Guessing game

Three pictures; without clicking through, do you know what they are? So all may play the game, please use ROT-13, to post answers.







They are all of the same thing, though they aren't all the same one.

In the department of, D'UH!

Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots

A month ago Dick Cheney was spouting off that, "the enhanced interrogation program" stopped "a great many" terrorist attacks on the level of Sept. 11.

"I've seen a report that was written, based upon the intelligence that we collected then, that itemizes the specific attacks that were stopped by virtue of what we learned through those programs," Cheney asserted, adding that the report is "still classified," and, "I can't give you the details of it without violating classification."

In a word, Bullshit. He's making it up, and using the "Classified" routine as a dodge. Here's the thing; if he'd seen such a report, and said what he said, that's a breach of classified material. It's just like McCarthy's list, a bit of theater meant to cover up that his spiel is a steaming pile of crap.

From the article; The pressure from upper levels of the government was "tremendous," driven in part by the routine of daily meetings in which policymakers would press for updates, one official remembered.

"They couldn't stand the idea that there wasn't anything new," the official said. "They'd say, 'You aren't working hard enough.' There was both a disbelief in what he was saying and also a desire for retribution -- a feeling that 'He's going to talk, and if he doesn't talk, we'll do whatever.' "

The application of techniques such as waterboarding -- a form of simulated drowning that U.S. officials had previously deemed a crime -- prompted a sudden torrent of names and facts. Abu Zubaida began unspooling the details of various al-Qaeda plots, including plans to unleash weapons of mass destruction.

Abu Zubaida's revelations triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms. The interrogations led directly to the arrest of Jose Padilla, the man Abu Zubaida identified as heading an effort to explode a radiological "dirty bomb" in an American city. Padilla was held in a naval brig for 3 1/2 years on the allegation but was never charged in any such plot. Every other lead ultimately dissolved into smoke and shadow, according to high-ranking former U.S. officials with access to classified reports.

"We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms," one former intelligence official said.

I am not surprised. Why? Because this is exactly what I've been saying for years is what torture does, it gets the answers the torturers want to hear. It pollutes the information stream and diverts limited assets to chasing after false leads, and up blind alleys.

That's when the blind alleys and false leads don't get people killed.

They had what they needed. They'd gotten information from him by the usual methods. They'd gotten corroborating information from other sources. But they didn't believe it, and they knew they could make him talk.

They were right.

What they couldn't do was make him know things he didn't; but they could make him say them.