RUSH: This is Madeleine up next in Melbourne, Florida. Madeleine, it’s nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Once again it’s an honor to speak with you. I’m so fired up today between Napolitano and the latest of the memo or whatever — what did Snerdley say it’s called?
RUSH: CIA interrogation.
CALLER: Oh, please!
RUSH: Obama, he really thought about this so long. He struggled with whether or not to release the details here. Do you know the left, Madeleine, is all bent out of shape because Obama said, ‘No, we’ve got to move on. We’re not going to prosecute any of the CIA people who did the interrogations,’ but he did not rule out prosecuting former Bush administration officials.
CALLER: Yeah, I heard that. What was the purpose? Is this the purpose of this, to distract people from the idiot things he’s doing? Aren’t people more concerned about the economy, their jobs?
RUSH: No, I want you to stop and think of this again.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: You’re going to come up with your own answer. Here you have memos — and, by the way, if you look at what we are calling ‘torture,’ you have to laugh. For example, what was it? ‘Slapping…putting an insect in with a prisoner in a small confined area.’ There were 10 of these, but if you go through what are said to be the four worst, waterboarding, of course, which worked on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I’m looking here for the details. Yeah, ‘sleep deprivation, facial slaps, placing one high-ranking al-Qaeda suspect,’ that would be Abu Zubaydah, ‘in a cramped box of what he was told was a stinging insect.’ This guy had a paranoia about stinging insects. They put him in with a caterpillar.
CALLER: Oooo!
RUSH: A caterpillar doesn’t sting.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: But they told him it stung and it worked. This is what supposedly made us the moral equivalent of al-Qaeda. So you tell me: Why would Barack Obama feel it necessary to release this to the world, especially when you look at what Obama said. Let me read you this. ‘First the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported.’ So if he had to get the truth out because it was already out, right? So answer your own question again. Why would he do this?
CALLER: I — I — I can’t answer that. It just makes no sense to me. I don’t get it.
RUSH: Now, now…
CALLER: You’ll have to help me out there, Rush. Come on.
RUSH: Now, now, now.
CALLER: Does the Bush-bashing have something to do with it? Is it that it never ends?
RUSH: That’s part of it, but it’s about far more than that. It makes total sense that Obama would do this. (interruption) Now, why are you frowning at me, Snerdley? Do you think…? (interruption) Jeez. (sigh) Is everything left up to me? Can nobody…? Is there no critical thinking left anymore? Is it always all going to be up to me?
CALLER: Yes, it is. It’s something every single day with the (garbled) and I —
RUSH: Madeleine?
CALLER: — just can’t take it anymore.
RUSH: You have a President of the United States who at every opportunity on foreign soil is doing what?
CALLER: Making a fool out of himself. Weak photo-ops.
RUSH: He’s apologizing for his own country.
CALLER: Oh. That’s right. I forgot about that.
RUSH: He’s writing op-eds that run in Mexico and Central American countries yesterday and today that apologize for his own country. He goes to the G20. He apologizes for his own country. Now, during the prosecution of the Iraq war, one of the number one talking points — and its purpose, was to discredit the US military, to demoralize the US military, and to secure the defeat of the United States — was to manufacture all this horrible, rotten brouhaha about torture. And of course it started with Abu Ghraib in Baghdad and then Club Gitmo and so forth. For a President of the United States — who does not like this country as it’s currently structured and who, by his own admission, is going to build a new foundation — isn’t it easy and easier to release this and say:
‘See? I told you our country was guilty! We Democrats told you our country was guilty! These memos from my predecessor prove that this country is guilty! We have gone beyond our values and morals,’ or what have you. So if you have a president whose mentors… He sat in church 20 years hearing what a rotten, unfair, unjust country the United States was. He heard it from his parents. He heard it from Bill Ayers. He believes it! Plus he keeps the media on his side because they bought into this totally. This makes total sense. And people are saying, ‘But, Rush! But, Rush!’ and Mike Hayden and Mike Mukasey. Hayden is former CIA and Mukasey is former attorney general, wrote a great, great, great op-ed about this.
My God, we’ve just shown our enemies what we do! We’ve just given away the effective elements of our techniques here, and people ask, ‘Why would Obama do that?’ Look it, now, we do arrive at a point where I can’t explain certain things. Maybe Obama thinks we’re not going to get hit again. Maybe Obama thinks — maybe he really does believe like people in conflict-resolution class do — that al-Qaeda is going to read this memo and understand that Obama released it and maybe he thinks that terrorists around the world are going to conclude, ‘Hey, the United States is okay now! We don’t need to attack them.’ That’s naive. I can’t believe that really explains it. What he’s done now is, if we’re hit again, he owns it. If we’re hit again, President Obama owns it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I’m getting nagged by some people who say: ‘Hey, I know some caterpillars that sting.’ Okay, so a caterpillar can sting, but you can’t die from the thing. I’ve never heard of a caterpillar that stings, but if it stings, it stings. You don’t die from one. You might think you’re going to, but we’re talking about people who cut people’s heads off, for crying out loud! What are we getting all concerned here about putting somebody in a little box with a caterpillar? So this is a montage from last night and this morning, Stephanopolous, Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews and Tom Foreman of CNN.
