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The CIA memo never said the number of times on one person. How do you know what it is?
Your editorial had zero backup. It was the opinion of author with no internal documenation.
How about proving that it was already thwarted other than by opinions of left wingers?
Once again, according to the Obama declassified CIA memo to the justice department, it was done just to 3 arch terrorists who were uncooperative in lighter methods.
Waterboarding caused them to give information that led to the thwarting of a 911 attack of a plane into a Los Angeles building.
I can document everything that I said here.
Can you document anything that you say? So far you haven't.
You didn't click the link, did you? The one provided at the very top of the first post to the article? It's got documentation and links to sources for every single assertion of fact. Here it is again:
Why al-Qaida's plot to bomb L.A.'s Library Tower didn't warrant torture. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine
From the links provided in that article, which link to the White House archives:
Press Briefing on the West Coast Terrorist Plot by Frances Fragos Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Again, the plot was thwarted in February, 2002 with the arrest of the cell leader. KSM wasn't arrested until over a year later. Since time progresses forward linearly, it's impossible to claim something that happened over a year after the plot was thwarted is responsible for thwarting it.
Another link that is provided in that article that you erroneously claim had no internal documentation and was just the author's opinion, also from the White House's site:
Fact Sheet: Keeping America Safe From Attack
The plot was broken up in February, 2002, KSM was captured March, 2003. This is according to all the documentation of both produced by the government.
That KSM talked about the plot after being interrogated or tortured is likely true, but that's all that's in those CIA memos. What the author of the memos apparently didn't know is that the plot was already known about, its cell leader captured, and the attack stopped over a year before anyone so much as tickled Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
So, I've not only provided the evidence that proves that the attack was thwarted in 2002 as I claim without torture and before KSM was even captured, but in the process demonstrated that what you keep asserting that waterboarding forced them to give up the information that thwarted the attack is absolute bullshit. We already knew of the attack and already stopped it, more than a year before.
As for how many times we waterboarded the three suspects whose waterboarding was authorized by the Executive and later made public:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html
How Waterboarding Got Out of Control - TIME
Here's the OLC memo itself: http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X13...et/o10/clients/aclu/olc_05302005_bradbury.pdf
And exactly what it says on the subject:
Internal OLC Memo said:The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.
Notice that it cites the CIA Inspector General's Report (IG Report) which derived its numbers from actually viewing the videotapes of the interrogations, doesn't get much more backed up than that.
Now will you stop pretending that waterboarding was used three times and that it prevented the Library Tower attack? If not, frankly, you're intellectually dishonest. It couldn't be more plain and clear and proven.
Thank you.
1) I could care less about the anonymous sources and the other drivel from the NYT, but I do care a lot about what the CIA memo says. I posted this memo as well. This is the actual documentation.
2) I don't see the actual number in the CIA memo, other than it was done twice to one of the people.
Here's the OLC memo itself: http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X13...et/o10/clients/aclu/olc_05302005_bradbury.pdf
And exactly what it says on the subject:
Internal OLC Memo said:The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.
Page 37 of the OLC memo explicitly says Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 86 times and KSM was waterboarded 183 times.
You linked to the exact same memo I did, but failed to note as I did that it does say clearly that the two people we're referencing being waterboarded were waterboarded 266, not close to 3 but more than 88 times that much, times.
3) I would like to extend my remarks. Not only was a 911 like plot to crash a plane into a Los Angeles building was thwarted.
ADDITIONALLY, another plot to explode a "dirty bomb" in Washington D.C. was also thwarted as a direct result of the waterboarding of the 3 arch terrorists.
Also it led to over 6000 intelligence reports, and over half of the information on Al Qaida came as a result as well.
The Los Angeles plot was thwarted, as Frances Fragos Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism said, in February 2002 when the cell leader was captured. Not over a year later when KSM was captured and waterboarded. He very likely mentioned the plot, but it was already known and stopped and its leader already in jail.
We've thwarted many terrorist plots, but the Library Tower attack that torture apologists are using as proof that waterboarding works was actually thwarted, according to the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism spokesperson and the White House's Fact Sheet on terror plots, in February, 2002 with the capture of Hambili, not with KSM's waterboarding which happened over a year later.
I'm not sure if it's cognitive dissonance or if you're cherry picking what you choose to read from the government's own accounts, but waterboarding over a year after a plot was disrupted could not have had been the cause of the disruption.
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