Three Cheers for Torture!

Liz Cheney repeated again the oft-repeated assertion (among Republicans) that “enhanced interrogation techniques” (i.e. torture) yielded information that was crucial to finding and killing Osama bin Laden.  The insufferable John Bolton buttressed this claim by stating that “The only thing Barack Obama did in connection with killing Osama bin Laden is get out of the way”.  These claims are made despite denials from military interrogators that abusive techniques were at all successful.  In fact, the interrogators felt that torture was counterproductive, that it was  “…very difficult to elicit information from a detainee who has been abused. The abuse often only strengthens their resolve and makes it that much harder for an interrogator to find a way to elicit useful information.”

Now Liz and John make quite a pair -

Ideologues so doctrinaire

That truth is what they want to see

Instead of plain reality.

And so they spread their tales of how

The use of torture did allow

Inquisitors at last to find

The walls bin Laden hid behind.

But what remains a mystery

Is why this made-up history

Is ever taken seriously.

Oh, it’s Fox?  Well, now I see.

Since Fox began to broadcast here

The truth’s begun to disappear

To be replaced by right-wing hype -

The GOP’s familiar tripe. 

But still one has to wonder why

Anyone’d believe a lie

So obviously false it seems

Like fantasy from deranged dreams.


Update 4/30:  A Senate Committee finds that "enhanced interrogation techniques" did not play "any significant role" in intelligence leading to Osama bin Laden's killing.