The WaPo has come out with an article detailing how Khalid Sheik Mohammed went from 9/11 planner to terrorism didact:
After enduring the CIA’s harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency’s secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called “terrorist tutorials…”
Speaking in English, Mohammed “seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group’s plans, ideology and operatives,” said one of two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified. “He’d even use a chalkboard at times.”
These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its “preeminent source” on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques…
The debate over the effectiveness of subjecting detainees to psychological and physical pressure is in some ways irresolvable, because it is impossible to know whether less coercive methods would have achieved the same result. But for defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general’s report and other documents released this week indicate.
KSM’s was one of only three al Qaeda detainees to face the waterboard early on in the GWOT, and his eventual collaboration revealed extraordinary details about organization that had only recently killed three thousand US nationals, details about plots in process and locations where additional plotters might be found, rolled up and taken out of the game. Taken together, this undoubtedly saved thousands of innocent lives.
KSM’s spirit may have broken, but his body and mind are still whole, as are all those who today live their lives in ignorant bliss of the monstrous end he and his cohort had in mind for them. Which doesn’t stop our moral superiors, for whom the very notion of such treatment is anathema. They continue to argue that enhanced interrogation techniques don’t work, can’t. Evar. And even if they did, the moral cost is too much for them to bear. For them, this revelation in the Post evokes the following quality of thoughtful, mature response:
One could be forgiven for suspecting that there is significant overlap between those who’d simultaneously argue that waterboarding a terrorist mastermind to save thousands of lives today is a grotesque crime, and those who believe that sacrificing the occasional blond to a Chappaquiddick pond is a worthwhile trade-off if it brings universal health care forty years on. Which might, you know: Save somebody.
I’ve studied my maths, but that kind of calculus is beyond me.
I”m so tired of listening to their blather. They don’t make sense and largely don’t even try to pretend they do anymore. It like they belong to some morally superior club and they great huddled masses just need to shut up and realize that they just know so much more than we do….
I’m just really sick of them, all of them, all the time.
Found this quote in an essay on the Internet this morning at the Sultan Knish blog. Seems apt. “The ugly reality behind the facade of tolerance [is] it begins as condescension and ends in fear.” Tolerance, of course, is the Democrat watchword. It makes them feel superior to the rest of us.
Marianne
In the immortal words of Squealer in Animal Farm:
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
In our liberal justice system, murders have more rights than their victims.
There’s a reason Archie Bunker called him “Meathead”.
They believe that water flows downhill, but never reaches the bottom of the slope.
(h/t: R. A. Heinlein)
It isn’t Calculus. I took that, and it had nothing to do with leaving cute blondes trapped in cars underwater.
The denigration of society by the left is almost complete. The thought is disgusting, but there it is. That anyone could lionize a nihilist like EMK is a strong commentary on the country.
QM/
Calculus–what is THAT?–somethin’ good to eat?
No, alas. Had nothing to do with babes either. Geeky stuff like that caused the eyes of the most desirable to glaze over and find someone more interesting.
It could, however, drive you to the use of fire water. Other than that, I can’t remember any good use for it.
QM/
So THAT’s the reason I am the way I am–explains everything–just KNEW there had to be a reason besides a personality defect. Does this mean I can go back and sue the Math Dept at LSU? And bill ‘em for my liver transplant to boot?
I would, if I were you. Of course, I would bet the makers of Captain Morgan are part of the conspiracy to require Calculus of all Science and Engineering Majors to take the stuff. I certainly have never found much use for it after I got out of Engineering School.
I must be a true nerd. I loved calc and really enjoyed the homework/studies. Does this mean that I need help?
Actually I liked Calculus as well. I went on to take the required Differential Equations, then took a first course in Partial Diff E, and Functions of a Complex Variable. Loads of fun. Just weren’t any babes around while I did it. There were a Few In Numerical Methods, but they required the Computer Science types to take it as well. I don’t remember any babes that I found striking, but by then I’d been married nearly 10 years and my young wife would have taken severe umbrage had I found any such in my classes.
To show how wierd I was, in comparison to other Engineering majors, I did upper division work in Physics. My contemporaries were happy to escape with the required sequence in Physics for Science and Engineering. I was, clearly, a glutton for punishment.
My son take after me. He decided to go ahead and get his masters in EE rather than obtain gainful employment. He’s in for a real treat when he starts his math courses in grad school. Wish I were there with him (sigh).
Yes. Allow me to prescribe 8 ounces of Scotch, to be taken whenever the desire to indulge in higher math hits.
If “enhanced interrogation techniques” are unacceptable just imagine the moral dilemma Truman faced placed in BHO hands.
The condescending and intolerant (of others who disagree with their world view) people who abhor rigorous interogation techniques are have one of two diseases: first may be a form of mental illness wherein they live in a dissassociative world of the theoretical, devoid of all but accidental brushes with reality. The second illness is worse, it is the delusion that they are so intellectually and morally superior to everyone else that Fate mandates they should run the “their” world. Historically, these “geniuses” cause much death and destruction, depending upon how much power they achieve: Robespierre, Hitler, Stalin, Polpot, Saddam Hussain, UBL, quite a “Rainbow” of diversity which, in itself should make our moral superiors squeal with glee.
They tried giving him a back rub and a fluffy pillow but it didn’t work.
Think Spock said it the best:
The needs of the many out weight the needs of a few (usually as my PC was crashing
)
It is of course, always easier to pontificate from a distant, ie when one is sitting in his cosy seat behind his desk BUT how of these people have ever been in the situation where they are expected to deliver, when it’s their family, their lives on the line — am sure the high flying morals go out the window then faster than a speeding bullet.
Situational ethics
As I age, I see the wisdom the system in Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.” If you don’t serve, you don’t vote. If you aren’t willing to put your one precious body on the line for your civilization, then you aren’t worthy of having any say in the determination of its direction. while you get McGovern (an 8th AF B-24 pilot), or McCain types but not too often. Military service tends to beat the softheadedness out of a man.
Doesn’t mean I like war. I agree with MacArthur on this – the soldier hates war more than any other because he has experienced it directly. The rest are simply dilettantes who are too scared of being shot at, or too lazy. Most of that type are too lazy to think through what they are voting for. Thats’ how you get a Carter, Clinton, or Obama, and how you nominate a Dole or McCain.
I once tried to explain to a fellow that the most ardent pacifists I ever knew were in the military. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t fight. Far from it. It’s just that they saw the real deal. they knew the full effect that our weapons can and will have. No one fights harder or with more zeal to win than an American. No one works harder to alleviate the suffering than an American. It’s a part of our sense of honour, duty, and fair play. We play to win, but we also expect our enemies to understand the rules. That’s why we fought so tenaciously, and so bitterly, in the Pacific. It’s why quarter was often granted in Europe, but not against the Japanese. Two different cultures, two different rules sets.
QM, I must be way ahead of you; I decided RAH was a helluva smart man when I read Starship Troopers about 40 years ago, when I had long hair and was thinking about smoking dope
Seriously, man knew what he was talking about, and if you think about it and include the “our sacred honor”, the Founding Fathers should have had the same idea. If only RAH had been on the Constitutional Committee back then.
What’s not to like, he (RAH) was a Navy man, after all…