CIA: Between Barack and a Hard Place

No, that is not Dick Cheney in the background as Barack Obama schmoozes with CIA employees, right. Joe Clancy's the name. Head of Obama's presidential security.

I cannnot resist any longer. RE: Obama and CIA terrorist interrogation tactics commonly branded torture these days.

These techniques are effective. Let me repeat. These techniques work. The perps sing like Placido Domingo. Eventually.

The NYT has a piece today on the hot-off-the-press freshly declassified congressional report on these interrogation tactics approved at the "highest level" of the Bush administration.

Obama may be sorry he blew the lid off Pandora's box by huffing and puffing about what would amount to Bush congressional show trials.

If I could tap into the long-dead spirit of former Beirut CIA Station Chief William Buckley he'd confirm the above. Buckley was kidnapped and executed by Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. He blabbed all under torture. This was on Ronald Reagan's watch. Venerable spymaster and ex-OSS William Casey was DCI.

The terrorists made videotapes of Buckley's torture. Those at Langley who saw the horrific torture tapes were reported to have cried; CIA brass were freaked out about what Buckley had revealed.

As then-Associated Press Bureau Chief Terry Anderson, who would himself be taken hostage a year later, wrote in Den of Lions, his memoir of captivity: the Hezbollah operation against Buckley was almost a model of counterespionage. Buckley had developed a woman Shiite agent named Zeynoub, sister of the woman involved in the assassination of American University President Kerr. Unknown to him, she was a double, a “responsible,” or official in Hezbollah, whose true loyalty was with the fundamentalist party. According to one usually reliable source, Buckley grew enamored of the woman and began an affair with her. Later, however, the professional CIA man began to grow suspicious. Before he decided to act on those suspicions, the woman became aware of them. With the information she now had, and access to his apartment, the kidnapping was easy. The decision to take him was made on Friday, March 15, 1984. On March 16, in an operation involving twelve cars full of Hezbollah agents, he was snatched. Buckley was tortured repeatedly and severely for the next ten months, under the supervision of Imad Mugniyeh, one of Hezbollah’s senior officials, and a Lebanese doctor. He resisted bravely, refusing to give any information, but as was inevitable eventually broke.

Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter all over again. But for different reasons. President Carter's righteous morality came from his religious background. Obama's lofty and muddied moral and legal pronouncements on interrogation torture are rooted in liberal naïveté.

Permit me to reiterate my observations of 30 years ago under President Carter: There is no morality in foreign policy.

I hear you thinking, well, how the fuck does she know? I was a graduate student studying U.S. foreign policy at the American University School of International Studies in Washington, DC. My professor was the former CIA station chief in Pakistan. Another professor was Nicholas Daniloff. Remember him? Six years after I got my master's degree the respected journalist was kidnapped in Moscow by the KGB (now FSB).

Here's the transcript of Obama's pedestrian pie-in-the-sky speech to CIA employees at Langley April 20th: "I have put an end to the interrogation techniques described in those OLC memos. And I want to — I want to be very clear and very blunt. I’ve done so for a simple reason: because I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values, including the rule of law. I know I can count on you to do exactly that. You know, there have been some conversations that I’ve had with senior folks here at Langley in which I think people have expressed understandable anxiety and concern. So I — I — I want to make a point that I just made in the smaller group. I understand that it’s hard when you are asked to protect the American people against people who have no scruples and would willingly and gladly kill innocents. Al-Qaeda’s not constrained by a constitution. Many of our adversaries are not constrained by a belief in freedom of speech or representation in court or rule of law. So I’m sure that sometimes it seems as if that means we’re operating with one hand tied behind our back or that those who would argue for a higher standard are naive. I understand that. You know, I’ve — I watch the cable shows once in a while. What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and ideals even when it’s hard — not just when it’s easy; even when we are afraid and under threat — not just when it’s expedient to do so. That’s what makes us different. So yes, you’ve got a harder job. And so do I. And that’s okay, because that’s why we can take such extraordinary pride in being Americans. And over the long term, that is why I believe we will defeat our enemies: because we’re on the better side of history.

Politico: President Barack Obama’s attempt to project legal and moral clarity on coercive CIA interrogation methods has instead done the opposite — creating confusion and political vulnerability over an issue that has inflamed both the left and right. In the most recent instance, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged in a memo to the intelligence community that Bush-era interrogation practices yielded had "high-value information,” then omitted that admission from a public version of his assessment. That leaves a top Obama administration official appearing to validate claims by former Vice President Dick Cheney that waterboarding and other techniques the White House regards as torture were effective in preventing terrorist attacks. And the press release created the impression the administration was trying to suppress this conclusion. The president, who has said he wants to focus on the future rather than litigate the past, also opened himself to distraction and attack by retracting the earlier assurance by top officials that they had no plans to prosecute lawyers for former President George W. Bush who approved the “enhanced interrogation” program.

Obama's newly discovered moral compass points to future tragic consequences.

CIA interrogator: "Mohammed, can I interest you in a cup of tea, 40 virgins, and perhaps then you'll tell me the truth?"
Mohammed: "Are you homosexual? We don't have homosexuals like in your country."
CIA Interrogator: "Please, Mohammed, tell me something, anything, I'm begging you or I'll lose my job."
Mohammed: "Islam is ready to rule the world! Touch me and I report you to Barack Hussein Obama."

Related: "William Buckley: The Spy Who Never Came In From The Cold" PBS Frontline: "Terrorist Attacks On Americans, 1979-1998: the Attacks, the Groups, and the U.S. Response"Cryptome: Photos of Obama's Security At CIA Speech April 20, 2009