This is all over Fox right now, and local radio. Saw it on CNN too. The intell for this operation began 4 years ago (thats 2007, under GWB). It was gathered from detainees. Yep, thats Gitmo. It was gathered 4 yrs ago, at Gitmo, under GWB, using enhanced interrogation, aka "torture". That intell, as reported, led to a relative speaking of some strange, massive house with 18 feet walls being built in Pakistan. That led to them discussing some new family living there, matching Osama Bin Laden's info. That 4 year long investigation, accomplished through detainee interrogation, Gitmo, and 2 different presidents, led to this.
Yes. Libs are right. Close Gitmo. End interrogation. Thank goodness Bush, AND Obama, didn't listen to their whining.
Its funny not one liberal can address your point.
Bush's "torture" system helped prevent several attacks and helped in locating OBL.
But these rabid liberals can only view events in a political prism and how it will make Obama look.
All they can do is rant and rave "Obama got him", all while completely ignoring the fact that the military has been using the same techniques for gathering information.
I'll address it.
First of all, there's bucs-0's ASSumption the information was gained by torture, which BTW, the right has always denied as occurring. It most likely was gained by conventional interrogation techniques, which provide reliable results.
Second, I will quote the man who headed the team of interrogators who successfully hunted down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war.
A)
Torture doesn't work
"Torture is extremely ineffective, and it's counterproductive to what we're trying to accomplish," he told reporters. "When we torture somebody, it hardens their resolve," Alexander explained. "The information that you get is unreliable ... And even if you do get reliable information, you're able to stop a terrorist attack, Al-Qaeda's then going to use the fact that we torture people to recruit new members." Alexander says torture techniques used in Iraq consistently failed to produce actionable intelligence and that methods outlined in the US Army Field Manual, which rest on confidence building, consistently worked and gave the interrogators access to critical information.
B)
Torture and abuse cost American lives.
I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.
