Comments on: Ali Soufan Claps Back At Dick Cheney

By: greenharper

greenharper — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:41:02 +0000

I can’t rule it out.

By: Gitcheegumee

Gitcheegumee — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:00:28 +0000

@12
“Ali Soufan here implies with a great deal of credibility that EITs/torture kept us from actually getting to the Al Qaeda leadership.”

MAYBE that was the whole point?

By: sgwhiteinfla

sgwhiteinfla — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:29:51 +0000

Thanks so much for your extensive reporting on this issue Spencer. Aside from you and Marcy I don’t think anyone in the traditional media nor the blogosphere has done as much to shine a light on the truth in the CIA IG report. But I want to point out a different paragraph in Soufan’s op ed piece that, to me, is really the blockbuster. And although I am going to put my own post up about it, I think you might want to consider expounding on it as your skills dwarf mine.

Mr. Mohammed knew the location of most, if not all, of the members of Al Qaeda’s leadership council, and possibly of every covert cell around the world. One can only imagine who else we could have captured, or what attacks we might have disrupted, if Mr. Mohammed had been questioned by the experts who knew the most about him

Ali Soufan here implies with a great deal of credibility that EITs/torture kept us from actually getting to the Al Qaeda leadership. For all the torture advocates out there this two sentence paragraph pretty much destroys every single argument they have tried to put forth. I know a lot of us on the progressive side are loathe to wade into the whether it was effective or not argument, but I think the people of America need to understand that had real interrogators been allowed to do their job its highly likely that Al Qaeda, at least in its present form, would probably not exist anymore. That torture impeded instead of helped us actually get the bastards who planned and helped to carry out 9/11. The more they get that torturing somebody, as much as it may satisfy some primal instinct of revenge, doesn’t actually get the job done when it comes to bringing people to justice, the more likely they are to start actually looking at the details. Then maybe, just maybe they will notice that the people put in charge of torturing the HVDs had never conducted a real interrogation in their lives. Or that torture created a firewall between the CIA and FBI much like the pre 9/11 days which helped contributing to us not stopping 9/11 in the first place. Not that you need me to give you ideas for a story, just throwing it out there for you to consider.

By: cinnamonape

cinnamonape — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:27:03 +0000

Seems to me that the Constitution states that “military contractors” are under the “letters of marque” requirement. These are issued, not by the Executive Branch, but by Congress.

By: cinnamonape

cinnamonape — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:19:55 +0000

In fact, the EITs cost the US economy hundreds of millions of dollars since the Orange alerts were based on confessions of non-existent plots. If one considers that such “confessions” were a source of the justification for a bin Laden-Saddam link it’s cost us billions, as well as thousands of lives. Further the whole network of torture sites necessitated buy-offs from overseas militaries and corrupt ministers.

By: constantweader

constantweader — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:04:30 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. The bottom line for me was that Soufan effectively said Osama bin Laden would be sitting in Gitmo today reading Dreams of My Father if Dick Cheney hadn’t sicced the sickos on KSM.

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com

By: Jkat

Jkat — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:14:33 +0000

“contractors” need to be subject to the UCMJ ..and .. be under control by a member of the armed forces ..

we should be using the green beret/special forces model developed for use with indigenous troopers ..

as much as the right-wing likes to make us think so .. this ain’t really a game of “cowboys and indians” ..

thank ya spence .. for a fine post on this pre-holiday sunday mornin’ ..

By: Revroe

Revroe — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:13:54 +0000

what we have is a complitic,propagandizing treasonous mainstream media. It’s time to boycott them all.

By: PeasantParty

PeasantParty — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:00:36 +0000

It seems we are watching an instant replay in Afghanistan. I’ve mentioned before that we have a problem in trying NOT to occupy a country. It’s also a bad reality that we have more “contract” military there than our own. Those contractors do not have to follow US laws or the Military Code. Will somebody else besides myself and a few others understand they are having a war for the sake of war and it’s profits?

By: Prairie Sunshine

Prairie Sunshine — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:56:39 +0000

but, but, but, he has a Muslim name….