Kill But Don't Waterboard

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/05/10/obama_values_kill_but_dont_waterboard_109802.html

Obama Values: Kill But Don't Waterboard
By Debra Saunders
At the end of his "60 Minutes" interview, President Obama said of Osama bin Laden's death, "Justice was done. And I think that anyone who would question that the perpetrator of mass murder on American soil didn't deserve what he got needs to have their head examined.
The longer he serves in office, the more Obama sounds like George W. Bush.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd also has started to sound like Bush. In her Sunday column, "Killing Evil Doesn't Make Us Evil," Dowd writes that when Navy SEALs shot and killed bin Laden, it seemed like "the only civilized and morally sound response."

To review: Obama and Dowd long have claimed that it was morally reprehensible for U.S. intelligence operatives to waterboard 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Candidate Obama said that waterboarding was "never acceptable" because it contradicts our values. Obama even dished his now-Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, for having said in 2006 that she would authorize brutal interrogation measures to prevent a terrorist attack.


Apparently, it is consistent with Obama's and Dowd's values to shoot and kill an unarmed bin Laden -- as long as you don't waterboard him to learn possible intelligence that might prevent a terrorist attack first.

It's amazing how partisan politics can make the medicine go down.

Pelosi Flip-Flops

The Intellectual Dishonesty of Nancy Pelosi
ContentionsThe Intellectual Dishonesty of Nancy PelosiPeter Wehner 05.03.2011 - 9:40 AM


Here’s Nancy Pelosi from a press conference on September 7, 2006:

[E]ven if [Osama bin Laden] is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done . . . is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.
And here’s Nancy Pelosi yesterday:
The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaida. . . . I salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta, our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this major accomplishment. . . . [T]he death of Osama bin Laden is historic. . . .

This devastating then-and-now comparison comes to us courtesy of John Hinderaker of Power Line. It underscores the degree to which partisanship can ravage people’s fair-mindedness and, in the process, make them look like fools and hacks. Such things aren’t uncommon in politics—but what is rare is to see such intellectual dishonesty proven so conclusively.

Waterboarding helped

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/03/panetta_open_question_if_waterboarding_helped_find_bin_laden.html

Panetta: "Open Question" If Waterboarding Helped Find Bin Laden


BRIAN WILLIAMS: I'd like to ask you about the sourcing on the intel that ultimately led to this successful attack. Can you confirm that it was as a result of waterboarding that we learned what we needed to learn to go after bin Laden?


LEON PANETTA: You know Brian, in the intelligence business you work from a lot of sources of information, and that was true here. We had a multiple source -- a multiple series of sources -- that provided information with regards to this situation. Clearly, some of it came from detainees and the interrogation of detainees. But we also had information from other sources as well. So, it's a little difficult to say it was due just to one source of information that we got.

WILLIAMS: Turned around the other way, are you denying that waterboarding was in part among the tactics used to extract the intelligence that led to this successful mission?

PANETTA: No, I think some of the detainees clearly were, you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I'm also saying that, you know, the debate about whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.

WILLIAMS: So, finer point, one final time, enhanced interrogation techniques -- which has always been kind of a handy euphemism in these post-9/11 years -- that includes waterboarding?

PANETTA: That's correct.

Bush Hater

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/04/lib_talker_when_will_navy_seals_take_out_george_bush.html

Lib Talker: When Will Navy SEALs Take Out George W. Bush?