MARC THIESSEN, SHILL FOR TORTURE

Marc Thiessen, a former Bush administration official, has just published a book that defends the use of torture and a couple of days ago, I heard him on a wingnut talk radio show (I can't recall which one) and he made what seemed to me to be a preposterous claim: As a White House speech writer, he got to interview the top 5 or 6 CIA interrogators. I wouldn't think he had the clearance to speak directly with these fellows and even if he did, I don't think that would be necessary for a mere speech writer. UPDATE: Thiessen basically repeated this claim during the CNN interview. It starts just after the 4:30 mark in this clip:



Thiessen has been a national security hysteric for months, publishing fear pieces in the NRO and the WaPo. He was just on CNN to pimp his new book and Christiane Amanpour hammered him for his conception of torture (h/t Zaid Jilani at Think Progress):

THIESSEN: There have been so many misstatements told about the enhanced interrogation techniques, comparing them to the Spanish Inquisition, to the Khmer Rouge. And I have to tell you, Christiane, you’re one of the people who have spread these mistruths.

AMANPOUR: Excuse me?

THIESSEN: I’m sorry. You went to S-21, the Khmer Rouge prison [...]

AMANPOUR: Yes, and we saw the waterboarding there that they used as a torture technique. That’s called spreading the truth! [...]

THIESSEN: We did not submerge people in a box full of water. [...]

AMANPOUR: That is called waterboarding, you can say in whichever way you want! [...] You’re trying to obfuscate the debate here. [...]

THIESSEN: It’s nothing like what the CIA used.

Thiessen seems to be denying reality because the Khmer Rouge did exactly what the CIA did:

A closer look at torture

There isn't much difference between the Bush administration's interrogation policy and the techniques used by the Khmer Rouge.
David Corn
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 October 2006 18.05 BST

Blank, a former senior editor of US News & World Report and the author of the books Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God and Mullahs on the Mainframe, took the photos last month at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison is now a museum that documents Khmer Rouge atrocities. And the shots show one of the waterboards that had been used by the Khmer Rouge. Here's the first:

Here's another view:

How did they work? Here's a painting by a former prisoner that shows the waterboard in action: