The Right's Increasing Desperation to Take Credit for Bin Laden's Downfall

It's a case of hearing what you want to hear. The right is so intent on giving Bush all the credit for the death of Osama bin Laden that they're trying (and, perhaps, succeeding) on reopening the debate about torture. And, in doing so, they're practicing selective listening.


[The Daily Caller:]

CIA Director Leon Panetta stomped on the White House's political script when he told Tuesday night's broadcast of NBC Nightly News that the waterboarding of jihadi detainees contributed information that led to the location and killing of Osama bin Laden.

"We had multiple series of sources that provided information with regards to this situation… clearly some of it came from detainees [and] they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of those detainees," he told NBC anchor Brian Williams.

When asked by Williams if water-boarding was part of the "enhanced interrogation techniques," Panetta simply said "that's correct."


It's one thing to say that people you received information from were tortured eight or more years ago, but it's another to say that you got information because of torture eight or more years ago. And it's takes an effort to hear it the latter way when everyone else --including Donald Rumsfeld himself -- is saying quite the opposite.

Besides, even if we take the argument based on a cherrypicked statement seriously, the right's "ticking time bomb scenario" just died the death it deserves. It's a very generous terrorist who sets the timer to eight or nine or ten years. Urgency is shown to be no reason to torture. And consider what the right's argument means -- the Bush administration discovered crucial information through torture, yet did nothing with it. In fact, Bush disbanded the CIA's bin Laden unit. Way to really get that ball rolling, huh?

Even CIA officials who'd performed waterboarding at "black sites" admit that they didn't get anything useful from it. The Associated Press ran an article yesterday reporting that CIA Bush apologists see the death of bin Laden as a vindication of other controversial methods, but not torture.


[Khalid Sheik] Mohammed did not discuss [bin Laden courier] al-Kuwaiti while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He acknowledged knowing him many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.


So, in order to claim that torture worked, the right ignores all the evidence that it didn't and then gloms on to a statement that could be taken -- if you try really hard -- to say that it did.

And finally, get ready for the "waterboarding's not torture" argument to pop up again. You wonder why it's so important to them that you believe this. Is it that the crime of torture is so awful, so unforgivable, so contrary to what everything America stands for that even the normally shameless right is ashamed of it?

But if it's not torture, then what is it? "Enhanced interrogation techniques" are weasel words. Watereboarding has been around for centuries; what was it called before some PR whiz in the Bush White House cooked up EIT? There must be a plain English word for it and, if that word isn't "torture," then what is it? In the end, giving someone the experience of dying doesn't fit in any other box. If it's not torture, then waterboarding fans need to explain what it is -- because that's a lot less obvious than they're pretending it is.

-Wisco

News Roundup for 5/3/11

Whew!

-Headline of the day-
"Public 'Relieved' By bin Laden's Death, Obama's Job Approval Rises."

After going to Afghanistan and personally beating Osama bin Laden to death with a lamp, President Obama is only seeing a mild bump in the polls. Then again, it's still early. Pew took a look at public's reaction and finds that "relieved" is the most common emotion attached to the event, with 72% using the word to describe themselves.

Overall, the president's approvals stand at 56% approving and 38% disapproving, compared to a 47%/45% split last month. Not surprisingly, Independents make up most of that, with approvals rising 10 points to 52% from last month.

But here's the weird thing: Repblican number have shifted in a way I can only describe as goofy. In April, 16% approved of Obama. In May, 16% approve of Obama -- identical. But last month, 81% disapproved, while today, 79% disapprove. So you can not get a Republican to switch from disapprove to approve. You can only get them to switch from disapprove to no opinion.

Kind of makes them seem like stubborn jerks, doesn't it? (Pew Research Center)


-No comment-



(Reddit)


-Bonus HotD-
"Rep. Peter King: We Should Still Use Waterboarding Because That's How We Captured Bin Laden."

Except it's not. (ThinkProgress)

Fighting Terrorism the Right Way, Not the Easy Way

I often say that there are two ways of doing anything; the easy way and the right way. Sometimes, the easy way is good enough. In others, the details are as important as the central job. The more important the job, the more important it is to do it the right way -- zip through mowing the lawn, but take your time seeding it.

In taking down Osama bin Laden, President Obama avoided doing things the easy way.


[The Telegraph:]

At first, a drone attack was considered, but President Obama decided against it, partly to avoid civilian casualties and partly because: "He wanted proof. He didn't want to just leave a pile of rubble." Between March 14 and April 28 Mr. Obama chaired five National Security Council meetings to discuss the raid.

An exact replica of the compound was built at a secret location in the US and a 24-strong team of Navy Seals (an acronymn of Sea, Air, Land) carried out dummy runs on April 7 and April 13.


Blow the hell out of everything with drones or train a team for a week to carry out a complex land operation? Turns out the president made the right call.


[Politico:]

The assault force of Navy SEALs snatched a trove of computer drives and disks during their weekend raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, yielding what a U.S. official called "the mother lode of intelligence."

