"As a senior interrogator in Iraq...Let me dissect...Cheney's speech"

[ProSense]

What's Not Said is More Important Than What is Said

by: MajorMatthew
Sun May 24, 2009 at 10:54:44 AM EDT

( - promoted by Brandon Friedman)

As a senior interrogator in Iraq (and a former criminal investigator), there was a lesson I learned that served me well: there's more to be learned from what someone doesn't say than from what they do say. Let me dissect former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech on National Security using this model and my interrogation skills.
First, VP Cheney said:

"This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately. . .it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do."

He further stated:

"It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so."

That is simply untrue. Anyone who served in Iraq, and veterans on both sides of the aisle have made this argument, knows that the foreign fighters did not come to Iraq en masse until after the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I heard this from captured foreign fighters day in and day out when I was supervising interrogations in Iraq. What the former Vice President didn't say is the fact that the dislike of our policies in the Middle East were not enough to make thousands of Muslim men pick up arms against us before these revelations. Torture and abuse became Al Qaida's number one recruiting tool and cost us American lives.

Secondly, the former Vice President, in saying that waterboarding is not torture, never mentions the fact that it was the United States and its Allies, during the Tokyo Trials, that helped convict a Japanese soldier for war crimes for waterboarding one of Jimmie Doolittle's Raiders. Have our morals and values changed in fifty years? He also did not mention that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both prohibited their troops from torturing prisoners of war. Washington specifically used the term "injure" -- no mention of severe mental or physical pain.

Thirdly, the former Vice President never mentioned the Senate testimony of Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator who successfully interrogated Abu Zubaydah and learned the identity of Jose Padilla, the dirty bomber, and the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) was the mastermind behind 9/11. We'll never know what more we could have discovered from Abu Zubaydah had not CIA contractors taken over the interrogations and used waterboarding and other harsh techniques. Also, glaringly absent from the former Vice President's speech was any mention of the fact that the former Administration never brought Osama bin Laden to justice and that our best chance to locate him would have been through KSM or Abu Zubaydah had they not been waterboarded.

more

[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[grantcart]

4. Not getting comments because it was posted several times yesterday

It is a very strong statement and worth the repeats for people who missed it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8430052&mesg_id=8430052

[ProSense]

5. Ah, didn't see. Thanks. n/t

[grantcart]

6. Mine wasn't the first on it either, apparently.

[rustydog]

2. Yep. Arguing that "torture worked" can be blown out of the water

by asking one question: " Hey Dick, if torture worked so well, where the fuck is bin Laden?"

Of course it is a stupid question, the real question is: "Why did you break American and international law to draw America into an invasion of a sovereign nation who posed no threat to America and had nothing to do with 9-11?"

[Kaleko]

3. RE: The last sentence in your quote -

Also, glaringly absent from the former Vice President's speech was any mention of the fact that the former Administration never brought Osama bin Laden to justice and that our best chance to locate him would have been through KSM or Abu Zubaydah had they not been waterboarded.

When is it going to dawn on a majority of Americans that the Cheney gang never intended to bring bin Laden to justice? Refuting the indefensible arguments of the swine is getting awfully tiresome.