What is Torture?

Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, May 21, 2009


Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dave Gaubatz, the first civilian U.S. Federal Agent in Iraq (2003). He currently conducts first-hand counter-terrorism research in Islamic Centers/mosques throughout the U.S. Visit his site at Daveg.us



FP: Dave Gaubatz, welcome to Frontpage Interview.



President Obama recently released intelligence about our country’s interrogation methods such as water boarding, sleep deprivation, liquid diets, and a terrorist being put in a box with a bug. What do you think of these developments?

Gaubatz: Jamie, in the last couple of weeks, several current active duty and military veterans have contacted me and asked why Obama would do this with the support of the Democratic Party. I could give a politically correct answer and say our President had the best intentions and just made an innocent mistake by doing all of this. I can’t do this because it is not true.



President Obama has made too many alleged mistakes for his actions to be anything but intentional. Americans at some point need to understand that, even by his own admissions, he went to a church for 20 years led by a leftwing extremist, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he was friends with terrorist Bill Ayers, and bowed to a Saudi Arabian leader who condones under Sharia law the marriage of 8 year old children to adult men, and still in 2009 distributes literature advocating Muslims to kill Christians, Jews, and even Muslims who do not adhere to the strict adherence of Sharia law.



Most Americans understand the “interrogation methods” released by Obama are not really torture. More importantly Al Qaeda terrorists do not. Inconvenient, uncomfortable, tiring, and irritating, but not torture. I do not believe President Obama has the best interest of our country, our citizens, or the thousands of military and intelligence officers as his primary goal. If I were taking all of Obama’s actions and putting them into an “intelligence report” the following conclusion could be made:



[1] President Obama does not have the best interest of our country, our citizens, or the thousands of military and intelligence officers as his primary goal.



[2] The release of the ‘enhanced interrogation methods’ could be seen as an intentional signal to Al Qaeda terrorists and their supporters, that if you are ever captured, you should not release any information about your fellow ‘brothers and sisters’ who are involved in ‘Jihad’ because the worst that can happen is you may have to undergo inconveniences, but nothing life threatening.



[3] President Obama and his supporters are indeed sending a message to potential enemy combatants that could be interpreted as such: stay the course, it may be long and difficult, but patience and perseverance will ultimately lead to your victory.



Note: This is a frightening and very similar message Islamic organizations inform their members with. A brochure is now being distributed throughout the U.S. which says: If you ever get confronted by the FBI, do not to speak with the them and do not provide information on your fellow Muslims.



FP: The mainstream media continues to call ‘waterboarding’ torture. What is it in your view?



Gaubatz: We are falling into the trap Islamic terrorist groups and liberals want us to fall into. We have got to get over being afraid of names and definitions defined by liberals. CAIR and ISNA use this tactic. Politicians, law enforcement, and concerned citizens are so fearful of being called an ‘Islamophobe’ they fail to do their jobs, which is to protect our country.



Let’s call ‘waterboarding’ a form of torture. It is insignificant. ‘Waterboarding’ or sleep deprivation does not equate to what our ‘troops’ face if they are captured in Iraq or Afghanistan by Islamic terrorists. If readers go to my blog at www.daveg.us, they will see just a sampling of notes I took in 2003, Iraq. They should observe the one intelligence report I had written on 5 May 2003. The title is “1000 bodies”. Directly behind the Saddam Hospital Private Jessica Lynch was being held as a POW, our team was provided intelligence by one of the Iraqi doctors describing a ‘graveyard’ innocent Iraqis who defied Saddam Hussein were buried after undergoing significant torture and then killed. Our intelligence officers ‘through’ interviews and interrogations located many such sites throughout Iraq.



I had the opportunity to interview several Fedeyeen (civilian thugs of Saddam) we encountered and asked them if our country would again be attacked similar to Sept. 11th, 2001. Many said our troops would suffer from suicide attacks and the Islamic terrorist groups would target the “hearts of Americans”. I asked them to define what the hearts of Americans means. In no uncertain terms it was defined as attacking our children. The people we interviewed further explained they know the ‘hearts’ of Americans are their children and the most effective way to make them suffer and cower to their demands, would be to attack them. If for a minute any American believes the Islamic terrorist groups would never attack a school bus full of children, or send a suicide bomber into a school, or into a high school football stadium, or kidnap children and torture them, they need only ask the citizens of Israel. The Islamic terrorists who advocate such actions do not have hearts nor do they have a conscious. They have for years been taught to hate Christians and Jews and would sacrifice their own children to destroy their enemies (per the words of one Iraqi I interviewed).



FP: President Obama reversed his position about releasing photographs of prisoners allegedly tortured by American personnel. In addition Nancy Pelosi/D-CA (Speaker of the House) is now in hot water about lying about what she knew of interrogation methods prior to 2003. Based on your knowledge of how counter-intelligence operations are conducted, why do you think Obama changed his mind on the photographs and why did Pelosi lie?



Gaubatz: I believe President Obama has been tactfully informed by U.S. military leaders that our brave troops on the ground are risking their lives everyday for America and are beginning to ask who their ‘Commander in Chief’ is and what ideology he truly supports. These troops have young sons and daughters at home, and although they are willing to give their lives for America, they are second guessing themselves about dying for a Commander in Chief who is aiding and providing comfort to our enemies.



These troops who see death everyday and understand death means leaving their young children without a mother/father for a lifetime, will sacrifice themselves, but do not want their children to suffer if the Commander in Chief does not love America as they do. Our troops are very intelligent and know Obama admitted to cocaine use and having terrorists as friends. These are automatic disqualifiers for a Top Secret security clearance and to have any access to our nuclear weapons systems. These troops understand no active duty member with a background as shady as Obama would ever be granted a security clearance giving one access to our nuclear weapons.



Our troops are thinking about their children and saying they will give their life for America, but not for a leader who appears to be following the ideology of socialist countries and who also appears to have sympathy for Islamic leaders more than he does for his troops in the field. I firmly believe our military leaders provided Obama the reality of his actions of jeopardizing more innocent American lives for his personal political goals. Our troops and Americans who support them will give their allegiance to their country first. They will not give it up to a socialist nation or leader who puts their lives at risk.



In regards to Nancy Pelosi: Ms. Pelosi along with President Obama has jeopardized our country’s national security by releasing the interrogation methods and has put our intelligence officer’s lives in jeopardy. Additionally Pelosi told our enemies (Islamic terrorists and their supporters) that our intelligence officers can’t be trusted. Islamic terrorists will use the words of Pelosi to justify their continued actions of terrorist acts. Americans will tolerate only so much in the name of politics; they will not give up America or allow innocent men, women, and our children to suffer for any politician.



FP: Final words?



Gaubatz: Thank you Jamie. I praise the effort former VP Dick Cheney is conducting. He is speaking on behalf of millions of American. Cheney is essentially saying Americans will not allow our country to be destroyed and there are millions of people to include our troops, LE, and our intelligence officers that will not allow it to happen. I could be wrong, but I do not believe so.



I have watched the ‘homemade’ videos made from Islamic terrorists when they beat our soldiers, had their snipers shoot them, and slowly cut their throats to enhance their suffering and subsequently beheaded them. My fellow Americans, this is torture. Don’t believe me; ask innocent Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan who have witnessed this and worse.



Recently I put together a one hour long video of what ‘torture’ actually is. The video is from various Islamic Jihadist sites I have monitored for several years and will never be seen in the MSM. The DVD is titled, “Torture in the Name of Islam”. If readers truly want to see what torture is and what Islamic scholars operating in America advocate, then they should watch. If readers want to believe ‘waterboarding’ is torture, then do not watch this video. Thank you.

Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.