During WW2 the military had a policy, and as far is I know still does, that anyone who knew of future military planning was required to stay on base. They were not allowed to go where the enemy might capture them. That way, all the enemy could learn from captives was what they already knew; who we were and what we had done. They could not learn from captives what we were planning.
In a segment Friday evening on Hardball an intelligence professional makes the, to me, very sensible argument that this paranoid focus on interrogating captives has not only failed to give us information of the future planning of terrorist networks, it has detracted from the effort which could give us that knowledge, “case officers in the field” looking for and studying the activity of persons who we have not yet captured.
Drumheller describes how we started this whole ugly mess because we were terrified on 9/11 and just “had to do something,” and then how the process fed on itself and “gained momentum.” He described how “they thought ‘this happened because we were weak and now we’re going to be strong.’” And repeatedly he decries how it detracts from the far more valuable collection of “information by case officers in the field.”
The transcript won’t be available until Monday, so watch the clip to hear the details, but Mt. Drumheller is well worth listening to, and Chris Matthews is somewhat less obnoxious than usual in that he often allows the guest to finish a complete sentence.
Stupidity, Part Two: The Hardball Award
In the segment following that one, Chris Matthews repeatedly shouted down guest Jonathan Turley as he kept trying to say that torturers should be prosecuted, and chuckled along with Pat Robertson as he defended not investigating it. He showed a clip of John McCain adamantly (well, as adamantly as McCain is capabable of these days) insisting that the whole thing be dropped at once because it is “partisan” and “distracting.”
He then presented the “Hardball Award” to McCain with his usual fawning discourse about how McCain is a hero, and has been tortured, and has stood up against torture. He didn’t, of course, after lionizing him for “standing up against torture,” replay the clip from the previous segment of McCain insisting that those who used torture not be prosecuted.
This Hardball Award was a joke from the beginning, and it becomes more so every day. It’s reached the point that if he sees your name in a headline in any Beltway or New York paper he will fall all over himself presenting you with a Hardball Award. Now he’s added Chicago to that list with his fascination over the deposed governor.
Don’t get the wrong impression, I actually like Chris Matthews, and I watch him regularly, but he can just come off as a real airhead at times. And I am totally at odds with him on his unstated but clear position that investigating the Bush Administration is a distraction and should take a back seat to more important things.
No comments:
Post a Comment