Obama’s CIA Actions Belie 9/11 Words

By Ron Kessler

On Sept. 11, President Barack Obama said all the right words to commemorate the tragedy that took place eight years earlier. Yet, as when Obama claimed his budget moves America “from an era of borrow and spend” to one of “save and invest,” his actions belied his words. Obama has turned the CIA into a personal punching bag, dealing one blow after another to the agency, which is our first line of defense against another attack. After releasing Justice Department memos detailing the CIA’s enhanced interrogation tactics, Obama spoke to CIA employees. As if speaking to a kindergarten class, Obama said, “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes. That’s how we learn.” What mistakes did CIA officers make? Their “mistake” was to patriotically do what their government told them to do and subject three terrorists to waterboarding. While Obama has referred to waterboarding as a “brutal” tactic, it inflicts no pain. If it were brutal, we would not subject our own special forces to waterboarding during training. [more...]