More Important: Sparing 9/11 Mastermind from Water Boarding or Saving LA?

By John Lillpop on (Apr 22, 09)


President Obama recently announced that he is “open” to prosecuting those rude CIA interrogators who had the audacity to use water boarding on terrorists, which would include an uncooperative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the gentle soul who was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.


Obama may wish to rethink his pansy approach to terrorism based on a report that indicates that harsh interrogation may have prevented the “nuking” of Los Angles.


As reported, in part, at cnsnews.com:

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=47003



’Soon, you will know.’


“That is the ominous statement an uncooperative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, told his Central Intelligence Agency interrogators when they initially asked him, after he had been captured, about additional planned al-Qaida attacks on the United States.


“As CIA Acting General Counsel John A. Rizzo explained in a 2004 letter to then-Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel...

On Tuesday, the CIA confirmed that it stands by assertions credited to the agency in this 2005 memo that subjecting KSM to “enhanced techniques” of interrogation—including waterboarding—caused him to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to stop a planned 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles.


“Before they were waterboarded, both KSM and Abu Zubaydah did not believe Americans had the will to stop al-Qaida, the 2005 Justice Department memo says, citing information from the CIA.


“Both KSM and Zubaydah had ‘expressed their belief that the general U.S. population was ‘weak,’ lacked resilience and would be unable to ‘do what was necessary’ to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals,’” said the memo. “Indeed, before the CIA used enhanced techniques in its interrogation of KSM, KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon, you will know.’


“After he was waterboarded, KSM provided the CIA with information that allowed the U.S. government to close down a terror cell already “tasked” with flying a jet into a building in Los Angeles.


“According to the CIA, it produced cooperation in the mastermind of 9-11 and thus yielded information used to stop a 9-11 type attack on the West Coast.


“President Obama says he has prohibited the interrogation techniques described in the Justice Department memos he released. Next time the CIA catches a KSM, they must be kinder and gentler with him.”


The saddest part of this story is that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s observation about America being ‘weak’ and unable to ‘do what was necessary’ is even truer now that America has elected a man who does not understand the gravity of the terrorism threat.


Still, the Los Angeles threat may catch Obama’s eye. After all, that city is home to millions of illegal aliens, a demographic that Obama and the Democrats are intent on harvesting in time for the 2010 elections!



John W. Lillpop is a Capitol Hill Coffee House staff writer.