Nancy Pelosi Knew About Waterboarding
By John Stephenson
New evidence has surfaced, thanks to the Attorney General’s war on the CIA, confirming what most already know. Nancy Pelosi is a hypocritical liar.
Remember last April when Nancy Pelosi was cornered exposing her hypocrisy on the enhanced interrogation techniques used against terrorists? She had been crying how evil Bush was and pretending she was in the dark on the issue. The CIA let the world know she had been briefed on the techniques and that they were being used. She claimed the CIA was lying.
“In that or any other briefing we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel opinions that they could be used.”
Uh oh! Documented evidence has surfaced! In a report given to congress by the National Intelligence Director this week, on September 4th 2002 Nancy Pelosi was briefed. Her name is in the column stating [see top graph]:
“Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.”
Now new evidence has come to light. In the Attorney General’s war against the CIA for using these enhanced techniques documents have been revealed showing Pelosi’s hands are not as clean as she would like people to believe.
The newly declassified CIA report on the interrogation of Islamist terrorists notes “in the fall of 2002, the agency briefed the leadership of the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of both standard techniques and EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques).”
The CIA, according to the report, “continued to brief the leadership of the Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of EITs and detentions in February and March 2003.”
And here’s the zinger: “The general counsel says that none of the participants expressed any concern about the techniques or the program….”
For months, Speaker Pelosi has claimed she and other high-ranking Democrats in Congress who were briefed by the CIA during President Bush’s first term “were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used.”
Others present with her at CIA intelligence briefings, like former House Intelligence Committee Chairman and CIA director Porter Goss, say otherwise.
Her credibility was also rattled by the revelation that Rep. Jane Harman, the California Democrat who succeeded Pelosi as ranking Democrat on the House intelligence panel, sent a classified letter to the CIA in February 2003 objecting to EITs.
Speaker Pelosi’s behavior reeks of the kind of cynicism and hypocrisy Americans have become used to seeing in Washington.
Her liberal instincts were to object to the CIA’s tough interrogation of terrorists.
But those briefings took place not long after the 9/11 attacks; the war in Afghanistan, home to al-Qaida and shelter for Osama bin Laden, was going well; and the Iraq War had not yet begun.
So there was no way for an ambitious politician like Pelosi to know which way the political winds would end up blowing.
At the time, President Bush was basking in popularity, and the nation was in lockstep behind his aggressive approach to waging the global war on terror — including in Iraq. For all Pelosi knew, it might stay that way for many years to come.
So she stayed quiet, keeping her options open. Now, with Democrats running the whole show in Washington and a Justice Department poised to criminalize CIA interrogators in a politicized national security witch hunt, she has chosen to revert to those liberal instincts.
Solid evidence showing what we already knew. Pelosi is a hypocritical liar. She should be held accountable.
Tail wag for the graphic: YID With LID
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THE MILLSTONE DIARIES 
Published Commentaries
Posted in Published Commentaries on August 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »
To Hell with Ted Kennedy
By Jerry A. Kane
If Dante Alighieri were alive today, to which of the four regions of Circle 9—the circle of treachery—would the thirteenth-century poet assign Ted Kennedy?
In Dante’s Inferno the regions of Caina, Antenora, Ptolomea, and Judecca are distinguished from one another by the particular offenses committed by the souls who inhabit them. The designated region for politicians who betray their country is Antenora, tailored to suit the offenses committed by the departed leftist lion Democrat.
Although it has become commonplace for Massachusetts’ senior senator to provide aid and comfort to America’s enemies and to accuse her President of secretly plotting and then deliberately starting an unnecessary war in Iraq, the earl of the waitress sandwich went a wee bit over the top when he collaborated with the Soviet KGB at the height of the Cold War to undermine a sitting President.
“In May 1983, the KGB … reported to their bosses on a discussion in Moscow with former Sen. John Tunney. Kennedy had instructed Tunney, according to the KGB, to carry a message to Yuri Andropov, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, expressing Kennedy’s concern about the anti-Soviet activities of President Ronald Reagan.
The KGB reported ‘in Kennedy’s opinion the opposition to Reagan remains weak. Speeches of the President’s opponents are not well-coordinated and not effective enough, and Reagan has the chance to use successful counterpropaganda.’
Kennedy offered to ‘undertake some additional steps to counter the militaristic, policy of Reagan and his campaign of psychological pressure on the American population.’
Kennedy asked for a meeting with Andropov for the purpose of ‘arming himself with the Soviet leader’s explanations of arms control policy so he can use them later for more convincing speeches in the U.S.’
He also offered to help get Soviet views on the major U.S. networks and suggested inviting ‘Elton Rule, ABC chairman of the board, or observers Walter Cronkite or Barbara Walters to Moscow.’”
Reporter Tim Sebastian discovered the Viktor Chebrikov [KGB] memo to Andropov in the Soviet archives and wrote about his discovery in an article titled, “Teddy, the KGB and the top secret file” in the London Times February 2, 1992.
In the book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, Paul Kengor also refers to the KGB memo and Kennedy’s proposed partnership to undermine President Reagan’s foreign policy and re-election efforts.
According to Kengor, Kennedy proposed a public relations plan that would cut through Reagan’s propaganda and connect Andropov and other senior Soviet officials with the mainstream media to help the Soviets present their peaceful intentions to the American people. Andropov died suddenly, and with his death Kennedy’s plan to undermine Reagan.
Clearly, Kennedy was not a double agent, nor was he a KGB pawn who did not understand what he was doing. He collaborated with the KGB solely to advance his own political aspirations and agenda. Kengor thinks that Kennedy wanted to stop Reagan’s “aggressive defense policies, which then ranged from the Pershing IIs to the MX to SDI, and even his re-election bid.” Kennedy saw Reagan, not Andropov, as the hindrance to peace.
Mary Jo’s Teddy was also a major contributor in creating and passing the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that imposed surveillance restrictions on the FBI and CIA, which “were so tight that when the FBI arrested Zacarias Moussaoui (the so-called 20th highjacker) in August 2001, they could not get permission to download his computer since FBI headquarters understood that they did not have enough evidence to get a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”
Kennedy’s traitorous collaboration with the Soviet KGB and his deliberate disregard for the dangers of hostile foreign powers personify a progressive ideologue with a political agenda that supersedes the good of the country and the safety of its people.
The Inferno is a deep place where the sun is silent. Dante assigns the treacherous to Circle 9—the lowest of the 9 concentric circles of hell—and the treasonous to its second region. To hell with Ted Kennedy, a more deserving patron Antenora would be hard pressed to find.
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