In an article noting a gradual but measurable increase in CIA’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to assassinate terrorists I was struck by how ironic, predictable and asinine was the criticism by human rights groups.

[Wa. Post] About 20 percent of CIA analysts are now “targeters” scanning data for individuals to recruit, arrest or place in the cross­hairs of a drone. The skill is in such demand that the CIA made targeting a designated career track five years ago, meaning analysts can collect raises and promotions without having to leave the targeting field.

Critics, including some in the U.S. intelligence community, contend that the CIA’s embrace of “kinetic” operations, as they are known, has diverted the agency from its traditional espionage mission and undermined its ability to make sense of global developments such as the Arab Spring.

Human rights groups go further, saying the CIA now functions as a military force beyond the accountability that the United States has historically demanded of its armed services. The CIA doesn’t officially acknowledge the drone program, let alone provide public explanation about who shoots and who dies, and by what rules.

“We’re seeing the CIA turn into more of a paramilitary organization without the oversight and accountability that we traditionally expect of the military,” said Hina Shamsi, the director of the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Now, these are the same human rights groups that have criticized all non-lethal avenues of action that the CIA could possibly take. Human rights groups like the ACLU were against enhanced interrogation, against interning terrorists as POWs at Guantanamo and other military facilities (another irony considering they had for so long lobbied that Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists be treated as standard prisoners of war, such as German and Japanese POWs kept in military camps until the end of the Second World War), against rendition, against solitary confinement (seriously), against military tribunals, even against the same kind of wiretapping and hidden surveillance that has been employed against organized crime for decades. Having used friendly court districts packed with bleeding-heart liberal judges to sue all possible non-lethal actions that the federal government could potentially take against enemies who disguise themselves as civilians, hijack aircraft and slam them into buildings, it is only natural that this government decided that the best way to deal with terrorists was to kill them rather than capture them.

What else did they expect would happen?

Even now the United States military and other Western powers are deploying ships and other assets around the Med and near Libya. But posturing aside the National Review editors advocate a different kind of military strategy — do nothing. Here’s why:

We understand and share the impulse to stanch the killing. But there are two problems with the proposed no-fly zone.

One, Qaddafi’s regime doesn’t appear to be doing much of its murder from the air. If we are serious about limiting his ability to massacre his countrymen, the no-fly zone would have to become a no machine-gun zone, too — in other words an honest-to-goodness military intervention to affect events directly on the ground. Deploying our air power while Qaddafi continued to kill with impunity would make us look more ineffectual rather than less. For now (perhaps this will change if Qaddafi begins to consolidate his position on the strength of his air force), the no-fly zone seems a classic case of looking for lost keys under the streetlight; it’s the handiest way for us to intervene, not the most effective.

Two, the rebels are on the ascendancy. Absent some drastic change in the tide of events, it looks as if they will prevail. Why would we taint what would be the indigenous glory of their ouster of Qaddafi with an almost entirely symbolic Western military action? The reason that the revolts of 2011 have had a dramatic catalyzing effect across the region, when the invasion of Iraq didn’t, is that they are the handiwork of Middle Eastern populations themselves, and thus a much more appealing model of change.

This is a very interesting approach and something to be taken seriously, simply because we have used this strategy before successfully — In Poland, it was the tipping point for Communism.

As reported in Time Magazine in 1992, Reagan Republicans joined with The Vatican and Pope John Paul II, the AFL-CIO and other lefty labor movements to defeat the greater evil of Communism. One wonders if such cooperation for such a just cause and with such far-reaching consequences will ever be witnessed again.

Tons of equipment — fax machines (the first in Poland), printing presses, transmitters, telephones, shortwave radios, video cameras, photocopiers, telex machines, computers, word processors — were smuggled into Poland via channels established by priests and American agents and representatives of the AFL-CIO and European labor movements. Money for the banned union came from CIA funds, the National Endowment for Democracy, secret accounts in the Vatican and Western trade unions.

