I’m sorry, but where are you getting your "intelligence information?"  Are you privy to high-level, eyes-only, top-secret codeword intelligence that 99% of Americans are NOT?  If you are just another average citizen, then please stop tellling people with differing views that they’re wrong.  The fact is they may not know the absolute truth - but neither do you.

Your argument that Bush is somehow to be credited because we haven’t been attacked since 9/11 is specious, at best.  It’s a non-issue.  You cannot prove a negative, but you probably know this.  The Bush administration never detailed exactly what or how many terrorist actions they supposedly thwarted.  You also know how easy it is to get into this country, whether it’s over a porous border or on a container ship.  It doesn’t stinking matter who’s in the White House:  if terrorists want to get to us again, they will.  It’s juvenile and delusional to believe that any official or any entity is going to "keep us safe" from everything.

I would also like to say that it has been well-documented by the military and federal government that information obtained through torture is notoriously unreliable.  We’ve known this for a very long time.  Most prisoners-of-war will say anything they think their captors want to hear when being tortured.  There’s also those pesky little things called the Geneva Conventions to worry about.  Every member of the military takes an oath to abide by those articles, so how we can turn around and then engage in the very things we promised not to do … I don’t know.  There isn’t one word in the Uniform Code of Military Justice that compels military personnel to carry out an illegal order.  And torture should be considered an immoral - and illegal - act.  I would also like to remind you of this:  if the Bush Administration truly believed that torture (by any name) was justified and legal, why then did they practice "rendition" of enemy combatants?  In other words, if these actions were okie-dokie fine, why not practice them on U.S. SOIL?  Why send these people to foreign countries for "enhanced interrogations?"

President Obama is hardly a "puppet."  I’m sure he consults with a lot of people before making important decisions - as any good president would.  I think it’s an admirable quality to listen to others and change course if you think it’s the correct thing to do.

I say all these things as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who worked in the Signals Intelligence field, someone who lost a couple of friends in the Oklahoma City bombing, and as a citizen who loves this country just as much as those who literally wrap themselves in the flag do (see your avatar.)

P.S.- stop calling people "my dear."  It’s disrespectful, condescending, and insulting.  But I’m sure you know that, too.