- Figures. Heaviest traffic day we’ve had in a month, and there’s an WordPress update to be done. I guess I’ll hold off on it until tomorrow, or perhaps the weekend, depending.
- Rained like crazy here this morning. We actually had some thunder and lightning, last night, too. At 9 this morning, we had 52 degrees out. We’re supposed to be getting colder later today and tonight. Usually, warmer weather affects voting turnouts, but my guess is it won’t affect them much, today, because the warmer weather has wind and rain attached to it.
- Head drooling idiot Chris Bowers says: “It can no longer be avoided: super delegates will determine the Democratic Presidential nominee this year.” Well, gee, Chris. Seems Camp Clinton has already figured that one out. [1]
- I note Andy McCarthy at NRO: [2]
Bottom line: The United States does not currently use waterboarding as a tactic to derive intelligence. There is, moreover, no expectation that waterboarding will be added to the menu of interrogation methods, a process that would involve several unlikely steps.Of course, war critics and anti-torture activists will never be satisfied. Too many of them are more invested in further inflating yesterday’s legal quarrels than preparing for tomorrow’s national security needs. But for people of good will — those who concede that there have always been strong arguments on both sides of this debate — it’s time to let go.
Let’s take a step back. Credible reporting — which is not addressed in the attorney general’s letter — indicates that waterboarding has been used on no more than three of the thousands of detainees the United States has held, long and short term, since military operations against radical Islam began over six years ago. Assuming (as I do), that it was used on those three (all top-tier al-Qaeda operatives), the same credible reporting also tells us the tactic has not been used in over four years.
So we did it an infinitesimal number of times, we haven’t done it in years, we don’t currently do it, the regulations in place don’t permit it, and it seems inconceivable that future regulations will alter that.
Is this issue really worth scandalizing ourselves over?
Well, of COURSE it is, Andy, if you’re a member of the opposition trying to score points with the drooling idiots. Which is exactly the point of this whole thing. But consider, please, what such people are willing to sacrifice for their point scoring. And by the way, the same goes for wiretaps. Apparently, such people think our national security isn’t worth using all the tools to hand… and that such security can be profitably put at risk so as to allow them to make political hay. And yes, I would include John McCain in that statement.
- Finally, here’s a bumper sticker that Michelle [3] picked up from a reader.
[4]