Replace the technology of the 1980s with today’s — cell phones and generators, webservers and Twitter and Facebook — but the concept is the same. (On second thought, if the illiberal regimes of the Arab world focus on blocking modern technology, what if the populations did utilize the old technologies — would the dictators see that coming before it was too late?)

Of course, we’ll never know, at least for many years to come, how much or how often our intelligence services employ asymmetrical support to the world’s enemies of freedom and liberty. I’d like to think it occurs often, but given that the only leaks of our intelligence services time and again seem to indicate a climate of inaction and risk aversion, it may be that we’ll never see the West support an Arab or Islamic “Solidarity” movement.

Let’s play “Compare & Contrast.”

[Washington Times] Iran is poised to begin producing nuclear weapons after its uranium program expansion in 2009, even though it has had problems with thousands of its centrifuges, according to a newly released CIA report.

“Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so,” the annual report to Congress states. … The CIA report is the latest official study expressing concern over Iran’s continuing nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency on March 3 issued a report warning that continuing nuclear activities in violation of U.N. resolutions raise “concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

Remember just a few years ago, right before the election cycle of 2008 had begun, right when the world was oh so concerned that the wicked Neocons and their ‘Israeli puppeteers’ were promoting a policy of aggression against poor misunderstood Iran?

Remember the Bush-era CIA? Remember their 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran? Danger? What danger? Nukes? Ah, Iran stopped trying to go nuclear yeaaars ago! Remember that? Google does:

NIE Report: Iran Halted Nuclear Weapons Program Years Ago
December 03, 2007 11:51 AM

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, Jonathan Karl, Luis Martinez, Kirit Radia and Jennifer Duck Report: In a stunning reversal of Bush administration conventional wisdom, a new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes Iran shelved its nuclear weapons program over four years ago.

“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” reads a declassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate key findings.

Yes, nothing to see here. Move along, move along. It’s just Dick Cheney and the Neocons lying again. We’re not naive. Iran is responding to international pressure. Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid said so, so it MUST be true, right? What say you now, Harry Reid? This new report seems to “directly challenge some of your administration’s naive rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran.”

New York Times
U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 3, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy. … The estimate does not say when American intelligence agencies learned that the weapons program had been halted, but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public “since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed.”

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.” The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

Yet at the same time officials were airing these dire warnings about the Iranian threat, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency were secretly concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons work halted years ago and that international pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran was working.

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, portrayed the assessment as “directly challenging some of this administration’s alarming rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran.” He said he hoped the administration “appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy,” and called for a “a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran.”

What’s changed? Nothing, except a blatantly politically-motivated intelligence agency wished to discredit the GOP prior to the 2008 election cycle. And how’d that work out for them? Well, ask the Democrats.

However, the times are a changing, because it would seem that those Democrats have also done some things to tick off the CIA, for now we have this new “No, no, Iran is dangerous after all!” report just days after the Obama Administration came down hard on Israel for their settlements and stance toward Iran.

Please pass President Obama a handkerchief so he may wipe all that egg off his face.

But which CIA do we believe? The one that says Iran is dangerous now? The one that said Iran wasn’t dangerous in 2007? Or the one that said Iran was dangerous in 2003?

And what’s the point of the NIE if they perpetually revise their assessments in 180-degree hard turns every few years? And what’s the point of an intelligence agency that’s so politically motivated?

For that matter, what’s the point of a free press that habitually takes sides? Please pass them a handkerchief as well. Or a chisel. That egg has hardened.

The following excerpts are taken from Marc Thiessen’s book Courting Disaster — and relevant to the discussion post below regarding Obama Justice Department officials who worked previously defending terrorists (point #3 is huge):

Others say that the lawyers at these firms are in fact following a  great American tradition, in which everyone gets a lawyer and their  day in court. Not so, says Andy McCarthy, the former Assistant  U.S. Attorney who put Omar Abdel-Rahman (the blind sheik)  behind bars for the first bombing of the World Trade Center in  1993.

