(Cross-posted here, where you could've read it hours ago)
This guy decided to write a pro-torture op-ed in the Washington Post, published on Sunday, and even though it's insane and inexplicably PRO-TORTURE, that is not even the extent of its stupidity. So I am going to quote it and mock it now. Here goes.
Say It's Osama. What If He Won't Talk? By Michael Scheuer
Sunday, April 26, 2009
It's Osama. And we don't know if he's talking or not right now because, despite the fact that he killed 3,000 Americans, former President Bush did not feel the need to find him.
In surprisingly good English, the captive quietly answers: 'Yes, all thanks to God, I do know when the mujaheddin will, with God's permission, detonate a nuclear weapon in the United States, and I also know how many and in which cities."
He may ACTUALLY KNOW THIS but he is not in our custody because we stopped looking for him.
Secondly, it would be really nice to know when a nuclear weapon gets in the hands of a terrorist organization. So let's stop making shit up about people who don't actually have any, forcing us to spend all our energy on fruitless trips to Africa to find out about nonexistent yellowcake uranium, and let's stop using fake intelligence to get us involved in a war for the past five years when we should be focusing on keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Deal?
Startled, the CIA interrogators quickly demand more detail. Smiling his trademark shy smile, the captive says nothing. Reporting the interrogation's results to the White House, the CIA director can only shrug when the president asks: "What can we do to make Osama bin Laden talk?"
Startled? The fucking CIA would be STARTLED to hear that a terrorist knows the location of a nuclear weapon in the United States? He would have NO KNOWLEDGE of this up until that point? Why the fuck is this guy in the CIA? He is obviously terrible at his job and Americans would end up dying from the detonation of this weapon if he had no clue of its existence.
Secondly, why would the CIA have OBL in their custody without intelligence showing that he, like, had these weapons, and was plotting an act of terrorism against the US? He just happened to walk by and the CIA guy was like, "hey dude I wanna ask you something"? And thanks to that RANDOM CHANCE they had him in custody and thanks to his RANDOM ADMISSION they know about a nuclear weapon in the US? Is the CIA composed of bumbling fucking morons and we as Americans just need to pray all the time that a terrorist will randomly show up at the CIA's door? I'm terrified and it's not because of OBL.
Third, this guy just said that there is a NUCLEAR WEAPON IN THE US, and the CIA, after presumably sitting there in shocked stupidity for god knows how long, then calls the president and waits for him to get on the phone, and the president asks the CIA how they will get OBL to talk? So, it's up to the CIA. And they interrupted this dangerous ticking timebomb to have a heart to heart with the president. Wow I feel so safe. I would HOPE the CIA would address the immediate problem of a nuclear weapon before they gossiped with the president. But that's just me.
Americans should keep this worst-case scenario in mind as they watch the tragicomic spectacle taking place in the wake of the publication of the Justice Department's interrogation memos.
The CIA should keep this worst case scenario in mind so that they don't waste valuable time being startled and having girlfriend time with the president.
Also, tragicomic? Your op-ed is about a nuclear weapon reaching the hands of Osama bin fucking Laden. The publication of the memos involved us waterboarding and threatening rape and cutting penises and psychologically abusing people, none of these techniques ever stopping any terrorist attack, at least if you believe FBI Director Mueller. I fail to see the "comic" part of any of this. Could ya point it out? I guess it is SORT OF funny that the CIA would be shocked to learn about the imminent demise of everyone in the US by nukes, but only in a 'the government is so comedically stupid it's unbelievable" way.
It will help them recognize this episode of political theater as another major step in the bipartisan dismantling of America's defenses based on the requirements of presidential ideology.
Political theater or terrifying deaths of all of America? You decide. And I guess he's sort of right. Hiring people to work for the CIA who express shock when a member of a terrorist organization walks up to them and says "yo, so I have nukes" makes me feel like our defenses are being dismantled. Getting rid of intelligence and hiring bumbling morons, leaving only the option of waiting til you happen to see someone from al Qaeda nearby and he gives you some information and you're shocked and since you have not used any resources to get any prior information at all, your only means of finding out anything is through illegal torture, that is a definite dismantling of defenses. Good job President Obama! Not sure how it's your fault but this guy seems to think so!
