Published in the June 2009 issue of the Cloudcroft Mountain Monthly
Where there’s smoke...
by Ellen Wedum
“Where there’s smoke there’s fire” is a traditional phrase. But for our modern, high-tech times, we need a new version—“Where there’s smoke, there’s a smoke machine.”
We have read reports that waterboarding was used on one Guantanamo detainee 83 times in August 2002 and on another (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) 183 times in March 2003. Fox News (see footnote 1 below) says this is exaggerated. They want to only count the number of sessions, not the number of times the technique was applied. That is like saying that a man was only whipped once, even though 40 lashes were applied.
We also know now that the goal of this torture was to obtain a confession that there was a link between Al-Quaeda and Sadaam Hussein, so as to gain support for invading Iraq. (Perhaps some readers prefer the phrase “harsh interrogation techniques.”) As Lawrence Wilkerson, Vietnam volunteer vet and former aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell, writes, “Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Quaeda” (footnote 2). But the waterboarding was ONLY supposed to be used “if the CIA has credible intelligence that a terrorist attack is imminent” (footnote 3, bottom of page 5).
Now the smoke machine has been going full blast for the last few weeks, trying to obscure the despicable actions of the Bush administration by turning attention to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and what she knew or didn’t know in 2002. This is nothing but smoke. Regardless of what she knew, she was helpless to stop the torture. The House Democrats had been in the minority since 1995. Republican Dennis Hastert was Speaker and Tom (The Hammer) Delay was Majority Leader in 2003, and Pelosi had just become Minority Leader.
Let us turn off the smoke machine, clear the air, and start the investigation at the top with those who instigated and supported the torture. If readers wish to learn more about the technique, which I just discovered was also used during the Spanish Inquisition, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding.
(1) 4/28/09 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/28/despite-reports-khalid-sheikh- mohammed-waterboarded-times/
(2) 5/14/09 http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/14/iraq.torture/
(3) http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/missing_memos/28OLCmemofinalredact30May05.pdf