“We need to be clear about what the American tradition is,”  McCarthy says. “The American tradition is that the 6th Amendment  guarantees the accused-that means somebody who has been  indicted or otherwise charged with a crime-a right to counsel. But  that right only exists if you are accused, which means you are someone   who the government has brought into the civilian criminal justice   system and lodged charges against. ”

The terrorists at Guantanamo, McCarthy says, do not qualify  because they have not been brought into the civilian justice system  for criminal trial. “They are being held as enemy combatants in a  war which has been authorized by Congress.”

**********
Indeed, when the lawyers began litigating these cases, there was no precedent for a right to representation for enemy combatants. McCarthy says, “We’ve had around 5 million prisoners of war in the history of the United States-that’s probably a conservative estimate. Before 2004, it would have been absurd to suggest that enemy combatants in a war had a systematic right of access to U.S. courts.”

**********

More than that, these lawyers, no doubt intentionally, are  encouraging enemy combatants to violate the laws of war. As former   Defense Department General Counsel Jim Haynes explained in a 2008 speech, “During World War II, the United States detained  more than 400,000 German and Italian prisoners of war in camps  sprinkled around the United States, and had zero successful habeas  petitions. Today, we have less than 300 unlawful combatants  detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and 246 ongoing habeas cases  to go with them…. The legal process afforded these detainees far  exceeds anything that German or Italian soldiers enjoyed at any  time during their captivity within our borders.”

The danger, according to Haynes, is that, “If you give more protections   and privileges to Al Qaeda fighters than to lawful combatants, then you will strip away any legal incentives for people to fight  according to the rules…. You encourage countries and groups to  develop corps of unlawful fighters. Ultimately, you increase the savagery of future conflicts.”

Haynes asks: Why stop at Guantanamo? “Coalition forces hold  tens of thousands of detainees in Iraq and over a thousand in Afghanistan. If the detainees in Cuba receive habeas, should those  detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan receive it as well? Instead of hundreds,   why not tens of thousands of military detainee habeas cases  in federal courts?”" These habeas corpus cases, Haynes says, are  creating “an incentive to violate the laws of war…. What’s in it for  any foe of the United States to abide by those rules if one gets better treatment upon capture by violating them?”

**********

In fact, Guantanamo detainees now enjoy rights far beyond those  afforded to prisoners of war with full Geneva protections. Nothing  in the Geneva Conventions provides POWs with the right to counsel, access to the courts to challenge their detention, or the opportunity to be released prior to the end of hostilities. Yet thanks to the habeas corpus campaign, al Qaeda terrorists who violate the laws  of war enjoy all these privileges.

There’s an interesting debate between two former Bush Administration officials regarding the Obama’s  attempt to hide the fact that many of the policy-makers in the Justice Department previously defended al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees in private practice. Both Michael Mukasey, former U.S. attorney general, and Marc Thiessen, former Bush adviser, make comparisons to the Democrats smearing of and even attempting to disbar Bush lawyers (such as John Yoo and Jay Bybee) who simply did their job and provided legal advice regarding topics like enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) and legal versus illegal combatant status.

Mukasey, writing in the WSJ, opines that just because Democrats ruined the careers of Bush lawyers Republicans should not react in kind towards Obama Justice department lawyers who previously defended terrorists (and now write policy on detainees, Guantanamo, etc.). Conversely, Thiessen, in the Washington Post, argues that Republicans are asking legitimate questions about Eric Holder’s Justice lawyers.

Thiessen writes, “The standard today seems to be that you can say or do anything when it comes to the Bush lawyers who defended America against the terrorists. But if you publish an Internet ad or ask legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America’s terrorist enemies, you are engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt.” That’s absoluely accurate, and just the latest example in a never-ending cycle of Liberal selective outrage and media slant.

