Obama Plays Dangerous Political Game with Our National Security
With health care dying, Obama declares war on the CIA.
Cheney: Statement on CIA Investigation
Ajami: Obama's Summer of Discontent
NYT: Guantanamo Detainee Released
AP: WH Projects Bigger Deficits, Debt
Feingold: No Obamacare Before Christmas
Obama's War on our Spies
by Jed Babbin
08/25/2009
The criminal indictments may as well be captioned, “The United States vs. The
Central Intelligence Agency,” because that’s the correct way to identify the
adversaries. The Democrats’ war on our intelligence agencies has now become a
two-front war with the Obama administration attacking where Congressional
Democrats couldn’t.
Attorney General Eric Holder has announced he will appoint a special prosecutor
to investigate the CIA interrogators who used tough interrogation techniques to
see which of them will be prosecuted. Holder has drawn a line in the sand.
THE FACTS :
"Prime Minister Pham Van Dong called on me and, in the presence of Premier Chou
En-lai, swore in the name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam that the latter
would always respect the land frontiers as well as all islands belonging to the
"Kingdom of Cambodia" March 1970 by Sihanouk . Wilfred Burchett book "The China
Cambodia Vietnam triangle " P-176-177
CAMBODIA REMAINS OCCUPIED BY VIETNAM IN VIOLATION OF 10 UN RESOLUTIONS.
UN Passes Strong Resolution on Cambodia Human Rights Abuses
Feb. 27, 1982 : UN Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva adopted a
resolution condemning Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia as a violation of
Cambodian human rights. The vote was 28 in favor, 8 against, and 5 abstentions.
Oct. 21, 1986 The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution A/RES/41/6, by vote
of 116-21 with 13 abstentions, calling for a withdrawal of Vietnamese forces
from Cambodia.
IT'S IMPERATIVE FOR VIETNAM TO COMPLY WITH THIS UN RESOLUTION
On one side stands the US Department of Justice, its army of second-guessers
and scalp-hunters at the ready, with unlimited time and an unlimited budget to
pursue whatever theory of the law it chooses. On the other sits the
interrogators and CIA bureaucrats who have been trying -- sometimes succeeding,
sometimes failing -- to get terrorist detainees to give up intelligence
information that will save American lives.
Unlike the Justice Department, they don’t have unlimited funds to fight in
court for years. There won’t be gaggles of high-priced lawyers donating their
services to defend these people. Many of their lives will be ruined, and
fortunes lost.
Grinning on the sidelines will be the terrorists and the nations that sponsor
them, wondering how America can be so incredibly stupid as to hobble its
principal spy agency in the middle of a war that cannot be won without that
agency’s success in everything it does.
But the enemy is more understanding of our history than we are. They remember
that Gen. George S. Patton was sidelined for many critical months during World
War 2 for the minor infraction of slapping a soldier across the face. They
know that though espionage is probably the world’s second-oldest profession,
our politicians and academics treat its professionals worse than they treat the
practitioners of the oldest profession. And they know how soft-brained we have
become.
Holder’s about to appoint career federal prosecutor James Durham -- who is
already investigating the CIA’s destruction of videotapes of many of the
interrogations -- to investigate whether crimes were committed in the use of
“enhanced interrogation techniques” including waterboarding by CIA
interrogators.
Holder’s announcement came a day after what ABC News reported as a
“profanity-laced screaming match” at the White House involving CIA Director
Leon Panetta who may have threatened to quit over the release of a CIA
Inspector General’s report on the interrogations and -- almost certainly -- the
Obama-Holder decision to go forward with the appointment of Durham.
That screaming match might also have been about the White House’s sudden move
to take direct charge of the interrogation of terrorist detainees. No, Barry
and Rahm won’t be going into the closed cells to face off with the world’s
worst people. But they will be approving what can and can’t be done by those
who do.
Congressional Democrats -- led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- have been at
war against our intelligence agencies ever since it became clear that Pelosi
had been briefed on CIA waterboarding of terrorist detainees in 2002. Pelosi
has repeatedly accused the CIA of lying and driven Panetta -- himself a
partisan Democrat -- to write a scathing defense of his agency in an August 2
Washington Post op-ed.
In that article, Panetta condemned the Congressional jihad against the CIA
saying it was characterized by “…an atmosphere of declining trust, growing
frustration and more frequent leaks of properly classified information.” For
short-term political advantage, and to cover up for Pelosi’s lies, the Congress
of the United States is making war on the CIA. Now the White House and the
Justice Department have lined up with Pelosi.
