CIA saved lives; Senate’s partisan enhanced interrogations report endangers Americans

It was infuriating watching outgoing Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein on the Senate floor Tuesday vividly describe, “the sound of bodies striking canopies at ground level as innocents jumped to the ground below from the World Trade Center,” and within seconds state, “In 1990, the United States Senate ratified the Conventions Against Torture.”

There was no mention by Senator Feinstein that CIA Directors under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama are all on the record stating enhanced interrogations worked.

During all her years on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein never introduced legislation to ban enhanced interrogation techniques. Her report made no recommendations which is the main oversight function of the Intelligence Committee.

Successive DOJ investigations by the Bush and Obama administrations brought no charges related to the use of OLC-approved EITs. Does any rational person truly believe Attorney General Eric Holder would not have prosecuted CIA officers and contractors had he found evidence of torture?

We are still at war; Americans are getting their heads cut off by terrorists driven by the same ideology that drove 19 hijackers to slaughter 3,000 men, women, and children on 9/11.

As The Washington Free Beacon illustrates, the Islamic State immediately began using Senator Feinstein’s 5 1/2-year, American taxpayers funded handiwork to incite further atrocities and recruit to their bloody and vile jihad:

This tweet from Abu Bakr #Caliph (undoubtedly a reference to IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi) urges outraged Muslims to curb-stomp their offenders: “From now on when someone accuses your Muslim brother of terrrorism, stick the #torture_report on the heel of your shoe and shove it in his mouth.”

The Twitter user Mus’ab al-Iraqi justified torture of Americans: “The #torture_report says that torture was necessary to prevent possible attacks, I hope for reciprocity and we say that torture was necessary to prevent American attacks.”

If you only read the opening letter in rebuttal to the Senate “study” by the current Director of Central Intelligence John Brennan, you will begin to know the CIA’s detention and interrogation program worked. And make no mistake about Mr. Brennan’s politics; he served as President Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor from day one of this administration before being appointed as the DCI:

“Notwithstanding the above areas of agreement, there are several areas of disagreement as well. In particular, the Agency disagrees with the Study’s unqualified assertions that the overall detention and interrogation program did not produce unique intelligence that led terrorist plots to be disrupted, terrorists to be captured, or lives to be saved. The Study’s claims on this score are inconsistent with the factual record, and we provide detailed comments in TAB C on where and why the Study’s assertions and representations are wrong.”

In part, DCI Brennan added: “I have carefully reviewed and concur with the Agency’s comments…”

The CIA’s TAB C rebuttal ‘Information on the Courier that Led to the UBL Operation‘ and all 20 of it’s detailed debunkings are stark evidence that Senator Feinstein’s “study” is a $40 million dollar pack of deliberate distortions.

9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America stands with those who did what was necessary to prevent further attacks. We know that the CIA saved lives.

We are saddened by the political partisanship that divides, and fear for our homeland and those that serve it abroad in harm’s way. More bitter days may lie ahead; America can and must rise together as a Nation once again.

Post updated at 11:16 a.m. December 11, 2014. The spelling of Dianne Feinstein’s first name was corrected.

Debra Burlingame on Obama saying Islamic State is ‘not Islamic’: I think he knows better

On September 11, 2014, Debra Burlingame spoke with Ginni Thomas (hat tip to the Daily Caller) about President Obama’s claim that the ideology driving the Islamic State (“ISIL”) is “not Islamic.”

“I can’t really enter the mind of Barack Obama or George Bush to know what they really know and what they really believe. I only know what the facts are. I only know that in fact just because they’re violent doesn’t mean they are not a religion. And in fact there are some fifty different descriptions of violent jihad in the Koran.

“Not only that, the Koran goes into gross detail on how to dispatch an infidel, striking at the throat, cutting off the hands and the feet. And remember this isn’t something we interpret — some people say the bible is an allegory — these are the perfect words of Allah that transcend all time and space, and in fact to say Allah didn’t actually mean what he said through the prophet Mohammed in that moment is blasphemy under Islam.

“To say its not a religion, I think [Obama] knows better. I can’t possibly know that. I know that he has invited the Muslim Brotherhood into his administration and consults with them regularly. Well, the Muslim Brotherhood is the political wing of violent Islamist Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood absolutely believes in a global caliphate.”

Watch the interview here.

Updated March 15, 2018.