While the subject of detainee abuse is a very difficult one to report, as it relies on information that is classified or selectively declassified, and on self-interested trained-to-lie anonymous intelligence leakers, and partisan Congressional investigations and politicians, the New York Times should make a better effort. I’m tired of he said/she said journalism. Peter King went on Fox News and lied shamelessly. Here is how the Times concludes their article:
Before a day had passed, the torture debate had flared. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, told Fox News that the success of the hunt for Bin Laden was due to waterboarding. The next morning, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said just as flatly that “none of it came as a result of harsh interrogation practices.”
Faced with a situation like that, it is the reporters’ obligation to do the best they can to decide who is right, or if one of them is lying. It’s not that hard. I don’t have access to all of the sources that the Times’ reporters have, nor do I have the same amount of time and resources to do research. Yet, in less than fifteen minutes I was able to verify that King was definitely lying.
None of the information that led to bin-Laden was obtained from waterboarding. None. Can’t the Times just say that?