More to the point, however, having read both arguments, it appears that Mukasey is defending a point that many Republicans (Thiessen, but not all mind you) are not denying: the right of legal council for the accused, even dirtbags.

[Mukasey] A lawyer who represents a party in a contested matter has an ethical obligation to make any and all tenable legal arguments that will help that party. A lawyer in public service, particularly one dealing with sensitive matters of national security, has the obligation to authorize any step or practice the law permits in order to keep the nation and its citizens safe. And a lawyer who undertakes to represent someone whom his neighbors—perhaps rightly—revile as a threat to the public welfare is obligated to bring his talents to bear just as forcefully in favor of that client as he would if he were representing Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, the French artillery officer who in 1895 was found guilty of treason and sent to Devil’s Island for little more than being Jewish.

Nice not-so-subtle use of the race card there, eh? However, what conservatives like Thiessen or Michelle Malkin are arguing is a point of TRANSPARENCY. No doubt Thiessen and Malkin are otherwise outraged, but their first argument is that if Liberals are so very proud of the fact that lawyers who defended terrorists are now serving in very the Justice Department commanded to try these terrorist then why is Eric Holder and the Obama Administration desperately trying to gloss it over or actively obfuscate the truth?

The next argument is one of conflict of interest. Conservatives aren’t necessarily saying no representation for terrorists (a huge myth, by the way, as all Guantanamo detainees have for years both had lawyers and had judicial reviews, basically trials), but saying first that domestic criminal trials are entirely inappropriate for a variety of reasons including the loss of intelligence needed to destroy terror networks and win wars, and second, that lawyers previously charged with protecting al-Qaeda terrorists shouldn’t have the job of trying them now.

[Thiessen] Would most Americans want to know if the Justice Department had hired a bunch of mob lawyers and put them in charge of mob cases? Or a group of drug cartel lawyers and put them in charge of drug cases? Would they want their elected representatives to find out who these lawyers were, which mob bosses and drug lords they had worked for, and what roles they were now playing at the Justice Department? Of course they would — and rightly so. … Should a lawyer who advocates setting terrorists free, knowing they may go on to kill Americans, have any role in setting U.S. detention policy? My hunch is that most Americans would say no.

This is accurate, and the fact that Obama and Holder are looking to move past the criticism instead of defending the practice tells one that they believe it is accurate as well.

Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security John Brennan blasts critics of the Obama administration for their handling of Christmas Day bomb plotter Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, saying among other things, doing so, “only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.” So much for dissension being “the highest form of patriotism.” These same hypocrites cried foul after any subtle insinuation of the same by the Bush administration, but now the shoebomb is on the other foot, I suppose.

Unfortunately for Obama, the critics are far more swift than Mr. Brennan.

Take, for example, the retort below by former Bush official, Mark Thiessen. (Thiessen recently authored an excellent summation of waterboarding, intelligence gathering, etc., and the myriad of plot we’ve prevented since 9-11, titled “Courting Disaster,” and I highly recommend it).

The fact is the Obama administration — and Brennan in particular — are on the defensive over the mishandling of Abdulmutallab, and with good reason. So they are flailing about, lashing out at their detractors and coming up with a series of confused, contradictory, and demonstrably false excuses for their egregious string of errors.

This weekend, for example, Brennan claimed on Meet the Press that he informed key Republican members of Congress that the Christmas bomber was in FBI custody, and said “They knew that ‘in FBI custody’ means that there’s a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of a magistrate. None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point.”

He forgot to mention that in August 2009 the Obama administration had informed Congress and the press that terrorists questioned by the FBI, as part of its High-Value Interrogation Group, would not automatically be Mirandized. According to the Washington Post, “Interrogators will not necessarily read detainees their rights before questioning, instead making that decision on a case-by-case basis, officials said. … ‘It’s not going to, certainly, be automatic in any regard that they are going to be Mirandized,’ one official said, referring to the practice of reading defendants their rights. ‘Nor will it be automatic that they are not Mirandized.’” Whoops.

