Don’t Menshn The Torture Report

After the United States Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence published the “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program”, now generally referred to as the “Torture Report”, last week, some out there on the right decided they didn’t like it one bit. And Creepy Uncle Rupe was in the vanguard of those people.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

“Many heroic CIA, NYPD, others risked their lives to save the rest of us. Now treated as villains. Fools emboldening enemies everywhere” ranted Murdoch, unable to see that the report wasn’t about the NYPD, and that the CIA are not first responders. And there was more. “Ex-CIA directors: interrogations saved lives. Dem staff report disgraceful, many omissions and errors. Whoever okayed this? Truly shameful”.

To no surprise, Rupe has no problem deflecting and just making it up to fit the conclusion he has already reached. So it should surprise no-one that his pundits took a similar line, resorting to lying when it suited them, which in the case of (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch, was all too often. Her riposte took place partly on Twitter, but most significantly in the Sun yesterday.

The weekly Mensch missive begins “The so-called Torture Report has one victim – the truth”. It does? Do tell: “The report doesn’t even come from the US Senate Intelligence Committee”. And there we have a blatant lie: as you can see from the New York Times coverage, which includes the whole thing, it does indeed come from that Committee. And there was more.

“They didn’t interview ONE SINGLE agent from the CIA”. Ho yus. This claim repeats the assertion made by a website called CIA Saved Lives, which appears to have sprung up expressly to rubbish the report. So that’s questionable, at the very least. But do go on: “I stood in Manhattan on 9/11 and watched the Twin Towers crumble”. That’s another lame appeal to authority, then.

And what of the actual torture? “So excuse me if I don’t give a four-X if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had hummus stuffed up his rectum. He was humiliated? You’re breaking my heart”. Then she fails to make the connection between that humiliation and the brutal behaviour of ISIS, or whatever they’re calling themselves this week. And her Twitter ramblings are no more coherent.

“Debating with some liberal who is trying to redefine ‘torture’ as ‘punching a terrorist in the stomach’ ffs [so assault is fine by her] the Dem propagandists said no useful intel the CIA said it delivered Bin Laden [no they didn’t] Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists who don’t wear uniforms [someone has been watching too many World War 2 POW films]”. The lack of self-awareness is staggering.

Fortunately, in the real world, the security agencies do not listen to Murdoch poodles.