Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union with Candy Crowley,” Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said America has “to stop the self-loathing” while commenting on the Senate Democrats’ report on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
King said, “What ISIS does is behead people, they carry out the most brutal type of attacks, rapes, sex slaves, all of that, and for anyone to be comparing what the CIA did to what ISIS does, what al Qaeda does is just wrong. I think we caused tremendous damage to the U.S. reputation but this is a self-inflicted wound with a very partisan, selective report which I think does a terrible injustice to the men and women of the CIA.”
“I think it’s helpful to speak out and say the CIA did an excellent job and the CIA operated under the most extenuating circumstances that they’re responsible for stopping attacks against the United States and we have to stop the self-loathing,” he continued. “The burden is on people in positions of influence to stop hating ourselves and to stop hating those who we ask to do the job and so, listen, I feel for the men and women out there in the CIA who they’re wondering if they’re doing today what they’re told to do five years from now what’s going to happen.”
“For instance President Obama, I support his drone policy, suppose five or ten years from now a Senate report comes out and says that he’s guilty of human rights violations, guilty of war crimes because of the innocent people killed by drone attacks, what happens to us then?” King added. “As Americans we stood together during World War II, many civilians were killed by American forces in Dresden, Tokyo, and other places but as a country we didn’t tear ourselves apart. We had the moral standing.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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