This is only the first of many whoppers Brennan has told since the scandal broke. In his USA Today op-ed, writes: “Would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid was read his Miranda rights five minutes after being taken off a plane he tried to blow up. The same people who criticize the president today were silent back then.” He fails to mention that Reid was captured just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, when they system of military commissions was not yet up and running, and the authority to hold terrorists captured inside the U.S. as enemy combatants had not yet been affirmed. (And, by the way, since when is “we’re doing the same thing as Bush” the mantra of the Obama administration anyway? Didn’t Bush leave them a big “mess” on detainees that Obama had to clean up? Forgive us for being confused)

Then Brennan writes: “There have been three convictions of terrorists in the military tribunal system since 9/11, and hundreds in the criminal justice system — including high-profile terrorists such as Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui.” He fails explain why there have been only three convictions in the military tribunal system. The military commissions did not begin functioning until 2008 because of all the legal challenges from left-wing lawyers, including Eric Holder’s law firm, Covington & Burling (which, as I point out in Courting Disaster, donated about $1.2 million in free legal services to terrorist at Guantanamo Bay in 2007 alone). As for the argument that hundreds were convicted in the criminal justice system, it has been decimated by Andy McCarthy over at National Review Online. Apparently that number includes every junior extremist who got a parking ticket outside a radical mosque.

Brennan claims that reading terrorists Miranda rights was standard FBI policy under Michael Mukasey. But he neglects to mention that Mukasey forcefully affirmed the President’s wartime authority to detain terrorists captured in the United States — including U.S. citizens — as enemy combatants, both as Attorney General and as a federal judge.

Brennan claims that terrorists like Padilla and al-Marri “did not cooperate when transferred to military custody.” Release the interrogation reports and prove it. These are the same people who told us the CIA interrogation program did not work, until the declassified intelligence proved those claims to be completely wrong.

Brennan claims that “Immediately after the failed Christmas Day attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was thoroughly interrogated and provided important information.” If he was so “thoroughly” interrogated during that 50 minutes of questioning, why are we questioning him again today after he broke his five weeks of silence? Either we got everything we needed (as the Administration conveniently argued when Abdulmutallab was not speaking), or he has more information (as the administration claims now that he is speaking). Seems that initial interrogation was not so “thorough” after all.

And why on earth are they telling us that he is talking, much less what he is talking about? By sharing this information with the press, they are also sharing it with al Qaeda. The surprisingly candid explanation came from White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton, who told reporters: “Ideally this information would not necessarily come out … but we made the determination that it was a good idea to make sure that people knew … that our methods here were working.” In other words, “ideally” we would not share with al Qaeda that Abdulmutallab was talking, but since we are under fire from critics for screwing this up we thought it was a “good idea” to share intelligence with the enemy.

And Brennan accuses his critics of being “politically motivated”?

Via Michelle Malkin’s website I came across these clips from CNN Christine Amanpour’s show which pitted her and another high-brow opponent of waterboarding against former Bush speechwriter, author and proponent of waterboarding, Marc Thiessen. Generally, these types of things go bad for the waterboarding proponents because they don’t stick to the core logic behind laws of war and enemy combatants, such as:

* Geneva Conventions weren’t designed to “protect soldiers” but to give them incentives to follow the laws of war.

* What the CIA calls waterboarding isn’t the same thing as or as dangerous as or as barbaric as Khmer Rouge waterboarding or what other governments have done.

* If waterboarding is torture than we’re apparently torturing thousands of U.S. servicemen and women who go through SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract) training.

Thiessen sticks to all these points and in short kicks the arse of his detractors. His point that the waterboarding actually allows Islamic extremists to spill their guts without betraying their service to Allah is fascinating.

Because he did so well, I doubt if CNN will ever have Thiessen back on.

