Ron Suskind has a new book, “The One Percent Doctrine”, which details things going on behind the scenes in our administration’s “War on Terror.”
Recently, the Washington Post reviewed the book, bringing to light an incident from its pages that I find particularly disgusting.
Naturally, I felt the need to share.
The US captured Al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in March 2002……whereupon it was discovered that Zubaydah was mentally ill and used by Al-Qaeda for minor logistical matters, such as arranging travel for wives and children.
The President was briefed on all of this by the CIA…..yet still insisted, two weeks later, on describing Zubaydah as “one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States.” A big media splash was made about capturing one of Al-Qaeda’s “Top Operatives.”
When CIA director George Tenet disagreed with this assessment, Bush told Tenet “I said he was important. You’re not going to let me lose face on this, are you?”
Under White House orders, the CIA would make Zubaydah the first test subject for harsh interrogation methods. Bush asked “Do some of these harsh methods really work?”
The methods — torture — were applied.
Naturally, Zubaydah began to speak of plots of every variety — against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. As he spouted off these supposed plots, the US would dispatch thousands of uniformed men and women to each “target.”
There’s the “War on Terror” in a nutshell, kids.
As Suskind sums it up:
“The United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered.”