Barack Obama: "We tortured some folks"

We poured some water up the nose of some very evil people. They weren't physically hurt. They are terrorists. They aren't covered by the Geneva Convention and don't follow it themselves. To all the people who say we should be better than them, I say it's not about being better. It is a fight to the death and it's about winning.

Via AP

President Barack Obama says in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the United States did things that were wrong and crossed the line. He says, quote, “we tortured some folks.”
Obama is commenting on a Senate investigation into the CIA’s interrogation techniques. A report on that investigation’s results is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Obama says it’s important to remember how horrified Americans were after 9/11. But he says it’s important to remember the U.S. must live up to its values.
Obama also says he has full confidence in CIA Director John Brennan.

Possible reason Obama hates the British has been revealed

Barack Hussein Obama with his grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, in Africa

Have you ever wondered why President Obama hates the British? His father was a Kenyan citizen and British subject. At the time of Obama's birth, Kenya was a British colony and Barack Obama became a Kenyan citizen and British subject by birth.

Factcheck.org reported:

When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom's dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.'s children:

British Nationality Act of 1948 (Part II, Section 5): Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth.

In other words, at the time of his birth, Barack Obama Jr. was both a U.S. citizen (by virtue of being born in Hawaii) and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (or the UKC) by virtue of being born to a father who was a citizen of the UKC. Emphasis mine.

Even though Obama's family were British citizens, they were at odds with the colonial government. President Obama's paternal grandfather was imprisoned and allegedly tortured by the British. Obama's middle name (Hussein) is from his paternal grandfather.

The Daily Mail reported:

The Kenyan bowed his head as his captors opened the prison cell door to deliver another brutal whipping - a punishment meted out after he was accused of taking part in the independence movement against the British colonial authorities.

The man had been working as a cook for a British Army officer. And his name? Hussein Onyango Obama - President Barack Obama's paternal grandfather....

'The African warders were instructed by the white soldiers to whip him every morning and evening till he repented,' says Sarah Onyango, Hussein Onyango's third wife, and the woman President Obama calls 'Granny Sarah'.

Mrs Onyango, now 89, says 'white soldiers' visited the prison every two or three days...

This week, she told the Mail in an exclusive interview that she believes that learning of the torture meted out to his grandfather turned her grandson, the U.S. President, against Britain. Sitting under a mango tree in the garden of her modest home in Kogelo village, Kenya, surrounded by the family's chickens, cows and goat, she recalls telling Barack Obama his family history on his first visit to Kenya in 1988.

'I narrated the whole story to Barack one evening... Emphasis mine.

US Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) Wants to Investigate Cheney for Torture (video)

Some Democrats aren't satisfied with just investigating the CIA for torture. They want to go after former VP Dick Cheney. US Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) says he wants Attorney General Holder to go after "people who may have ordered it, such as the vice president, for example," This statement is at about the 1:40 mark of the Fox News video.

From The Hill:

"My criticism of the attorney general is that he should not limit the investigation to people in the field who may have committed torture, but to people who may have ordered it, such as the vice president, for example," Nadler said during an interview on Fox News.

From Fox News:

Obama outsources torture

Obama has ordered the secret CIA prisons closed and stopped "enhanced interrogation techniques" that were employed by the Bush administration. So, how is he going to get the valuable information we need? He has outsourced this to Middle East countries according to the New York Times. They would never employ torture or other rough interrogation techniques. From the NYT:

The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to current and former American government officials.

The change represents a significant loosening of the reins for the United States, which has worked closely with allies to combat violent extremism since the 9/11 attacks but is now pushing that cooperation to new limits.

In the past 10 months, for example, about a half-dozen midlevel financiers and logistics experts working with Al Qaeda have been captured and are being held by intelligence services in four Middle Eastern countries after the United States provided information that led to their arrests by local security services, a former American counterterrorism official said.

