Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a leader of the leftist ruling faction in Washington and next in line to become president if both president and vice-president die or are incapacitated, continues to deny that she knew about waterboarding all the way back to 2002. The back story is this: Pelosi was interested in establishing a truth commission to investigate how waterboarding came to be authorized and it was revealed last year that Pelosi was indeed briefed by the CIA about the use of waterboarding. Pelosi denied it, saying that they described the technique but did not say that they were actually using it. During that briefing it was reported that no one raised objections, so why the outrage now? Anyways, the CIA, a week ago, released memos detailing how the briefings on waterboarding included describing how the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) were being used on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah and how Pelosi was informed of this. Yesterday, a source reports that her intelligence aide, Michael Sheehy, actually informed Pelosi that waterboarding was being used. As expected, Pelosi has today accused the CIA of misleading her and that she did not know. Then comes a confusing account of how she actually sent a letter in protest, even though she never mentioned it before when asked if she objected during the briefings, only mentioning now after we know that her aide actually told her. Oh the tangled webs we weave…

Here is more irrefutable proof that Pelosi lied.

Pelosi’s denials do not stand against this mountain of evidence that is being stacked against her. I must commend the press in this case since they are, contrary to form, holding a Democrat accountable. The problem with the whole waterboarding issue is that Republicans AND Democrats knew about it and in the end, the outrage that we see today was absent during all those years. Were the democrats just waiting until the administration finished extracting all the information they needed before protesting? That implies that they thought that the EITs worked. The simple fact is that due to their silence, they were complicit. What is happening now is that the ruling party wants to hold a “public execution” and a McCarthyist witch hunt in order to embarrass the last administration and the Republican party. What the people in Washington need to do is fix the problems with the economy, win these two wars (one of which is pretty much wrapped up due to the Bush surge), and get back to the business of serving the people… instead they are squabbling, finger-pointing, and spending taxpayer money like no tomorrow.

In my opinion, the Democrats are using torture as a diversionary tactic as they spend record amounts of money and increase the size of government… even Obama put a stop to the release of certain photos showing the mistreatment of detainees. He deemed dangerous to our troops on the ground because they could be used to recruit more members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. These inquiries would be better to have later, after we decisively win the war on terror, and they should not be turned into a circus, their purpose should be to calmly and objectively ascertain the truth. Americans understand that we are currently at war with an enemy that does not care about the Geneva Conventions or any international treaties, an enemy that cuts people’s heads off simply for being American, an enemy whose singular mission is to kill all or any of us. Let’s focus on making the world safe from these maniacs first… we can play politics later.

-AG