[Washington Post] For up to four hours a day, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, can sit outside in the Caribbean sun and chat through a chain-link fence with the detainee in the neighboring exercise yard at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mohammed can also use that time to visit a media room to watch movies of his choice, read newspapers and books, or play handheld electronic games. He and other detainees have access to elliptical machines and stationary bikes.

At Guantanamo, such recreational activities interrupt an otherwise bleak existence, according to a Pentagon report of conditions at Camp 7, which houses 16 high-value detainees. But even those privileges may soon vanish.

The Justice Department has begun to hint in court filings that at least some of the defendants in the Sept. 11, 2001, case, as well as other prominent suspects, will be transferred to federal custody in the United States. While lawmakers and activist groups have been consumed with a debate over such a move, little attention has been paid to the conditions that Mohammed and other high-value detainees would face in the United States.

And those conditions, it turns out, would be vastly more draconian than they are at Guantanamo Bay. … Based on what is known about restrictions in the country’s highest-security federal prisons, Mohammed and other terrorism suspects would face profound isolation in the United States.

If sent to a facility such as the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colo., they would be sealed off for 23 hours a day in cells with four-inch-wide windows and concrete furniture. If they behave, and are allowed an hour’s exercise each day in a tiny yard, they will do so alone. They will have little or no human contact except with prison officials. And the International Committee of the Red Cross, the only outside group with access to Camp 7, will no longer have contact with them.

“Confinement for life,” as one is quoted in the article, or better yet, sentences of death, is admittedly quite appealing for these animals who bomb our cities and turn our planes into missiles. Nonetheless, the sense of justice served might be instead be an enabler for more terrorism.

Critics of Guantanamo Bay have often confused the point of the detainee camp: it’s never been about convictions or justice, but about gathering intelligence necessary to prevent future attacks. That’s the primary rationale for Guantanamo, and why so few of the detainees — albeit all of them deserving such a fate — have been tried and sentenced, whether in civilian court or by military tribunal. And that’s just a defense for starters: it’s not including such unintended and adverse consequences of introducing militant religious fanatics to a population of hardened and angry imprisoned civilians (many of whom will be released one day) with whom to proselytize and convert into the next generation of suicide bombers.

Similarly, critics of the USA Patriot Act have often confused both its intent and its application. That act, most recently defended by former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, simply expanded surveillance abilities, from roving wiretaps to public record searches (i.e., the public library red herring) already in existence for narcotics investigations and organized crime to terrorism. It seems silly to say that Feds should have those powers for local drug dealers or Mafia lords but not for Osama bin Laden. And it seems incompetent to argue their dissolution altogether.

“Mr. [New York-Dallas-Denver bomb suspect Najibullah] Zazi’s arrest is only the most recent case in which intelligence apparently has averted disaster. Cells have been broken up and individual defendants convicted in New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Ohio,” wrote Mukasey.

And yet still liberal Democrats attempt to sunset Patriot Act provisions. The intelligence used to capture Zazi may have well originated from interrogations with Guantanamo Bay detainees, and yet still liberal Democrats attempt to close that facility.

And to what end? Even for those with the best intentions, their sake of justice may undercut the ability to prevent the next 9-11.

Obama tossed some more red meat to his constituents (at the expense of our safety): Obama Administration to Investigate CIA Terror Interrogations.

How stupid a decision is this? CIA Director Leon Panetta is threatening to quit. Panetta isn’t exactly a Dittohead Limbaugh listener.

Among the investigations: The Washington Post reports a now retired CIA officer used a gun, and another a power drill, back in 2002 to “intimidate a captured al-Qaeda suspect.” That former suspect, by the way, was USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. I wonder if the families of those 17 sailors shed a tear for the “intimidation” of this killer?

A statement from Mr. Panetta hit the nail on the head:

“I make no judgments on the accuracy of the 2004 IG report or the various views expressed about it,” Mr. Panetta wrote. ”Nor am I eager to enter the debate, already politicized, over the ultimate utility of the Agency’s past detention and interrogation effort.”

