We’ve heard a lot of discussion in the past few years about the CIA interrogation program and its use for national security. Cases have been made for and against the program, and there is a lot of bad information that has been reported and used to criticize it.
Marc Thiessen was given the opportunity to read top secret information about the program to write a speech for President Bush explaining its use. The results of his research are laid out in Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.
Courting Disaster is the most comprehensive evaluation of the interrogation methods used by the CIA. Thiessen addresses the main arguments and charges against the program offered by critics like Jane Mayer. He examines the historical use of brutal interrogation techniques that are often discussed in comparison to the CIA techniques, and he explains not only how different the techniques truly are, but also the true intent and effects of those techniques.
What Thiessen notes is that the interrogation techniques were carefully designed to cater to jihadist goals of resisting interrogation to a point, after which they are religiously justified to break. The techniques help put the jihadists in a state of cooperation, when information is then gathered.
Thiessen also chronicles how much of the information compiled in the interrogation program lead to the capture of other terrorists and prevented terrorist plots from being carried out. He makes a logical case to suggest that this information could not have been obtained without the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. Doing this, Thiessen makes a strong moral argument for the use of the techniques.
If you are interested in the truth about these techniques and their importance, you need to read this book. It should give you chills to read about the success of this program and how President Obama has dismantled it. Courting Disaster is an essential book to read about the war and the policies that have played a major role in it.
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