CIA Interrogation Tape - Copy Found!
Okay, for the record - there is no surviving copy of the videotape destroyed by the CIA to hide its interrogation techniques. Oh, sorry - in deference to Michael Hayden, to protect the identities of the agents using so-called “harsh interrogation” that some (read: the Geneva Conventions, US law and Military Justice) call “torture.” The conceit in the strip was simply a set-up for a joke.
And, for those who don’t recognize him, the “Abu” in the first panel is Abu Zubaida, one of three terror suspects interrogated by the CIA after September 11th. Zubaida was an al-Qaeda operative who may or may not have provided important information to the CIA about the 9/11 attacks and about al-Qaeda’s operations; he may or may not be mentally retarded; he may or may not be a brilliant manipulator of his interrogators; he may or may not be mentally ill; he is most likely to have been tortured during interrogation. I can’t say as I have much sympathy for the guy, but I feel strongly that he is more a pawn of the BushAdmin’s political expediencies than a valuable source of information, most of which is rendered uncreditable thanks to the likelihood of torture used to extract it.
