What Obama’s Intel Chief Really Believes About Torture…

[babylonsister]

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/probes-of-bush-administration/what-obamas-intel-chief-really-believes-about-torture/

What Obama’s Intel Chief Really Believes About Torture…

The stakes in the torture debate just shot up dramatically with the revelation last night that Obama’s intelligence chief, Dennis Blair, wrote a memo saying torture had yielded some “high value information.”

Make no mistake: This memo will become a major feature of the Bushies’ ongoing campaign to shift the debate onto the narrow question of whether torture “worked” in hopes of salvaging their reputations in the wake of the torture memo revelations.

So here’s the question: Will the media clearly report Blair’s actual views about torture?

Blair released a statement late yesterday in which he clearly stated that there is no way of knowing whether means other than torture would have obtained the same info. More important, he said the damage done to us by torture “far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.” Blair has outlined these views elsewhere.

CNN managed to run an entire article about the Blair memo that didn’t even mention his statement. The Associated Press falsely claimed that Blair’s statement “backed away from what appeared to be an endorsement of the techniques’ effectiveness.”

This is really not complicated: Blair believes that some valuable info was collected via torture, but that torture is not essential to our security and has done far more harm than good. The Washington Post got Blair’s views right in its headline: “Intelligence Chief Says Methods Hurt U.S.”

That’s what Blair believes. The effort to obscure and twist this plain fact is going to be very intense today.

[KittyWampus]

1. Where is Dennis Blair's actual memo saying torture had yielded anything? I'd like to see it

[movonne]

3. And even if it did it is still against the law....what is the point..

[annabanana]

2. And yet Politico, with an assist from Nora O'Donnell is still claiming

this memo is proof that torture "works". .

[EFerrari]

5. A shill from the Hoover Institute was on WJ this morning

spouting all the talking points -- it works, releasing the memos hurts us, all of it.

[stillcool]

4. Looks like I'm going to have to read...

very carefully any news reports coming out about who said/did what.

[babylonsister]

6. Yes, we all will have to be careful. Here's cnn's b.s....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3843579&mesg_id=3843579

Bush-era interrogation may have worked, Obama official says

[EFerrari]

10. That is the thought for the day! Because while the idea that torture works

is being repeated, Cheney is struggling in the background to blame Tenet again because Senate report lays most responsibility on Rumsfeld's Pentagon. :crazy:

[KittyWampus]

7. WTF? Blair's assessment DELETED from memo released to media

This just makes both himself and Obama's Administration look like they're intentionally covering up info they don't like-


"Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the media last Thursday. Also deleted was a line in which he empathized with his predecessors who originally approved some of the harsh tactics after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30335592/

[annabanana]

9. He never said that this info couldn't have been gotten legally and without torture.

And he HAS say that the damage done to our rep, and Al Qaida recruitment made torture a NET LOSS.

[KittyWampus]

13. but why delete his statement that some valuable info was had? It makes it look like they're

trying to hide inconvenient info.

The Right WILL use that to their advantage and I can't blame them.

[babylonsister]

14. Oops! Dupe. nt

[babylonsister]

15. It could be as simple as some admin person

doing their job, not realizing the value of the info that was edited.

A spokeswoman for Admiral Blair said the lines were cut in the normal editing process of shortening an internal memo into a media statement emphasizing his concern that the public understand the context of the decisions made in the past and the fact that they followed legal orders.

[annabanana]

8. This thread needs recs. . . The infor clearly hasn't filtered upward yet. . n/t

[Supersedeas]

11. the rightwing talking shills will be out IN FORCE armed w/Dick Cheaty talking point

and Boss Limpbod profit-motivated indignation.

[annabanana]

12. They already are. They just grabbed it and ran... no facts required. . n/t

[OhioChick]

16. K&R

:kick:

[bleever]

17. K&R.

:patriot: