Monday, November 07, 2005

A Perfect Storm of Absolute Horrors

Today, as I noticed that the number of the American Iraq war dead is now 2049 I discovered that the bogus pre war information George Bush was peddling wasn't just about phony Niger Uranium documents or about phony aluminum tube claims.

Today I found out that some of the lies that George Bush used to push the Iraq war that has killed tens of thousands of human beings and cost us hundreds of billions of dollars as well as our reputation in this world came about because Al-Libi was tortured until he told interrogators the Saddam and al Quaida training camp stories that the Bush administration wanted to tell us, the unwitting American public who would then deliver up the lives of our sons and daughters as well as our fortunes to battle the mirage they had created for us.


cross posted at 1776 Dead Americans


Update

Here is a snippet of a post that Larry Johnson at TPM Cafe. Read the whole thing here
.
My friends recognized correctly that their mission was to gather intelligence not create new enemies. If you inflict enough pain on someone they will give you information, but, unless you kill them, they will hold a grudge. As far as the information goes there is no guarantee it will be correct.

What real CIA field officers know from their work with actual sources is that whatever short term benefit can be derived from torture will be offset by the new enemy you have created. It is better to build a relationship of trust, no matter how painstaking, rather than gain a short term benefit that puts you on par with a Nazi concentration camp guard.
|