Thursday, January 28, 2010

Well, That's Good to Know

"Now we know," Kiriakou goes on, "that Zubaydah was waterboarded eighty-three times in a single month, raising questions about how much useful information he actually supplied."

Which is funny, because in 2007, John Kiriakou told ABC is a much-ballyhooed exclusive interview, that Abu Zubaydah cracked after just thirty seconds of waterboarding, while attempting to make the case that the Bush Administration's torture policies were both sound and effective. Later he went to work for John Kerry.

So, just to put this in plain English. In 2007, John Kiriakou, 15 year CIA veteran, went on national TV to make the case that America's torture policy was both necessary and effective. Now, he's written a book in which he admits, off-handedly, in just a single paragraph, that he actually had no idea what he was talking about, had no direct knowledge of that or any other enhanced interrogation, and that he was basically just passing off water-cooler chatter as the cold hard truth to the American people. "In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own."

What an asshole. Wonder if there'll be any consequences? I mean, that sure was a useful lie to the folks who sold America's soul so they could get off on torturing terrorism suspects who'd already talked.

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