Red Hot Torture

By: Bill O'Reilly for BillOReilly.com

Thursday, Sep 14, 2006

 

Thanks to the New York Times, we now know the dreaded torture methods

the sadistic CIA used on captured al-Qaeda big shots shortly after the 9/11

attack. I warn you: Reading this column any further will subject you to

unvarnished brutality.

According to a front page article in the Times on Sunday, September 10th,

Pakistani authorities captured Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaeda's personnel director,

a few months after the terror attack five years ago. Zubaydah, wounded in

the confrontation, was turned over to American authorities and whisked

away to Bangkok, Thailand, where FBI interrogators began questioning him.

According to unnamed sources in the Times article, the FBI and CIA clashed

over whether to use soft or tough questioning methods on the captured

terrorist. Because it had jurisdiction, the CIA took over, and the inquisition

began. Agency interrogators stripped Zubaydah, put him in a freezing room,

and subjected him to Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Not the vegetables, the rock group.

Apparently, the CIA sadists cranked up the volume on some Red Hot Chili

Peppers recordings and Zubaydah broke. Wouldn't you?

Now, I am not making this up. The dreaded torture machine that is the Bush

administration unleashed the Red Hot Chili Peppers on an al-Qaeda big shot.

How could they?

According to the article, Zubaydah gave up a number of his fellow killers,

including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. But come on,

the ends do not justify the means. Using the Chili Peppers is beyond the

pale.

Somewhere, Attila the Hun is weeping with laughter.

But this whole thing is deadly serious. Thanks to the American thugs at Abu

Ghraib and the hysterical left-wing press, the entire world thinks the USA is

a nation of brutes who torture for pleasure. Human rights groups can't

condemn us fast enough for our terrible treatment of people captured on the

battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. Guantanamo Bay is a Gulag, Dick

Cheney is Henrich Himmler. And the beat goes on.

But amidst all the hew and cry, there are few specifics. As far as I can

determine, waterboarding—that is, submerging a suspect in water—was

used a couple of times, but is now banned. Stress positions and sleep

deprivation have been used in limited situations. And now we know the

Peppers were in play.

Of course, in reporting the interrogation story, the Times played up the

conflict between the FBI and the CIA big, but buried the lead. In the final

two paragraphs of the lengthy report, the importance of the Chili Pepper

story emerges. Times reporter David Johnston quotes yet another

anonymous "government official" as saying, "The fact of the matter is that

Abu Zubaydah was defiant and evasive until the approved procedures were

used. He soon began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operators to

help us find and capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks."

That sounds like a good thing to me, but I do have some advice for the CIA

the next time around: Use Ludacris, and you'll get bin Laden.

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