Still, he wrote, “this much is clear: The CIA obtained intelligence from high-value detainees when inside information on al Qaeda was in short supply.”[emphasis mine]

Exactly! Let alone the triviality of this — we “simulate,” we “intimidate,” we “threaten,” whereas our enemy flies passenger planes into skyscrapers and cuts peoples’ heads off — note the complete lack of context. These same CIA officers were in 2002 being grilled by Congress and the public as to why they didn’t stop 9-11. So we captured a bunch of the terrorists. We demanded answers. But now these same CIA personnel are being grilled because seven years later the Obama administration needs a quick PR victory.

And what else other than investigating the CIA would one expect from Obama for such a victory, given his cash for clunkers debacle, lots of egg on his face from a unified American public saying “no thanks” to his single-payer health care proposal, a DOA climate change bill, TARP Part Two, or as George Will noted, “an 85 percent unspent stimulus.” (aka, not a stimulus).

Approval rating is down, call in the investigators! This is a tried and true Pavlovian response from the ‘blame America first’ wing of the Democratic Party.

It’s also adding a little insult to the injury following the UK releasing the 1988 Lockerbie bomber. Sure it’s the UK, not Obama, but other than the typically bland “we’re disappointed” statements from team Obama, there’s not been much of a reaction. It’s as if they’re recollecting a bad meal — “we’re disappointed with the fillet” — rather than the release of a terrorist who murdered 270 people.

How’s about a bit of outrage? Leftists are great at outrage, so long as it’s targeted at Big Oil, or Big Pharma, or Big Banking, or Big Anything, so long as it’s not, you know, Big Terror.

One can’t see how any of this could be a political victory except amongst his most Kool-Aid filled backers. Most Americans will recognize that keeping the country safe requires a bit more than name, rank and serial number from terrorists who have several aliases, but no rank, and no serial number.

At the same time, this administration which excels at apologizing for American behavior is creating the exact risk-averse intelligence culture which assisted 9-11 hijackers in executing their murderous plan. Adds the UK Daily Mail, “Tactics in the grey area between torture and legal questioning – such as sleep deprivation and playing loud music – will be banned.” Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ll sure sleep easier knowing that we won’t deny a mass murderer like Khalid Mohammed of his beauty rest.

You see, it’s not enough to start a witch hunt against our intelligence services. The Obama administration is also going to castrate them:

President Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, senior administration officials said Sunday.

Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen by the National Security Council — shifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight.

Panetta says he expects a flood of employees from the CIA. But the ones who remain won’t be in charge of investigating much. Instead, the White House is going to “nationalize” the intelligence biz, micromanage it from the top, becoming subject matter experts on interrogation. Yeah, that’ll work about as good as them becoming subject matter experts on the automobile industry. And how’d *that* experiment work out, fellas? Not so hot, eh?

There are some interesting comparisons between Iran’s latest revolutionary movement and Poland’s Solidarity movement in the 1980s. Western assistance came both vocally and covert — via American companies providing Western intelligence agencies with printing presses and other equipment and utilities to assist the organization of the Polish protesters. The movement was already there and in full swing, the West just provided a little extra support where it counted.

Read the comparison in the WSJ today. Here’s the conclusion — it’s not too late for Obama and the West.

All of which means that there are opportunities for the Obama Administration to exploit, provided it envisions a democratic and peaceful Iran as a strategic American aim. That doesn’t mean military confrontation with the mullahs. But it does require taking every opportunity to apply consistent pressure on Iran while exploiting its internal tensions and contradictions.

“I often wondered why Ronald Reagan did this, taking the risks he did, in supporting us at Solidarity,” Mr. Walesa wrote in these pages after Reagan died in 2004. “Let’s remember that it was a time of recession in the U.S. and a time when the American public was more interested in their own domestic affairs. It took a leader with a vision to convince them that there are greater things worth fighting for.”

The circumstances aren’t so different. With similar vision and leadership, the endgame could be the same.