Nancy Pelosi on Bin Laden: Then & Now http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/03/intellectual-dishonesty-of-na ncy-pelosi/
That isn't accurate. If you have information that contradicts the statements by the officials please provided it. So far it looks like no waterboarding or other techniques helped lead us to Osama. Pakistan is run by a brutal and corrupt dictatorship. Those are the kind of allies I would prefer not to have. We can start there. Then we can go to the point that OBL was where we was for however long. We can also add how many other terrorists are in Pakistan without real fear for the Pakistani government. That again seems like someone we don't want as an ally.
Please go back and read carefully what Mr Panetta said. I don’t think he said what you think he said.
Leon Panetta says that it's "true" they worked from a lot of different sources of information. What is so earth shattering about that?
Williams: Turned around the other way, are you denying that waterboarding was in part among the tactics used to extract the intelligence that led to this successful mission? Panetta: No... Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/03/i...en-dont-listen-to-leon-panetta/#ixzz1LOxV7zYL
finish the sentence "No, I think some of the detainees clearly were — you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I’m also saying that the debate about whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question." He makes no claim that we gained specific information about Osama from torture
If the 'enhanced torture' techniques did not contribute OBL's death, then Panetta would have said so. He is not a supporter of those methods. Instead he squirmed and desperately tried to avoid saying what he knew was true.
Not only are you guys grasping at straws and painting a picture that, in addition to not existing, is the only one which you want to see; you're completely missing the point that the ends do not justify the means. People who've been waterboarded could tell us the meaning of life and what tonight's lotto numbers are, and it still wouldn't be ok.
Like I said, it's not surprising that some folks will try and twist Panetta's words to make it seem like the waterboarding and other torture worked.
that's a different argument. one can say both, as was argued on Baby Brett's show last night, that waterboarding worked, and it's inimical to american values. the two are not mutually exclusive.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/concerns-raised-over-shooting-unarmed-bin-laden-burial-065542297.html The White House said on Tuesday that bin Laden had resisted the U.S. team which stormed his Pakistan hideout and that there had been concerns he would "oppose the capture operation". Spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify what sort of resistance bin Laden offered but added: "We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance. There were many other people who were armed ... in the compound." Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told German TV the operation could have incalculable consequences in the Arab world at a time of unrest there. "It was quite clearly a violation of international law," . It was a view echoed by high-profile Australian human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson. "It's not justice. It's a perversion of the term. Justice means taking someone to court, finding them guilty upon evidence and sentencing them," Robertson told Australian Broadcasting Corp television from London. "This man has been subject to summary execution, and what is now appearing after a good deal of disinformation from the White House is it may well have been a cold-blooded assassination." Robertson said bin Laden should have stood trial, just as World War Two Nazis were tried at Nuremburg or former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was put on trial at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague after his arrest in 2001. "The last thing he wanted was to be put on trial, to be convicted and to end his life in a prison farm in upstate New York. What he wanted was exactly what he got - to be shot in mid-jihad and get a fast track to paradise and the Americans have given him that." Gert-Jan Knoops, a Dutch-based international law specialist, said bin Laden should have been arrested and extradited to the United States. "The Americans say they are at war with terrorism and can take out their opponents on the battlefield," Knoops said. "But in a strictly formal sense, this argument does not stand up." A senior Muslim cleric in New Delhi, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, said U.S. troops could have easily captured bin Laden. "America is promoting jungle rule everywhere, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan or Libya.
While some here are possibly bringing up Panetta's comments as a way to justify the actions of Bush policies, I think the main point is that it isn't definite that information regarding the whereabouts of Bin Laden only came from standard interrogation techniques which some here are posting as fact. Those posters don't have all the information, but the man who has much more than we will ever have, didn't choose to shoot down the question by Williams.
I think you are reading this wrong. The way I read it: 1. BW goads him with a loaded question; "can you confirm that waterboarding led to catching osama?" Panetta dodges the question. 2. BW asks almost the same question inversely, but the wording isn't consistent; "are you denying that waterboarding was in part among the tactics used to extract the intelligence that led to this successful mission?" Poor wording. Define "leading to." I could argue anything in the War on Terror led to Osama's capture, and I think Panetta saw the question in this same way. He would be lying if he denied waterboarding "was among the tactics used" because we all already know it was. He was just covering his ass. The direct link between the information obtained from waterboarding and the capture of Osama is not established. Unclear at best. 3. This one is the simplest, yet most misleading. He says "One final time" as if he is asking the same question as the first time, when in reality the 2nd and 3rd questions are much more related than the 1st is to either. He doesn't ask if waterboarding had anything to do with the mission. He only asks if waterboarding was part of "enhanced interrogation techniques." This is really only semantics. Please let me know if you read it a different way.
Yes it's amazing that some people are straining so hard to try and make it seem like waterboarding worked. Panetta's vague statement which says that waterboarding was used, but not specifically that it provided the information that lead to the courier vs. all of the other evidence including a direct statement that nothing useful was gained from waterboarding, and you ignore that statement because you want to believe what you want to believe rather than taking an objective look at the evidence. You've done it before so it isn't really surprising... just sad.
