The CIA had an opening for an assassin. After all the background checks, interviews and testing were done, there were three finalists: two men and a woman.
For the final test, the CIA agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun.
“We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances. Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Kill her.”
The man said “You can’t be serious. I could never shoot my wife.” The agent said, “Then you are not the right man for this job. Take your wife and go home.”
The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about five minutes. The man came out with tears in his eyes, “I tried, but I can’t kill my wife.”
The agent said, “You don’t have what it takes, so take your wife and go home.”
Finally, it was the woman’s turn. She was given the same instructions to kill her husband.
She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard one after another. Then they heard screaming, crashing, and banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman, wiping sweat from her brow.
“The gun was loaded with blanks,” she said. “I had to kill him with the chair.”
This takes about 2 minutes to read, it is worth every second. This is something every person in America must know!!
The single most prominent characteristic of contemporary America is that common sense has been abandoned to political correctness and “feelings.”
As President George W. Bush’s top speech writer, Marc Thiessen (The Kelly File on FOX) was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).
Now, his riveting new book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe (Regnery), has been published. Here is an excerpt from Courting Disaster:
“Just before dawn on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed Pakistani tactical assault forces move in and surround a safe house in Rawalpindi. A few hours earlier they had received a text message from an informant inside the house. It read: “I am with KSM.”
Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into custody. In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, documents, cell phones and other valuable “pocket litter.”
Once in custody, KSM is defiant. He refuses to answer questions, informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a lawyer Instead he is taken to a secret CIA “black site” in an undisclosed location.
Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of Americans. He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or what his fate will be. Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk. He spews contempt at his interrogators, telling them Americans are weak, lack resilience and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals. He has trained to resist interrogation. When he is asked for information about future attacks, he tells his questioners scornfully: “Soon, you will know.”
It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of “enhanced interrogation techniques” approved for use only on the most high-value detainees. The techniques include water boarding. He begins telling his CIA de-briefers about active al Qaeda plots to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets. He holds classes for CIA officials, using a chalkboard to draw a picture of al Qaeda’s operating structure, financing, communications, and logistics. He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer records seized in terrorist raids. He identifies voices in intercepted telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded terrorist communications. He provides information that helps our intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists.
KSM’s questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world. In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed
1994-1995 plan known as the “Bojinka plot” to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean. Years later, an observant CIA officer notices the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM’s description of his plans for a Bojinka-style attack. In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot.
On the night of Aug. 9, 2006, they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven Trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other:
* United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 2:15 PM
* Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 PM
* Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 PM
* United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 PM
* United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 PM
* American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 PM
* American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 PM
They seize bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared.
Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much. Few Americans are aware of the fact al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude. And still fewer realize the terrorists’ true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda.
Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda-how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks-came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.
Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: “I know this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said: “The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work.” Even Barack Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: “High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” Leon Panetta, Obama’s CIA Director, has said: “Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon.”
John Brennan, Obama’s Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in an interview if enhanced-interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, replied: “Would the U. S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities, I would say yes.”
On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all interrogations by U. S. personnel must follow the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual.
The morning of the announcement, Mike Hayden was still in his post as CIA Director. He called White House Counsel Greg Craig and told him bluntly: “You didn’t ask, but this is the CIA officially non-concurring.” The president went ahead anyway, overruling the objections of the agency.
A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists. This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA directors – including Obama’s own director, Leon Panetta objected. George Tenet called to urge against the memos’ release. So did Porter Goss. So did John Deutch. Hayden says: “You had CIA directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, ‘Don’t do this.'”
In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the agency’s covert field operatives. A few weeks earlier, Panetta had arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives at risk. The President reportedly listened respectfully, and then ignored their advice.
With these actions, Barack Obama arguably did more damage to America’s national security in his first 100 days of office than any President in American history.
A guy is driving in rural Alabama and he sees a sign in front of a tired old house with lots of deferred maintenance: ‘Talking Dog For Sale ‘
He rings the bell and the owner appears and tells him the dog is in the backyard.
The guy goes into the backyard and sees a nice looking Labrador retriever sitting there.
‘You talk?’ he asks.
‘Yep,’ the Lab replies.
