Sullivan: Bush Channeled Tony Soprano on Torture

Posted on Jul 10, 2006

Bush and Rumsfeld gave the go-ahead to CIA interrogators to threaten the family of Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Muhammed if he did not talk, according to Ron Suskind in his new book, “The One Percent Doctrine.” Former Bush defender Andrew Sullivan says the green light made Bush “the moral equivalent of a mafia boss.”

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Andrew Sullivan:

We have two competing narratives of the Bush administration out there. We have the court stenographer, Bob Woodward, and we have the dissident chronicler, Ron Suskind. His book, “The One Percent Doctrine,” really is a must-read. Two things in particular stuck out for me. Suskind has CIA sources saying that, as part of the torture devised by Bush and Rumsfeld for Khalid Sheik Muhammed, Onepercent they threatened to harm his wife and children if he did not talk. KSM told the interrogators to go ahead and kill his family, if necessary.

I find it telling that the president, in this instance, became the moral equivalent of a mafia boss, committing what is clearly a violation of the Geneva Conventions, even if his motives were good ones. KSM is a disgusting, evil, Jihadist mass murderer.

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