The New York Times' Scott Shane has a history of slanted reporting on intelligence (most notoriously his credulous acceptance of everything said by anti-war huckster Joe Wilson). But a sentence in his Thursday "news analysis," "The C.I.A. and the Tapes: Sensing Support Shifting Away From Its Methods," was either clumsily written or just plain bizarre.
Shane began by likening the CIA to a group of grifters afraid their luck may finally be running out.
"For six years, Central Intelligence Agency officers have worried that someday the tide of post-Sept. 11 opinion would turn, and their harsh treatment of prisoners from Al Qaeda would be subjected to hostile scrutiny and possible criminal prosecution.
"Now that day may have arrived, after years of shifting legal advice, searing criticism from rights groups -- and no new terrorist attacks on American soil."
"The Justice Department, which in 2002 gave the C.I.A. legal approval for waterboarding and other tough interrogation methods, is reviewing whether agency officials broke the law by destroying videotapes of those very methods.
"The Congressional intelligence committees, whose leaders in 2002 gave at least tacit approval for the tough tactics, have voted in conference to ban all coercive techniques, and they have announced investigations of the destruction of the videotapes and the methods they documented."
That part about "no new terrorist attacks," which Shane is apparently using to bash the CIA, reminds us of the infamous Times headline from September 1997:
"Crime Keeps on Falling, But Prisons Keep on Filling."
Just like that old headline writer couldn't comprehend that putting more criminals in jail leads to less crime, Shane apparently hasn't considered that the CIA's harsh interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects may have enabled them to gather the vital intelligence necessary to prevent "terrorist attacks on American soil" in the first place.
See TimesWatch for the complete version of this article.
—Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times.
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CIA did something right here
December 13, 2007 - 16:38 ET by Lame CherryThe CIA, Porter Goss and Gen. Hayden have been doing something right and that includes destroying this non sense of waterboarding.
Of course dimwits would not like seeing this, that is the reason it is effective as it is uncomfortable. The New York Times should actually research water torture to find the Dutch were quite brutal at it in putting a basket on a person's head, filling it with water and letting them drink themselves to death.
From the records, I have looked through people looked quite ghastly after a few days of that conversation but they did all talk.
The real problem with the CIA has been the globalist Clintonistas like Val Plame and the ilk left by Slam Dunk to thwart Goss in his reforms.
Frankly these saboteurs should all be arrested in the CIA and State with appropriate sentencing as numbers of people have died from these "leaks" to..........who??????? Oh yes the New York Times.
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Maybe the cushy pillow
December 13, 2007 - 17:11 ET by mattmMaybe the cushy pillow treatment would be more palatable to libs...
And don't forget...
December 13, 2007 - 17:31 ET by Prester John...the glass of milk and a package of Oreos.
deleted
December 13, 2007 - 17:30 ET by Prester Johndeleted
The SOP is... :-)
December 13, 2007 - 17:35 ET by MightyMouthTHIS POST INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
That is the way the liberals think.
December 13, 2007 - 17:54 ET by c5thenNo attacks = no danger and the CIA was doing it all for nothing.
Attacks = CIA not doing their job.
You see, using their twisted logic it's always a lose/lose situation for the current administration.
The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic. Let's get it back! Alan Keyes '08.
Regarding these destroyed
December 13, 2007 - 21:25 ET by CortillaenRegarding these destroyed tapes, what reason is there to keep them? After they've been reviewed multiple times to glean as much information as possible from the detainee's non-verbal communication and that information has been logged, why should the CIA bother with keeping them? There's this assumption in the media that the CIA should keep the tapes indefinitely, but no reason as to why. I suppose it's just the standard MSM non-thought-process when dealing with any governmental body under the Bush administration: guilty until proven innocent, so, obviously, the CIA destroying evidence is self-incrimination. *sigh* Idiots...
www.rhjunior.com Great comics with a hefty dose of Christian and anti-nutjob goodness.
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