STEPHANOPOLOUS: The fact that Zubaydah was tortured with an insect in the confinement box, that was surprising.
BRZEZINSKI: Actually putting bugs —
SCARBOROUGH: A caterpillar, yes.
MATTHEWS: What kind of bug — how big was this bug? Put somebody in a coffin and you throw bugs in.
FOREMAN: One memo even okayed throwing in an insect of which he was believed to be deathly afraid.
RUSH: Man, this is torture? Slapping somebody in the face is torture? Sleep deprivation is torture? Throwing somebody in a little cramped environment with a caterpillar. Look, we found out this Zubaydah guy cuts people’s heads off, who murders people, who tries to engage in mass killing, and by the way, according to Mukasey, the former attorney general, and Mike Hayden, the former CIA director, all this stuff worked, including the waterboard on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They say it is a myth — and there’s a lot of myths — they say in their brilliant op-ed that it’s a myth that people lie to escape torture. For people to say that, to have an objection, it shows their ignorance. What interrogation is about is gathering intel. It’s not just exclusively about trying to ascertain guilt. It’s about ascertaining intel and there are many techniques that you use. One of the techniques to test a suspect is to ask him questions to which you already know the answers. Find out if he’s being honest with you or not from the get-go. The idea that torture doesn’t work, that’s been put out from John McCain on down. McCain for the longest time said torture didn’t work, and then he admitted in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last summer that he was broken by the North Vietnamese, so what are we to think here?
We’re talking about national security. People have got to put this in context. If you want to pretend that we live in the idyllic days — 24 inches of snow in Denver tonight and tomorrow, by the way, thank you, global warming. Yup, 24-inch snow in Denver tonight and tomorrow, maximum possible — here it is, April 17th, people want to live in these idyllic days, April 17th, 2009 and start thinking about putting these poor people in with a caterpillar or slapping them in the face, oh, how horrible. Put yourself in the aftermath of 9/11. By the way, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was claiming credit for beheading Daniel Pearl. We’re supposed to sit here and worry about a face slap? Here is Obama, himself, the Spanish language version Juan Carlos Lopez interviewing Obama says: ‘Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon is considering a lawsuit by attorneys representing six Spaniards who were at one point held at Guantanamo, and that lawsuit wants to go after President Bush’s legal team. What’s your reaction to that?’
OBAMA: I’ve been very clear that Guantanamo is to be closed, that some of the practices of enhanced interrogation techniques I think ran counter to American values and American traditions. So I’ve put an end to these policies.
RUSH: No, it’s still open.
OBAMA: I’m a strong believer that it’s important to look forward and not backwards. We’re moving a process forward here in the United States to understand what happened, but also to focus on how we make sure that the manner in which we operate currently is consistent with our values and our traditions.
RUSH: What values and traditions are these people talking about? I’ve been hearing this for eight years. What the hell values and traditions are they talking about? Appeasement? Surrender? What the hell values and what traditions? National security, defend and protect the people of this country and the Constitution, that’s the oath.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I forgot to mention we’re talking about the horrible, horrible, horrible form of torture. The Obama Administration revealed in memos yesterday Abu Zubaydah was placed in a small area, smaller cell than usual with an insect. He had a fear of insects. They told him it was an insect that stings, a caterpillar. It turns out it was not used. The Chicago Tribune has it. He was not put in the cell with the insect, they just talked about it. In the memos it wasn’t even used and even just that they were talking about it has people up in arms on the left. (laughing) Snerdley is saying to me these people have no idea. They have no idea what they’re doing to us. It depends on who you’re talking about. If you’re talking about average Joe six-pack Democrat, I agree. He has no clue. But the people in charge of this administration, they know exactly what they’re doing and there’s a systemic plan for it. Don’t fool yourselves they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re roping in, they’re sucking in all kinds of people.
One thing that’s good here, and I’m not going to mention any names because this is a great day. We are still, I shouldn’t say still. I’m just surprised given economic circumstances. We are way ahead of last year for our Cure-A-Thon. Number of donors, number of dollars. I’m just in awe of this, of all of you that do this every year. The relationship that you and I have has to be probably the most unique audience/host relationship out there today. This is just mind-boggling to me. So I don’t want to get too negative here and name some names, but we’ve got some people I thought were on our side, conservatives, who themselves are getting sucked in by this stuff, Snerdley. They’re getting sucked in by all of it, from making ourselves poorer, which will lead to a simpler life of planting a garden and living off the radishes that we grow ourselves and we’ll start smoking more and we’ll start getting to know our families more and our neighbors more. This is all fine and dandy, because we’re clearing out the dead weight on our side. But they know exactly what they’re doing.
