The Bush administration is pushing a narrative on national security issues (and has been for some time now) which can be summed up as: "Trust us, we know what we're doing -- and we're doing it to keep you safe." Two facets of this issue are on the front burner this week: warrantless wiretapping and torture (or as they put it "extraordinary interrogation techniques," one of many euphemisms they've trotted out). But what seems to be lost in the debate are two data points that just don't fit in with their pre-packaged narrative. And, once again, the mainstream media are largely ignoring these points since they'd have to... you know... commit an act of journalism to confront them squarely.

Bush's White House and Republicans in general are not the only ones pushing this nicely-spun narrative. Senator Jay Rockefeller, IV (D-Viacom) aided and abetted the White House in an opinion article he wrote recently for the Washington Post (I must warn you not to read this on a queasy stomach, as his total disregard of facts has been known to induce vomiting). Coincidentally, Rockefeller has just recently been the recipient of huge donations from the telecommunications companies he is providing amnesty for, although he conveniently denies that that had anything to do with his position on the issue. He's shocked -- Shocked!! -- that anyone could even make such an accusation.

But what is being lost in the debate over the renewal of the FISA law and the discussion of warrants and wiretapping in general was an extraordinary claim made a few weeks ago by a former Qwest Communications executive -- that the National Security Agency (NSA) approached Qwest in order to illegally wiretap their communications six months before 9/11 happened. Now, the guy is fighting a legal battle, so his claims should indeed be verified, but if true this leads to one of two conclusions: either (1) the NSA knew six months ahead of time that 9/11 was going to happen; or, (2) 9/11 just became a convenient excuse for a warrantless wiretapping program that was already underway. Applying Occam's razor ("the simplest explanation is usually the correct one"), the latter would appear to be the case. So why isn't the media digging out the truth? Where are all the investigative reporters running down this lead? If the warrantless wiretapping program pre-dated 9/11, then the whole "we needed extraordinary powers after 9/11 happened" narrative goes right out the window.

While many have used Qwest as an example of why amnesty for the telecommunications companies should not be granted (because they didn't all knuckle under to the government's requests), little has been made of this aspect. And with the amnesty provision currently being hotly debated in Congress, the time is now to start asking these questions.

The second anomaly in the Bush narrative on national security is also a "before the fact" issue that actually was widely reported years ago, but which has also gone down the media's collective memory hole while the issue of waterboarding and torture is being discussed. The issue is in the spotlight currently due to Bush's nominee for Attorney General hitting a roadbump in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.

Again, the Bush narrative on the issue goes something like this: "We need to torture terrorists (although it's not "torture," because we say so -- so there!) to gain crucial information to stop terrorist plots before they happen, so we can stop them before they kill Americans." The "ticking time bomb" scenario is often brought up at this point (if you are holding a terrorist and he knows where a ticking time bomb is, and the only way to make him talk is to torture him, what are you going to do?). But this convenient moral quandary ignores the fact that sometimes torture gives you exactly the wrong information -- because the person being tortured will tell you what he thinks you want to hear.

Before we invaded Iraq, we held such a terrorist. His name was Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. Now, if I was a conspiracy theorist, I would wonder about whether that was a real name or not (al-Libi? alibi?), but let's put that aside for the moment. We sent al-Libi to Egypt, one of our favorite countries for outsourcing torture. They tortured him, with the full knowledge of the CIA. He talked. His story was that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Al Qaeda. Conveniently, this is exactly what the Bush White House wanted to hear in the run up to war with Iraq. So off we went on our grand adventure to root out Saddam and his WMDs before he could hand them over to Al Qaeda.

The only problem was, it was a lie. Not the WMD part, that was a separate lie. The "in bed with Al Qaeda" lie is what I refer to here. This was the most important intelligence source we had for this claim, but unfortunately the source (once we stopped torturing him) recanted his story and said that there was no connection. Which turned out to be true.

What this means is that one of the strongest reasons for starting this war turned out to be a lie. A lie which came about as a direct result of us torturing someone.

This is the danger of torture that Bush and Cheney and all their apologists refuse to face: torture doesn't work because the person being tortured will say absolutely anything to make it stop. In other words, the information or intelligence you gain through torturing someone is highly suspect, and should not be believed.

So, again, why isn't this being addressed in the debate on waterboarding? Why is nobody standing up and saying "We tried torture, and it got us into a disastrous war. Torture does not work, and does not help us gather intelligence."?

There's a saying that "the exception proves the rule." This is often misunderstood, because "proves" is being used in an archaic way in the saying. It is being used the same way that new weapons are sent to a "proving ground" -- in other words it's a synonym for "test." When the exception tests the rule and the rule is found wanting, then you take the exception as the truth and go back and come up with a better general rule.

Both of these exceptions test the narratives Bush has been pushing for years now. If the wiretapping began before 9/11, then you cannot use 9/11 as an excuse for illegally wiretapping. If torturing someone leads us into a disastrous war, then maybe we shouldn't torture people because it doesn't save American lives, it winds up costing American lives.

-- Chris Weigant