Secondly not only are our defenses totally gone, but they're gone whenever we have a president who puts his ideology of upholding the Constitution ahead of everything else. Awkwardly, article two, section one, clause eight of the Constitution, which I guess hates America, gives the presidential oath of office, which requires presidents to uphold the constitution. This part of the constitution, as well as other parts random Op-Ed writers see as awful, may need to go. It is not right to ask the president of the United States to uphold the constitution of the United States when there's a terrorist with a nuke. We should be like the Romans and suspend democracy every time we are threatened by outside forces. I mean, look at the Romans, THEY worked out just fine.
George W. Bush's democracy-spreading philosophy yielded the invasion of Iraq and set the United States at war with much of the Muslim world.
I got yer democracy right here. Heh heh. So it was democracy that caused the war in Iraq? The free choice of Americans to be exposed daily with false information and lies about mushroom clouds and terrorists on our doorsteps, and to become so terrified that they let the president invade another country, thinking it would stop a nuclear attack? I guess I am starting to see what you mean now. It definitely follows, then, that it would be freedom-loving to abuse the shit out of random people whenever they say "nuclear" (only if they pronounce it 'nukular' though, because torturing people who say "new-clear"? That's just Nazism.)
And so we're at war with Islam? So this is Crusades: the sequel? Well then I guess I understand why you expect the Inquisition.
Bush's worldview thereby produced an enemy that quickly outpaced the limited but proven threat-containing capacities of the major U.S. counterterrorism programs -- rendition, interrogation and unmanned aerial vehicle attacks.
Well then you're right. If Bush's worldview caused that then obviously the correct answer is to keep applying Bush's worldview and not only that, but take it to its extremes, even if we do torture people and more 'enemies are created' and then just keep doing that again and again. What's the worst that could happen?
Now, in a single week, President Obama has eliminated two-thirds of that successful-but-not-sufficient national defense troika because his personal ideology -- a fair gist of which is "If the world likes us more we are more secure" -- cannot tolerate harsh interrogation techniques, torture or coercive interviews, call them what you will. 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.
Yeah President Obama is so fucking stupid. We should piss the world off as much as possible because who the fuck cares if other people in the world hate us? What the hell are they gonna do? Slam two planes into our buildings? Riiiight.
And if that's not enough, President Obama goes to other countries and addresses their people. WHAT the fuck? This is WAR ON ISLAM. You don't talk. You just bomb. Unless you're not Americans, because then you're terrorists. Makes sense.
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?
Yeah what could be more moral than pissing off everyone in the world, and ignoring increasing threats until a random terrorist walks by and tells you on his own without being tortured that he knows where a nuke is? What could be more safe, more democratic and more American than torturing people, and ignoring the FBI Director's anti-American statement that torture has never prevented a terrorist attack? President Obama listens to "other people" too much. What do stupid idiots like the Attorney General, the FBI, CIA officials, and John McCain know about laws and torture?
I am going to skip a little bit because apparently this guy likes typing a whole lot.
Republicans will welcome the Democrats' actions as a chance to reclaim their mantle as the most reliable protectors of U.S. national security. They will seek to prove that Obama and his party are eager to persecute the men and women who defend America and will denounce Democratic actions as a "witch hunt." Those words were used last week by Sen. John McCain, a man who seems to have forgotten that as a presidential candidate he, more than anyone, persuaded Americans that the interrogation techniques amounted to torture and gloried in calling the CIA and its officers a "rogue institution."
Yeah FUCK John McCain. We should've never gotten that guy out of Viet Nam. Fucking traitor.
I think he might be onto something here! I for one cannot wait to go back to the days where 9/11 happened, and the anthrax attacks, and the drowning of everyone in New Orleans. Please please protect me, Republicans.
So if the above worst-case scenario ever comes to pass, Americans will have at least two things from which to take solace, even after the loss of major cities and tens of thousands of countrymen. First, they will know that their president believes that those losses are a small price to pay for stopping interrogations and making foreign peoples like us more. And second, they will see Osama bin Laden's shy smile turn into a calm and beautiful God-is-Great grin.
Yeah! As opposed to now, when Osama bin Laden is in US custody, and is not in any way able to attack us today, thanks to Republican vigilance.
As we take this advice, and further piss the world off, creating more terrorists by the second, we can die (presumably in a nuclear winter or being burned to death or drowned) knowing that we helped bring Bush's vision of freedom to Iraq, and we are tough Americans with a swagger, and we don't need to worry about some stupid Osama bin Laden.