Summer Inquiry  As the days of the Bush presidency wane and as we in the US prepare to elect a new President, I have been thinking about what lies ahead for the world.  I have been looking at my own failures of committed action over the past eight years when I saw the present administration act in ways  I knew were bound for disaster.  Will the next administration repeat the same errors and wreak more havoc on the globe? Why Were We So Ineffective? Reports now coming out reveal the sheer cruelty which the present administration became committed to in its response to 9/11. Why did we let this happen? How did it come to pass that the US  is now practicing torture? Why did the US Senate and House of Representatives vote for the Iraq War despite the fact that so many Americans were opposed to it?

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 To Catch a Terrorist The lead article in the New York Times on June 22nd, Inside the Interrorgation of a 9/11 Mastermind, is a great piece of journalism. In the frightening days and months after 9/11 the CIA worked desperately to capture the terrorists responsible for it and to prevent another such attack on the US. They were very successful, capturing both 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, logistics manager for Al Qaeda. This article reveals the operations of the CIA and ordinary people trying to do their work under extraordinary circumstances. Both these men were interrogated at a secret black site where they were subjected to harsh treatment and waterboarding before being moved to Guantanamo.                                                                                                                   Good Cop/Bad Cop The fascination of this article is in the interrogation details.

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