The special operations forces grabbed personal computers, thumb drives and electronic equipment during the lightning raid that killed bin Laden, officials told POLITICO.

"They cleaned it out," one official said. "Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?"


Porn, I'll bet. And financial records. Beside the computer data, there would be handwritten notes, photos, personal letters, maybe false IDs with aliases, etc -- all of which would be smoke right now if we'd gone about this the easy way. As a result of doing this the right way, White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan believes that it's possible to be "able to destroy that organization [al Qaeda]."

One note of caution here: there are basically two al Qaedas. There's a centrally-directed organization and there are what are basically al Qaeda sympathizers who pick up the banner and join the fight, but are otherwise on their own -- al Qaeda in Iraq, for example. We may be able to break the institutional al Qaeda, but the guerrilla al Qaeda will continue -- how long it continues may be another question. It's not like al Qaeda is the only terrorist organization in the world. It may be that the individuals who normally would be guerrillas will find more support in other organizations. Clearly, this isn't the end of terrorism.

But that's the way you fight terrorism. In the big picture, there isn't an easy way. You run around putting out fires. Huge, grand nationscaping wars are pointless here and, in the end, are counterproductive. Want to increase recruitment among terrorist organizations? Then give them lots and lots of targets to shoot at. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't bring down Osama bin Laden, it was two bullets fired by a Navy SEAL. It may seem easier to kill a whole bunch of people at once with huge fireballs, but our experience since 2003 shows that this doesn't work nearly as well as we'd thought. Better to fight them the way we fight drug runners -- with detective work and SWAT teams. You know, treat them like criminals.

Better to go about this the right way.

-Wisco

News Roundup for 5/2/11

Trump reacts to the news of Bin Laden's death

-Headline of the day-
"Donald Trump Congratulates Obama On Osama Bin Laden Killing, Asks For End To 'Party Politics' Debate For 'Next Several Days'."

After President Obama announced the death of Osama Bin Laden, Donald Trump -- like many other GOP candidates -- saw the road to the White House get really rocky, really fast. No one on Earth believes that Obama isn't going to have rock star approval ratings in the next round of polling.

So what a perfect time to put all this ugly campaigning on hold. "I am so proud to see Americans standing shoulder to shoulder, waving the American flag in celebration of this great victory," Trump said. "We should spend the next several days not debating party politics, but in remembrance of those who lost their lives on 9/11 and those currently fighting for our freedom. God Bless America!"

Yes, let's wait until his polling numbers fall back to Earth and then engage him in a popularity contest. (ABC News)


-And the internet chimes in...-
Get used to it, because you're probably going to be seeing a lot of this stuff.



When you stop seeing it, that'll be just about the time Donald Trump will want to "debate party politics" again. (Reddit)


-Bonus HotD-
"Can We Stop Questioning Obama's Legitimacy Now?"

Bush speechwriter David Frum wants to know.

I'm guessing the answer's going to be "no." (FrumForum)

Right Thanks Bush for Killing Bin Laden

George W. Bush, who is perfect in every way, finally killed Osama Bin Laden. You'd think that the killing of America's most wanted terrorist under the supervision of President Obama -- who the farthest right would have you believe is a terrorist mastermind himself -- would present a bit of a problem for wingnuts. I know I did, but I underestimated their creativity.

The comment above comes from Jim Hoft's unfortunate Gateway Pundit blog, which announced the death of Bin Laden with as little mention of President Obama as possible. "How long till Obama takes credit...5, 4,3,2,..." asks another commenter. "I think it took a week to confirm and for Obama to stop crying that his homey is dead."

Not to be outdone, rightwing nutjob Hugh Hewitt manages to report the death of Osama Bin Laden without mentioning that Obama guy at all, other than a reference to the "White House" in a blockquote from the New York Times. GWB makes an appearance, though.

Here's George W. Bush on the super-important mission of taking down Osama Bin Laden:



"I don't know where he is... I truly am not that concerned with him." It's that laser-like focus (some would call it an obsession) that drove the former president to come out of retirement, hop a plane to Pakistan, and shoot Bin Laden himself.

Fun fact: it was exactly eight years ago yesterday that Bush declared "Mission accomplished" in Iraq. This is the guy the right believes deserves all the credit. After all, it was Dubs who said he wanted OBL "dead or alive."

But here's another fun fact: it's impossible to imagine a president reacting to 9/11 in any other way. "We gotta get this Bin Laden guy" would be the gist of any post-strike policy -- man commits crime, goes fugitive, cops go after him. Can you really imagine any president saying anything else? Yet it's seen as a sign of brilliance that George W. Bush announced the most predictable policy in the world. If it weren't for him, this Obama guy never would've thought of it.

Of course, this will go on until the right realizes they've got a new conspiracy theory to replace birtherism. It'll be the new Elvisism, where Bin Laden is spotted all over the world, not dead, because President Obama only pretended to bring him down in order to boost his reelection odds.

The only real mystery is in how they'll manage to keep giving Bush credit for the kill.

-Wisco