Pulitzer-Prize winning Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens penned an impassioned defense of the CIA's post-9/11 actions in a staunchly-worded column published online Monday evening.
Titled "I Am Not Sorry the CIA Waterboarded," Stephens asserted in his opinion piece that he had no apologies to offer for the steps America took after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
I am not sorry Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational mastermind of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times. KSM also murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl in 2002. He boasted about it: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew,” he said after his capture. [sharequote align="right"]"As far as I’m concerned, he waterboarded himself."[/sharequote]
I am sorry KSM remains alive nearly 12 years after his capture. He has been let off far too lightly. As for his waterboarding, it never would have happened if he had been truthful with his captors. It stopped as soon as he became cooperative. As far as I’m concerned, he waterboarded himself.
I am not sorry the CIA went to the edge of the law in the aftermath of 9/11 to prevent further mass-casualty attacks on the U.S. I am not sorry that going to the edge meant, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein put it in 2002, doing “some things that historically we have not wanted to do to protect ourselves.” I don’t suppose she was talking about removing our shoes at airport security.
I am sorry we weren’t willing to do those “things” before 3,000 people had their lives unnaturally ended on Sept. 11, 2001.
In his piece, the foreign affairs columnist also took a jab at both Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rub Erdely in one sweeping paragraph.
I am sorry that the Feinstein Report, which failed to interview those directors and thus has the credibility of a Rolling Stone article, seeks to deny this. Maybe Sabrina Rubin Erdely, author of the discredited University of Virginia gang-rape story and a pro at failing to interview key witnesses, will find a new career in Sen. Feinstein’s office.
Stephens said he was not sorry for the drone strikes ordered by President Barack Obama, despite the fact that many victims "were either innocent of wrongdoing or had committed no crime deserving of death from 30,000 feet."
"This is the nature of war," he wrote.
The only thing Stephens did seem to regret was that former Vice President Dick Cheney, along with other supporters of the enhanced interrogation program, had to apologize for the CIA's practices "as if they were torture."
Almost immediately after publication, Stephens' column attracted online attention, with some readers agreeing with him and others expressing strong dissent.
At the time of publication, the column had attracted more than 200 comments on the Journal's website.
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