(The emphasis is mine and I inserted the link):
“ President Obama on Monday paid his first formal visit to CIA headquarters, in order, as he put it, to ‘underscore the importance’ of the agency and let its staff ‘know that you've got my full support.’ Assuming he means it, the President should immediately declassify all memos concerning what intelligence was gleaned, and what plots foiled, by the interrogations of high-level al Qaeda detainees in the wake of September 11…
In a saner world (or at least one that accurately reported on original documents), all of this would be a point of pride for the CIA. It would serve as evidence of the Bush Administration's scrupulousness regarding the life and health of the detainees, and demonstrate how wrong are the claims that harsh interrogations yielded no useful intelligence.
Instead, the release of the memos has unleashed the liberal mob, with renewed calls in Congress for a ‘truth commission’and even, perhaps, Judge Bybee's impeachment and prosecutions of the other authors. Mr. Obama has hinted that while his Administration won't prosecute CIA officials, it may try to sate the mob by going after Bush officials who wrote the memos…
All of this might appease the President's MoveOn.org base, but he can't expect to satisfy them without also weakening American intelligence capabilities…
Mr. Obama needs to stop this score-settling now, and he can start by promptly releasing the documents that reveal what the CIA learned from its interrogations.”
Click here for more editorial cartoons.
No comments:
Post a Comment