Sen. Chrisopher Bond (R-Mo), ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence, summed it all up yesterday. Bond said, “First the White House
usurps control over terrorist interrogations, signaling to the world they have
lost confidence in Leon Panetta and our intelligence community, and now the
Obama Justice Department launches a witch-hunt targeting the terror-fighters
who have kept us safe since 9-11. With a criminal investigation hanging over
the Agency’s head, every CIA terror fighter will be in CYA mode. With things
heating up in Afghanistan and Iraq, this looking back and unwarranted "redo" of
prior Justice Department decisions couldn’t come at a worse time for the safety
of our troops in harm’s way and our nation.”
Bond’s statement came on the day when the Obama administration released a
heavily-redacted version of the CIA Inspector General’s report dated May 7,
2004 on the alleged abuses of detainees in CIA custody. The report was
selectively redacted to remove apparent references to the information gleaned
during the interrogations with two very important exceptions.
As soon as he was inaugurated, President Obama prohibited the use of the
so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorist detainees,
condemning them as “torture”, though that is not what American law said in 2002
and 2003 when they were employed.
One al-Quaida detainee, Al-Nashiri, was subjected to some of the “enhanced
interrogation techniques” – the ten methods described with specificity on page
15 of the report – on the first day he arrived at the prison. As the report
says, “Al-Nashiri provided lead information on other terrorists during his
first day of interrogation.”
Abu Zubaydeh – who was subjected to waterboarding as Pelosi was told on
September 4, 2002 – gave information that “helped lead to the identification of
Jose Padilla and Binyam Muhammed – operatives who had plans to detonate a
uranium-topped dirty bomb in either Washington, DC or New York City,” as the
report says on page 87.
And Khalid Shayk Muhammad, who was one of three detainees who were
waterboarded? He was “probably the most prolific.”
KSM “provided information that helped lead to the arrests of terrorists
including Sayfullah Paracha and his son Uzair Paracha, businessmen whom Khalid
Shayk Muhammad planned to use to smuggle explosives into the United States;
Saleh Almari, a sleeper operative in New York; and Majid Khan, an operative who
could enter the United States easily and was tasked to research attacks (part
redacted). Khalid Shauk Muhammad’s information also led to the investigation
and prosecution of Iyman Faris, a truck driver arrested in early 2003 in Ohio.”
(Page 87 of the report).
The IG report alleges a number of abuses of detainees including “mock
executions” and threats to relatives of the prisoners. But this CIA IG report
was given to the Justice Department when it was written five years ago.
According to an August 19, 2009 letter signed by Sen. Bond and eight other
Republicans, “Three former Attorneys General and numerous career prosecutors
have examined the findings of that report and other evidence and determined
that the facts do not support criminal prosecution.”
But Holder’s appointment of Durham willfully disregards that fact and
implicitly says that all those former Attorneys General and career prosecutors
didn’t know what the law is – actually, what it was when the acts occurred.
Holder and Obama know better.
Conspicuously absent from the documents released yesterday are the ones that
former Vice President Cheney asked for: two memoranda that show the information
that was gleaned by the rough interrogation methods.
Most importantly to the Democrats all of the congressional investigations into
the treatment of detainees -- and Nancy Pelosi’s knowledge of it -- will be
foreclosed as long as the criminal investigation goes on. At least as long as
it takes to get through the 2010 congressional elections.
But, in the end, it’s not the fate of Nancy Pelosi that matters. It’s just as
Cong. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mi) said yesterday.
“At the same time the situation in Afghanistan is getting decidedly worse and
the Taliban is advancing, the Obama Justice Department is launching an
investigation that risks disrupting CIA counter terrorism initiatives. This is
the last thing that should happen when the president is sending more troops
into harm’s way, and the nation’s top military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen,
said over the weekend that al-Qaeda still remains a threat to America and our
interests abroad.”
But all of that is of no importance to Obama and Holder. All that counts is
treating our spies as our enemies, and our enemies as our friends. Take heart,
Messrs. Ahmadinejad, bin Laden and Assad. These men are more dangerous to us
than to you. And, it must be said, that can no longer be thought an accident.
Not after yesterday.
Mr. Babbin is the editor of Human Events and HumanEvents.com. He served as a
deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's
administration. He is the author of "In the Words of our Enemies"(Regnery,2007)
and (with Edward Timperlake) of "Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United
States" (Regnery, 2006) and "Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are
Worse than You Think" (Regnery, 2004). E-mail him at [email protected].
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