When the article concerning the “real Jack Bauers” came to my attention, I was definitely interested. I’ve watched 24 each and every season, and can definitely say that I’m an ardent fan. That being the case, I was intrigued to hear about the real life guys.
Rather than try to rehash, the entire article, I’d definitely encourage you to visit this link:
During the Congressional hearings concerning waterboarding, I was pretty much disgusted. Personally, I didn’t care if it involved suffering. During the 9/11 coverage, I forced myself to watch as much of the suffering and destruction as I could handle. It was particularly gut wrenching to watch people jump from the Twin Towers. I kept asking myself what I would do if I were in their shoes, knowing how terrifying it is to stand on the edge of a cliff and think of falling to my death. Every time I’ve been on an airplane since 9/11, I’ve looked around at other passengers and told myself that if something bad happened on this flight, I needed to muster up the courage of a Todd Beamer and the others on United Flight 93. Perhaps somewhat blindly, I trusted our military and CIA to use discretion on who made it to the waterboarding, and if a few “innocent” people had to undergo the process to help our country avoid a repeat of 9/11, in my gut, I was willing to let it happen.
The more I learned about what prisoners at Gitmo were subjected to, the more I realized that Congress and the media had glorified the supposed suffering. The real “Jack Bauers” do nothing akin to what Keifer Sutherland does on 24. I know, I know. Most of you are probably saying, “Well, duh. That’s Hollywood!” But you have to admit, if you watched the dog and pony show led by Pelosi, et al and the mainstream media, we were subconsciously led to believe that real torturing was going on and that renegade agents were apt to take matters into their own hands.
If you bother to visit the link and read the article (assuming you find it credible), you’ll find that the goal of the investigators was to move rapidly from interrogation to debriefing by gaining two objectives: a) freeing the suspect from his moral obligation to Allah through a means explained to the investigators by the terrorists, and b) avoid using techniques involving pain as victims of pain interrogation will say anything thereby rendering the information gained as useless. So, while I may have formed some of my assumptions of what probably was going on by subconscious absorption of story lines of 24, reality was something else entirely - something tame and actually quite civil.
The byproduct of the real life investigations is impressive. I have quoted from the article:
“For example, information from detainees in CIA custody led to the arrest of an al-Qaeda terrorist named Jose Padilla, who was sent to America on a mission to blow up high-rise apartment buildings in the United States.
“Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of a cell of Southeast Asian terrorists which had been tasked by KSM to hijack a passenger jet and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles.
“Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, KSM’s right-hand-man in the 9/11 attacks, just as he was finalizing plans for a plot to hijack airplanes in Europe and fly them into Heathrow airport and buildings in downtown London.
“Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of Ammar al-Baluchi and Walid bin Attash, just as they were completing plans to replicate the destruction of our embassies in East Africa by blowing up the U.S. consulate and Western residences in Karachi, Pakistan.
“Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the disruption of an al-Qaeda plot to blow up the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, in an attack that could have rivaled the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.
“Information from detainees in CIA custody helped break up an al-Qaeda cell that was developing anthrax for terrorist attacks inside the United States.
“In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al-Qaeda — giving U.S. officials a picture of the terrorist organization as seen from the inside, at a time when we knew almost nothing about the enemy who had attacked us on 9/11.
“In addition, CIA detainees helped identify some 86 individuals whom al-Qaeda deemed suitable for Western operations — most of whom we had never heard of before. According to the intelligence community, about half of these individuals were subsequently tracked down and taken off the battlefield. Without CIA questioning, many of these terrorists could still be unknown to us and at large — and may well have carried out attacks against the West by now.
“Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, well over half of the information our government had about al-Qaeda — how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks — came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.
If this is true, how sad to see that we were once again duped by Congress, Obama, and the mainstream media. And how sad it is to think of the program being dismantled, and the circus which will now ensue as terrorists are put through civilian courts, only to be freed to the streets of America or sent back to the terrorist country of Yemen. George W Bush may not have hit a home run when it came to remaining as conservative as I would have preferred, but there is no denying he kept America safe during his eight years in office, just as Ronald Reagan sent a clear message to the world, “Don’t mess with the US.” In contrast, Obama and Congress are sending a strong message of “We’re really sorry how evil our country has been. Anything you do to us will be our fault, and if you’re caught, we’ll try you in civilian courts while affording you all the rights guaranteed citizens of our country. We hope you find that to your satisfaction. If not, please tell us how we might improve. Would a billion dollar stimulus package, courtesy of the American taxpayer, help?”
How I wish we could just start with a fresh group of representatives and senators who weren’t elected after kowtowing to the party machines and special interest groups. And once elected, if they were going to second guess the process of Gitmo, they’d first have to experience the processes of investigation utilized by the investigators and then watch the archived videos of what happened on 9/11 along with Daniel Pearl having his head cut off and al-Qaeda film footage of their terrorist training camps. I’m thinking things might be a little different.
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