They don’t think they’re putting us at risk, Snerdley. They don’t think that. I wouldn’t say that Barack Obama wants the country to get hit again, would you? Do you think Barack Obama has a desire for a terrorist attack on this country? I don’t think that would play right now very well given what he wants to do with spending and so forth. But I do think that there is a complex among these people that it won’t happen when he’s there. It won’t happen. Messianic type things are going to happen. These guys are going to read these memos and they’re going to understand it’s not Bush anymore. We’re not out to harm ’em. Now these guys that we’re talking about, they’d cut off their own wives’ heads if they detect them doing something not within the bounds of the law. And we’ve got memos out there today saying how rude and horrible we are because we slap people. (slapping sound) I just slapped myself. (more slapping) I’m torturing myself right now. That’s torture, according to these people. If there is another hit, we’re the laughing stock in Tora Bora; we’re the laughing stock in the caves of Pakistan; we’re the laughing stock in Riyadh; we’re the laughing stock in Tehran; we’re the laughing stock in all of these capitals, Damascus.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Bob in Bismarck, North Dakota. Great to have you with us, hello.
CALLER: Rush, thanks for taking my call, especially on an important day like this. You’re doing a good thing today, and we appreciate it.
RUSH: Thanks very much.
CALLER: Those that can do, should, and I mean that. My comment today was I’m a little confused. I know you can help me. Somebody like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who has murdered Americans, who has planned to murder hundreds if not thousands of Americans, we cannot even muss his hair, yet three little Somali pirates that have never hurt anybody, we can shoot them down in cold blood. I’m just a little confused about this.
RUSH: Three black Somalia teenage pirates we can gun down on orders from the Oval Office, but that’s because Obama’s doing it and Bush did Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
CALLER: Okay, it’s just as simple as that, huh?
RUSH: When you boil it down to its essence. What you’re pointing out is great hypocrisy, tremendous hypocrisy. But I’m sure that you would have some very serious Democrat liberals tell you, ‘Well, those kids, those pirates, they were pointing a gun at our captain. When we got Sheikh Mohammed, he’s threatening nobody when he’s in prison.’
CALLER: How about all the people that he knows that are threatening all of us? Isn’t that worth finding out about?
RUSH: The argument of course will break down. This is not the only thing that people are upset about. This Department of Homeland Security report that targets the military, returning military and compares them to Timothy McVeigh, I got an e-mail last night from James Boggess — I hope I’m pronouncing his name right. He’s a subscriber at RushLimbaugh.com.
‘Rush, I served eight years for the US Army. At no time during those eight years did I receive any training on how to rent a truck, load it with fertilizer, soak it with petroleum product, park it next to a federal building and ignite the mixture causing destruction to property and killing countless innocent people. Timothy McVeigh was a nut case, pure and simple. It’s a sad thing that the government wants to focus on the fact that he was a veteran. There are millions of productive men and women in this country right now that are veterans. They put their lives on hold to serve their country. Now to find out that their country is not only ungrateful but also prepared to label them terrorists? I noticed that Janet Napolitano said to the extent that veterans read it as an accusation an apology is owed. She didn’t apologize. She just said one is owed. My guess is she will never apologize, and she’ll be placed on the shelf next to Jane Fonda, as far as I’m concerned, as will Obama, since this report is his, and straight out of a Jeremiah Wright sermon. Mega dittos, El Rushbo, you keep me mellow and laughing at the chaos that is now our government.’
There are a lot of people upset about this. I want you to listen to Mike Hayden, the former CIA director. He was on Andrea Mitchell — NBC News Washington — yesterday. She asked him this question: ‘What is the harm in being open about our techniques? I mean, that’s certainly what President Obama promised during the campaign.’
HAYDEN: The release of the memos harms American security, and therefore, I think the best course of action would have been to have kept them classified. After all, this began life as a covert action whose definition is that the hand of the United States government is never acknowledged and the details of the operation are never revealed. And so I don’t think it automatically fits into the class of the American people need to know. The degree to which we make these techniques public, that we tell our enemies the outer limits of American interrogation techniques, will effectively take these techniques off the table because our enemy will know all of our approaches to him. So there are a variety of reasons, I think, that it would have been best to keep the techniques secret.
RUSH: Obama has his reasons and I do think they’re couched in the notion that this country is guilty. This country is guilty as it exists and as it was founded, and our guilt was confirmed in the way we conducted the war on terror so we’ve got to spank ourselves. And he thinks this will show the rest of the world what a decent guy he is, what a decent country we are.