The Big Fat Lie

Not that Fox News discriminates between big lies and little lies, but this time they've really cooked up a whopper: that via torture we were able to prevent a second 9/11 in LA. Except, of course, we didn't. The Library Tower plot fizzled in February 2002 and KSM was captured in March 2003. Any news outlet, politician, blog, or pundit who insists on repeating the lie is either a fool or playing their audience for one.

First of all, the background: No, Karl Rove, Marc Thiessen, and Fox News are not telling the truth when they claim that U.S. torture techniques prevented a 'west coast 9/11.'

Rove et al. claim that after CIA waterboarding, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave authorities information used to foil a plot to hijack an airplane with a shoe bomb and fly it into the tallest building in Los Angeles, the Library Tower (now known as the U.S. Bank Building).

In other words, Rove and his crew say torture saved America from another 9/11.

As Timothy Noah and Daily Kos TV have documented, however, the Rove timetable just doesn't add up. While KSM was arrested in March 2003, the plot was stopped in February 2002 -- more than a year earlier. Rove's tale could not possibly be true.

If there had ever been information obtained via torture that had produced actionable intelligence and resulted in anything good you can bet your sweet ass the Bush admin / CIA would have found a way to leak it. If the best they can come up with now is a dupe, then you know they've got nuttin'. Another footnote to the epic fail that was Bush / Cheney.

p.s. In the deepest, darkest trenches of my heart, though, I do think someone ought to get tortured for causing me to have to remove my shoes everytime I go through security at an airport.