Pelosi lies about calling CIA liars

This story just keeps going and getting worse. Nancy Pelosi must be on about her eight version of events surrounding what she knew about "enhanced interrogation" techniques employed on high level Al Qaeda operatives captured after 9-11. Thursday, she called the CIA liars when they briefed members of Congress about "enhanced interrogation" techniques. Friday, she denied she called the CIA liars and said she was referring to the Bush administration. Nancy Pelosi made this statement after CIA Director Leon Panetta went on offense to protect the morale of his department. The call for Pelosi's removal as Speaker has begun.

Today, she said she was talking about the Bush Administration, but the video does not lie.

O'Reilly Takes Obama To Task On Churchill & Torture (Video)

Bill O'Reilly was once a history teacher. He takes on Obama on Churchill and torture and gives him a history lessen.

Bill Has A History Lesson For President Obama(video via YouTube)

Famed Bush-basher rips Obama

Ex-CIA spook Michael Scheuer rips into Barack Obama for a "breathtaking display of self-righteousness and intellectual arrogance." He accuses him of putting his personal beliefs ahead of protecting the country. Then he gets really warmed up. Read this excerpt from the Washington Post,

Surprisingly, Obama now stands alongside Bush as a genuine American Jacobin, both of them seeing the world as they want it to be, not as it is. Whereas Bush saw a world of Muslims yearning to betray their God for Western secularism, Obama gazes upon a globe that he regards as largely carnivore-free and believes that remaining threats can be defused by semantic warfare; just stop saying "War on Terror" and give talks in Turkey and on al-Arabiyah television, for example.

Americans should be clear on what Obama has done. In a breathtaking display of self-righteousness and intellectual arrogance, the president told Americans that his personal beliefs are more important than protecting their country, their homes and their families. The interrogation techniques in question, the president asserted, are a sign that Americans have lost their "moral compass," a compliment similar to Attorney General Eric Holder's identifying them as "moral cowards." Mulling Obama's claim, one can wonder what could be more moral for a president than doing all that is needed to defend America and its citizens? Or, asked another way, is it moral for the president of the United States to abandon intelligence tools that have saved the lives and property of Americans and their allies in favor of his own ideological beliefs?

Democratic strategist says Cheney needs to shut up

Democratic strategist, Steve Murphy, said Dick Cheney needs to shut up. He accused Cheney of political motives and not pursuing what is best for America. Dick Cheney has been on a campaign to warn Obama is making the country more vulnerable to attack by pulling back on Bush's policies. How can asking for the release of documents proving what we did worked be considered political and not in the best interests of America? The truth should always be welcome, if national security is not put at risk. Progressives don't want the truth because the truth conflicts with their world view and political agenda. Steve Murphy's statement is outrageous.

Advice to Dick Cheney (video via YouTube)

CIA's interrogation techniques prevented the "Second Wave" of attacks in the US

Released Justice Dept. memos show that the CIA's interrogation techniques prevented the "Second Wave" of attacks in the US. According to the leaked memos, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques." This information included plans for Al Qaeda to take down the tallest building(the Library Tower) on the West Coast in a second wave attack. This information was buried in the released memos and ignored by the Main Stream Media until now. The Washington Post reported,

Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques "led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the 'Second Wave,' 'to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into' a building in Los Angeles." KSM later acknowledged before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay that the target was the Library Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. The memo explains that "information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the 'Second Wave.' " In other words, without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York.

President Obama opens the door to prosecution of Bush officials for legal opinions

President Obama opened the door to prosecution of Bush officials for legal opinions relating to the definition of torture. Previously, Obama had ruled out the possibility of prosecution of any Bush Administration officials. Instead, he released CIA documents relating to the methods used. Barack Obama misjudged his base on this issue. He thought they would be satisfied with the document release and he could put this issue behind him. However, outrage and demands for prosecution grew among his left wing base. Now, Obama is doing a 180 so fast his head will spin. President Obama is terrified of losing his liberal base, but he wishes this issue would go away. According to Yahoo News,

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama left the door open Tuesday to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terror-suspect interrogations, saying the United States lost "our moral bearings" with use of the tactics.

The question of whether to bring charges against those who devised justification for the methods "is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said. The president discussed the continuing issue of terrorism-era interrogation tactics with reporters as he finished an Oval Office meeting with visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan.