Whoops! Pobody's nerfect.

Hmmmm. I don't know how to quite say this, as I know the revelation will shock and horrify you. But it seems that our terrorist detention, rendition, and interrogation policy wasn't as smart and effective as we all initially thought it was. I know, big surprise. It seems some rather large mistakes were made. The Washington Post has come forward with another story of how some...faux pas...were made.

An al-Qaeda associate captured by the CIA and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques said his jailers later told him they had mistakenly thought he was the No. 3 man in the organization's hierarchy and a partner of Osama bin Laden, according to newly released excerpts from a 2007 hearing.

"They told me, 'Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter,' " said Abu Zubaida, speaking in broken English, according to the new transcript of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
...
Abu Zubaida, a nom de guerre for Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, told the 2007 panel of military officers at the detention facility in Cuba that “doctors told me that I nearly died four times” and that he endured “months of suffering and torture” on the false premise that he was an al-Qaeda leader.
...
He described the response he received: "You are not American, and you are not on American soil. So you cannot ask about the Constitution."

I can't believe it three guys we waterboarded (and it was only three!!! No, you can't check records to see if that's true) wasn't even who we thought he was. So let's revisit the checklist: not only were we engaging in massively illegal conduct deemed illegal by our own laws and international laws, not only did we spend our waterboarding time asking about mythical Iraq/al-Qaeda connections, but one of the guys wasn't even who we thought he was.

Slow golf clap everyone. I'm not sure they could have fucked up more stages of this. Not only weren't we asking useful questions, we weren't even waterboarding the correct people. Were they even using water? Are we certain they weren't trying to waterboard people with syrup or dirt? Bush decides to break laws and torture and then handles it will all the care of a drunk Inspector Clouseau in a china shop. Wonderful, we didn't even get to sell our national soul for something good. Isn't that always the way? Though, to be fair, if this was baseball, batting .666 would be a pretty legendary career. So if you think of it that way it's....mildly less shame inducing.