Laughable Claims of "Abuse"

I have to laugh when reading reports of some of the so-called "abuses" that supposedly warrant crippling the CIA through politically-motivated prosecutions.  The New York Times, a major enemy of the CIA, lists some in an article called, "C.I.A. Abuse Cases Detailed in Report on Detainees." Most of the things mentioned aren't abuses at all, but nothing more than mild scare tactics and a little rough handling. In addition, from the Times article, most of these techniques were apparently used on two known terrorists, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri. Let's look at some of the claims.  

suggestions about sexually assaulting members of a detainee’s family, staging mock executions, intimidation with a handgun and power drill, and blowing cigar and cigarette smoke into prisoners’ faces to make them vomit.

"Suggestions" about sexual assaults? Seriously? Making a threat which wasn't going to be carried out is some sort of abuse? Get a grip. Here's an example used on al Nashiri.

According to the report, the interrogator wanted Mr. Nashiri to infer for “psychological” reasons that his female relatives might be sexually abused.

And why not? This is merely a psychological ploy. The idea that it constitutes abuse is simply ridiculous, especially given the individual under interrogation. And then there is KSM. This person was a known leader of Al Qaeda, and was responsible for planning an attack that murdered 3000 Americans. But making some threatening statements about his children is somehow abusive. The Obama administration has no problem actually killing children in drone missile strikes designed to assassinate Al Qaeda & Taliban leaders, but mere threats used as an interrogation ploy are worthy of prosecution.

I already dealt with the mock execution issue in a previous post. It was apparently used as a trick to deceive terrorists under interrogation, making them fear that they might be executed. From what I have seen so far, there are no reports that prisoners themselves underwent mock executions. Then there is "intimidation" by gun and drill. Now the CIA isn't allowed to intimidate terrorists under interrogation? Keep in mind they they weren't actually harmed. No one drilled into their legs with the power drill, or blew off one of their fingers with a gun. Those items were simply used as props to scare them. That doesn't even approach anything that could be considered abuse.

And finally, blowing smoke into someone's face. Wow, that's just horrifying isn't it? Worse happens every day in our prisons to U.S. citizens, many times to people convicted of non-violent offenses. But we are going to prosecute members of our premier intelligence agency for what they did to some terrorists in an attempt to gain information to protect the country.