Vestal smears CIA program

Once again Shawn Vestal establishes his credentials as Spokane’s premier yellow journalist with his recent foray into a topic that he knows little about: the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program.

Using inflammatory rhetoric and implying that all Trump voters support Vestal’s extreme interpretation of the definition of torture, he launches into a biased, partisan attack of a program that, while not perfect, resulted in a treasure trove of information that led to the capture or killing of numerous key al-Qaida combatants, according to agents and their leadership who actually worked in the program yet were not interviewed.

His arsenal of information sources: a book written by another like-minded anti-antiterrorism journalist and the much-politicized Senate Intelligence Committee report on the matter written by a Democrat majority of staffers.

In a day and age where our nation and indeed, the world, are at war with a very sophisticated and evolved terrorist threat, we deserve a more serious and balanced coverage of such a complex topic. The Spokesman’s judgment in not publishing this in the opinion page further erodes the public’s already flagging and mistrust of the mainstream media. Spare us the “fake news,” Vestal.

Rod Fuller

Spokane

Editor’ note: James Mitchell, the subject of Vestal’s column, has declined interviews with The Spokesman-Review.