After the guy recovers from the shock of hearing a dog talk, he says ‘So, what’s your story?’
The Lab looks up and says, ‘Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so… I told the CIA.
In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping.’
‘I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running…
But the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn’t getting any younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security, wandering near suspicious characters and listening in.
I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals.’
‘I got married, had a mess of puppies, and now I’m just retired.’
The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.
‘Ten dollars,’ the guy says.
‘Ten dollars? This dog is amazing! Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?’
‘Because he lies more than Hillary; He’s never been out of the back yard’
I am sorry for sending this to you, but it is too funny not to send it along. We all got to lighten up a bit and enjoy a joke or two.
Two weeks ago in a discussion with my Lion friends the subject of Charley Wilson’s War came up. I remembered seeing a movie by that name, but could not remember what it was about. Two days later my friend Rod dropped off a book with the same title. I finished reading the story today, and feel compelled to express myself about it. Before I do I have to say that the reason I couldn’t remember what the story was about from watching the movie is because the story is way too big to cover in a two hour movie. The producers chose to concentrate on Charley’s womanizing and his relationship with a specific CIA agent named Gust Avrakotos. Both Wilson’s womanizing and Gust’s CIA association are major parts of the story, but their involvement in driving the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan and the eventual downfall of the USSR was complicated and confusing in the film.
Here is my opinion. All presidents from George Bush the second and every president after him should read this piece of history. Had Bush absorbed the message of Jihad played out in the story he would have thought three times before declaring war on Afghanistan. In Obama’s case it is worse. He is a muslim sympathizer yet he fails to recognize the drive and fervor of jihad. His foreign policy regarding muslim nations would have to be different if he understood the message of this book.
The Russians spent billions under the guise of liberating Afghanistan, but they really wanted to own Afghanistan and to open a path to the Indian Ocean. They lost 28,000 young men, and their engagement is compared to our Viet Nam. They killed over a million muslim jihadists, and they might have won had the CIA not gotten involved.
What was the message I got? That muslims on a jihad are crazy zealots for revenge and for driving infidels from their countries. Almost as soon as the door hit the last Russian in the ass as he left Afghanistan, the mujahideen shifted to the USA as their new enemy. It hasn’t stopped since then, and we all know that things are not getting better.
This book is an interesting and enjoyable read. The history covered is relatively obscure because the USA, namely the CIA kept it so covert that neither the Afghans or the Russians knew we were involved.
The second thing I got from the book is that a single Congressman with abilities similar to those of Charles Wilson who wanted revenge for the Russian involvement in Viet Nam against us could appropriate so much money for a program that was never approved by Congress, or the President. In my opinion Charley Wilson was a hero for bringing down the Russians, but he should be in jail for how he went about doing it. The reason he never went to jail is that he had too many other Congressmen in his pocket.
In retrospect, what Charley Wilson did amounts to peanuts compared to what Obama does daily in the name of redistributing wealth.
North Korea is teaching us a lesson. Being a Socialist State they know how to spy, and play dirty tricks on their enemies. Many people believe that the North Koreans are not behind the hacking of SONY Pictures, but rather SONY Pictures had themselves hacked to make headlines, and to get free publicity for their movie The Interview. In my book that smacks of Progressive liberalism. The hacking was most likely initiated from within, how else could the world’s most tech-savvy people let themselves be broken into? They might also have had a sequel in mind which would follow the exact story line we see in today’s headlines. SONY is a Japanese company and we all know the Japs lead the world in electronics and gaming software. They would be the last ones to have left a door open for a North Korean hacker to enter and steal everything.
A second scenario would give the North Koreans the will and reason to hack into the USA. They know how to make an atomic bomb, hacking a computer system would be child’s play for them.
A third scenario is that the CIA and NSA did the hack as another diversion for Obama. He needs a major distraction from the ass kicking he got in the last election. He pretends that it doesn’t matter because he has a phone and a pen, but his ego must be just a wee bit shattered by the country’s message to get out of Dodge. We are coming for you O,in a short time you will hold a sign on an expressway exit announcing “I work lie for food.” After all, your number one competitor resigned from your admin and announced she was flat broke. We should all be so broke. You can play broke too, it is the Progressive way.
