Is “waterboarding” torture? Oh in 2002 it wasn’t! As reported by Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen of the Washington Post. Just ask Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi who was given a virtual tour in 2002 of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk, waterboarding included.
Did Pelosi or other Democrats decry the techniques as violating the Geneva Convention or as inhumanity cruel then? No. Why? It wasn’t politically expedient to do so then and Liberals do nothing unless it is politically expedient!
In fact no objections were raised by the bipartisan panel that was briefed on interrogation techniques used by the CIA. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder according to Warrick and Eggen, "The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
Liberals and Democrats now seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. Why? Political expediency.
Before waterboarding became the evil with which to beat Republicans over the head with, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 (count them)that’s 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.
Any queasy stomachs then? Only one, other than that no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter.
The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).
"In fairness, the environment was different then because we were closer to Sept. 11 and people were still in a panic," said one U.S. official present during the early briefings. "But there was no objecting, no hand-wringing. The attitude was, 'We don't care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.' "-- Warrick and Eggen, Washington Post
It’s like the 2004 Presidential election when a President with military experience was of the utmost importance. Democrats nominated as Senator John Kerry as their Presidential hopeful based on his Vietnam War experience against incumbent George Bush who flew fighter Jets for the National Guard.
This year because none of the leading candidates have any war experience to speak of, its funny how experience in the armed services is not a factor any more. One would think it would be because we are still in the midst of a war that was declared against the United States in 1998. If it were still a factor Republicans Duncan Hunter or John McCain would be the only candidates qualified to be President. So conveniently there is absolutely no talk, none whatsoever, about military experience of the Presidential candidates this year! What a difference a political term makes.
So in 2002 waterboarding good. Now that waterboarding can be used as a political tool against the Republicans, waterboarding is evil! Likewise in 2004 military experience was important now that the leading Liberal Presidential candidates don’t have any military experience, military experience is of no importance. Liberals are sooooo pathetically hypocritical.
Warrick and Eggen reports that, ‘Only after information about the practice began to leak in news accounts in 2005 -- by which time the CIA had already abandoned waterboarding -- did doubts about its legality among individual lawmakers evolve into more widespread dissent. The opposition reached a boiling point this past October, when Democratic lawmakers condemned the practice during Michael B. Mukasey's confirmation hearings for attorney general.’ Opportunistically the subject would be used as a political tool from this point on.
Democrats have been doing this type of convenient political opportunism and distancing themselves from policies that they knew of, where involved in and had full knowledge for years hoping that the American people would not blame them for Democrat complicity in the whole political process. Most recently you may remember Senator Dick Durbin’s claim that as one of the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee he knew that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction and he knew that the American people were being lied to. (see it for yourself)
Sen. Durbin’s wild claim that he knew that the American people were being lied to because he sat on the senate intelligence committee doesn’t add up.
Why? Durbin the Illinois Democrat claimed that he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee. Durbin was not the only Democrat on that committee.
Let’s do the math there were 9 Democrats and 8 Republicans on that committee. If all nine Democrats on the Intelligence committee felt as Sen. Durbin then 9 Democrats to 8 Republicans stops the recommendation from going to the full Senate to be voted on. The resolution to go to war with Iraq is stopped in committee never to have reached the senate floor.
Now do the math, only four Democrats Durbin and three others voted against the recommendation based on the same evidence that Senator Durbin saw and 5 Democrats along with the 8 Republicans voted for it.
Sorry Senator Durbin your opinion wasn’t even held by the majority of Democrats who were the majority on the Intelligence committee! Had it been, had a majority of Senators felt that the American people were being lied to Sen. Durbin, Democrats could have done like you and voted against sending the resolution to the full Congress.
And subsequently Congress would not have given the President authority to go to war with Iraq. But once again Democrats use convenient political opportunism to try distance themselves from the decision to go to war. How pathetic!
Conversely, what Senator Durbin statement does is unwillingly support the Bush administration’s assertion that the Senate had the same information regarding the war as the administration did with which to base their decisions.
Mr. Durbin, lied when he said that half the Democrats on the intelligence committee voted against the war over concerns of the White House's case for war. In addition what Mr. Durbin doesn’t tell you is that there were nine Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and five of them voted for the measure as did all eight Republicans to send recommendation to the entire body to vote for use of armed force against Iraq, Liberal deception and hypocrisy as usual once again.
If as Senator Durbin contends, the White House’s case for war was not good then why did five Democrats vote to recommend to the Senate for war?
Think about it, if nine Democrats vote as Durbin did they out number eight Republicans and the authority for war in Iraq never gets out of committee. The fact is Democrats had the power to prevent this war all along from the very beginning.
So whether its waterboarding as torture, WMD or any subject Democrats depend on the public’s ignorance of the facts to dupe the unsuspecting into believing that they are better than Republicans who would stoop so low as to torture or go to war under false pretenses.
The truth of the matter is Liberal Democrats are equally as responsible for all of the so called atrocities that they blame their Republican counterparts for. The difference between the two is that Democrats believe that the American people are fools.
Why else would you lie and attempt to deceive the American people in everything from the 2000 elections were stolen to “Bush lied us into war.”
Why else would you fraudulently campaign, planting questions and the like, base your entire campaign strategy to defeat Republicans on deceiving the American people about everything if your whole Party weren’t corrupt hypocrites?
You wouldn’t but Liberal Democrats are.