doesn’t exist:
Bottom line: if we outlaw the procedure, it should not be with the understanding that someone can order its use and that Congress will forgive it later, depending on the circumstances. If those who propose that as a solution believe that certain circumstances warrant its use, then they should write laws that allow it — and keep men like Kiriakou from having to determine whether to follow what amounts to an illegal order. If this Congress outlaws waterboarding, they will have the responsibility for the potential intel loss that it creates, and the damage that loss eventually does.
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Yeah, because the Democrat way was oh so effective for so many years. That is why we didn’t have any terrorism at all for decades. Then, along came Little president Bush, and he had a plan to change it all. He took four planes, flew them into some buildings and the ground, blamed some poor people of the desert who had a really nice religion that nobody understood and blammo…screwed up the whole world.
Isn’t that it? Isn’t that what you guys are saying in essence? After all, the Dems had control of Congress for how many decades? And what was going on in the Middle East during all that time? How many terrorist attacks were occurring? Just how many terrorist attacks happened against American held interests under Clinton, Hmmmmm? How was that? What? I couldn’t hear you. How was he getting his info? Was he using usual methids of interrogation from those people he had arrested? I’m a little bit shakey on the subject. After all, he did sooooo much to retaliate after every one of those attacks against our interests…such as the barracks, the apartments, the Cole, the Twin Towers in 93….
What? You say he sat on his hands AND DID NOTHING???? NO!!!!! And yet you are wondering why there is not a single one of us that can believe it when you tell us that the Dems are going to do squat to protect this country or retaliate against these prehistoric beasts when they hit us again?
You creeps really haven’t a clue as to what is going on in the world do you? I mean, seriously. It is really all about how you feel and what it appears to be with you. As long as we look good to the world and as long as you feel good about what we do, then to hell if we are actually accomplishing anything or are any safer or getting anywhere. To hell if our guys are actually safe in Iraq. “Oh, Bush isn’t spending enough on body armor or armored Humvees” Well now what? How do you look now? How do you feel now? “We aren’t paying another dime for body armor or armored humvees.
You people make me sick. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, but that would involve having a conscience and a soul, and you have neither one. Sickening, the whole lot of you. How many soldiers deaths have your actions directly had an affect on. Havce you ever wondered that? Why don’t you sit and think about it. I bet there is a family sitting at home without a loved one this Christmas missing them all because you voted some jackass into office that is now trying to keep funding out and trying to lose this war for them, or you attended a protest that gave our enemy the gumption to go out and kill anopther American. That’s right, your actions have killed American soldiers.
Congratulations boys. Good strong work
Two problems with that, BOB.
First, they’re just as likely to be asked to join the gang as guest hosts.
Second - you really think it would take longer than boarding?
They don’t support the troops. Why would they care how many of them die as a result of their politics?
Didn’t one of the newspaper liberals recently inform us that with the troops overseas, the average IQ in the USA rose? Don’t the films all show them as mindless murdering thugs who rape and abuse civilians? Didn’t they believe Scott Beauchamp, and that the Haditha Marines were all guilty? Didn’t John Kerry accuse them of breaking down doors in the middle of the night and terrorizing innocent women and children? Don’t they routinely refer to the terrorists as “freedom fighters” and “insurgents”? Why would any democrat/liberal care in the slightest what happens to our troops. I can only hope the troops have long memories.
That is a very very idealistic view of the world that is presented in that link. It assumes that if we do not torture, the enemy will not torture. After all the maimings/mutilations/beheadings of people under insurgent care, how can anyone truly believe that? What is the point of having moral superiority and feeling a sense of collective outrage when your people are tortured? What good does that do when the enemy knows that you do not have the balls or the conviction to do the same? Remember the Korean hostages in Afghanistan? Why were the Taliban able to threaten to kill their hostages with impunity, knowing that their comrades in captivity will not suffer the same fate as the Koreans? The answer is this. We already have the moral superiority. People can weep and wail over its ‘loss’, but our enemies see it as clear as day. Not only do they see it, they are willing to exploit it.
Putting waterboarding on the same level as other forms of torture smacks of moral equivalence to me. I mean, a doctor and a psychologist is present during waterboarding. Do you think the VCs did that in vietnam? Do you think Al-Qaeda does that? The Taliban? Thought not.
It is all well and good deploring the use of waterboarding and the alleged loss of America’s moral superiority. What none of the critics ever do is provide an alternative that works.
Two cheers for waterboarding!
Hip-hip hooray!
Hip-hip hooray!
Terrorists aren’t entitled to the protections outlined in the Geneva Convention, so ol’ Johnny Jihad can wear cellophane and blow bubbles …
… and when he’s done, he can sing like a canary…
… and not a tear will I shed, nor wink of sleep will I miss.
Which is not equivalent to the statement “waterboarding does not and cannot yield actionable intelligence,” which is the stated position of many opponents of the practice.
And not to quibble, but contrary to what Soyster casually claims, the practice of waterboarding by the CIA is not illegal.
Utter crap, cRusty. Utter crap.
And what on God’s green earth does highly questionable mean anyway?
If we make goo goo eyes at these creeps and give them chicken cordon bleu and they spill their guts, then what? The intel is NOT highly questionable.
Dumb bunnies all in a row. Educate them, send them to college, teach them how to spell and read— and they end up saying that all the information derived from prisoners who are “tortured” is “highly questionable”.
News flash bunny! It is all questionable. It all has to be verified.
Another news flash: everyone breaks. It is just a question of when and what the enemy wants from them.
We haven’t been attacked in over 6 years.
Do you think that is why? Because the intel was highly questionable? People are working tooth and nail to paint the US intelligence apparatus as incompetent and useless too. So everything is questionable in this “police state” the left is so afraid we are living in. I think the preferred term is “nazi”. Well, got news for you: the torture was effective then and it is effective now. And the intelligence apparatus was deadly effective as well.
So which is it? Effective or not. Nazi or not? Police state or free state?
The Left cannot have it both ways.
A police state is not a bunch of bungling bureaucrats and a state department that cannot man its embassies.
Why are you even here? This recent pearl is total crap.
Who the hell are these “experienced military and intelligence professionals”.
Name names. Quote sources. Otherwise, shut your pie hole.
Of course there is going to be a few who say it doesn’t work. They are supposed to say that. Deflect. Diffuse the debate. Distract. Create an opposing view point out of thin air.
This is war being fought by the Greatest Nation in history. And nowhere in our history have we become the enemy through our tactics.
But it was still war and war means killing and brutality. Pay now or pay later.
Unless you are willing to name the sources who say Frat Boy Hazing is ineffective, shut it. (Thank you to 2 ninerkilo).
March on.
30,000 al-Qaeda dead in Iraq. Did that happen by “talking” to the captives? Who cares? Find em. Shoot em. Move on.
Captives from the battlefield: bullet in the brain or life in the brig after they are broken and any scrap of Intel, every crum is scraped from their brains.
Let the CIA, the FBI, and the military do what they are supposed to do: protect against enemies foreign and domestic.
As for Congress, pinch one or get off the pot already. They sound like a bunch of tenderfoots out on the trail who must argue with their wilderness guides about the best way to move in the wilderness.
Enough already. Get the information needed to kill our enemies.
End of story.