TASK DEFINITION: Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.
PROBLEM: CIA interrogation report: Democrats want to punish America, blame Bush. In its ideological zeal to punish America , the outgoing Democratically- controlled Senate, plans to make public a report that, according to Fox News will examine "the alleged use of torture by the CIA." Although the 6,000 page full report will remain classified , the 500 page summary is expected to be released to the public in coming days . According to press reports from those who are familiar with the study, it is expected to portray the American intelligence community in the worst possible light . The report's release and details about CIA interrogations that took place a decade ago will endanger Americans abroad today, destroy essential relationships with foreign intelligence communities going forward, and cripple American human intelligence gathering networks for a generation . Put bluntly , Democrats in the Senate are behaving like tenants who got evicted and decide to trash the house on their way out the door . There is nothing to be gained by releasing the report . The CIA's actions in the immediate aftermath of September 11 attacks have long since ceased . Although President Obama has approved release of the report's summary , even Secretary of State John Kerry has warned that the report's release will put Americans and U.S  embassies at risk of retaliation . So why do this now? Perhaps Democrats in Congress think that by excoriating our intelligence community before the entire world they will expiate the sins of the previous administration . Yes, it's another chance it's to blame Bush! This is the apology tour on steroids . According to media reports, the report concludes that we tortured terrorists . These are the same terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center, bombed the Pentagon, and tried to level the U.S  Capitol . These are the same terrorists that today have beheaded Christians, Westerners and, just this past weekend, another American citizen . Think back to the days after September 11 . We were blind about Al Qaeda . Most Americans feared another attack was imminent . And the best legal advice in government said CIA actions to get that information were legal . So CIA officers did what they thought necessary to protect Americans . A decade later we're suddenly castigating them for it . Second ,  the report concludes that the intelligence gathered from CIA's actions wasn't effective . Yet that has been disputed by the very people in the Obama administration who used it to track down Usama bin Laden . To quote highly regarded former CIA Director Gen  Michael Hayden,"it is inconceivable to believe that three different CIA directors, and three different Deputy CIA directors, conspired over a seven year period to lie about the program's effectiveness . Third ,  there is a rule in foreign policy like the one in medicine . First ,  do no harm . Public release of this report will do immeasurable harm . It will encourage terrorists around the world to launch revenge attacks . It will cause foreign intelligence agencies to clam up and no longer cooperate with US intelligence for fear that their sources and method will be blown . It will cause every American intelligence officer to go into the defensive crouch -- don't stick your head out to protect America because years later somebody in government who wants to score political points will chop it off . Finally ,  take a lesson from history . We did this once before, in the 1970's , when presidential-hopeful Senator Frank Church launched a widespread investigation of the CIA . It didn't work , Senator Church's presidential aspirations never got off the ground . But his handiwork crippled American intelligence gathering for a generation . American agents overseas were killed , foreign intelligence agencies stopped sharing intelligence with us , our own human networks collapsed , and CIA officers played it safe and stopped thinking outside the box . This was one of the reasons a generation later we never knew about a bunch of Islamic extremists in a cave in Afghanistan plotting to take down the Twin Towers . Releasing the report to the public will do considerable harm to our efforts to gather essential intelligence about those hoping to do us harm . It will be a self-inflicted wound . The next time we are caught unprepared it won' t just be with 747s flying into buildings it could be with weapons too terrible to contemplate .

SOLUTION: the outgoing Democratically- controlled Senate, plans to make public a report that, according to Fox News will examine "the alleged use of torture by the CIA."

PROBLEM: CIA interrogations report: New Congress must tackle how to get intelligence right. As I read news reports detailing the Senate Committee Report on the CIA interrogation program after the September 2001 terrorist attacks , I concluded there are several recurring problems to this latest effort to govern our national intelligence agencies . As an old man, I have had the opportunity to have first-hand exposure to how complex it is for Congress or even the White House to assert control over these vital intelligence activities . After there were revelations in the 60's that the CIA had engaged in a variety of activities that were highly questionable including efforts to kill Fidel Castro and others , the Carter administration reacted and went through the kind of political process that many are urging should be done today . In an attempt to purge the agency of its tendency to use nefarious individuals to carry out some of its covert projects, the CIA was directed to refuse to associate with any persons who could not meet the test of good character . One CIA officer told me how absurd that directive was . "We are trying to get people to betray their governments and to lie and cheat on our behalf. You cannot expect us to find those people in the front pew at the local churches." Perhaps the directive was well-intentioned but it made no sense . Richard Helms, the CIA head from 1966 to 1973, whom I knew well and admired greatly, told me of his personal problems when he was indicted by the Carter Justice Department for perjury . In testimony he gave to the Congress, Helms denied under oath his agency had been involved in the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, an action ordered by President Nixon . Helms told me he was following instructions he had been given repeatedly by various Senators including such powerful men as Senators Richard Russell and Walter George to the effect that if he were ever asked at an open hearing a question the answer to which "would put any of our people at risk" he should feel free to protect the secrets in whatever manner he wished . Of course Helms knew of many instances when he and others in the Agency had relied on that authority . Helms was defended by the powerful Washington lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams and the case against Helms was quickly resolved when Williams explained to the Justice Department his plan to have Helms take the stand and recite all the covert programs that had been protected by various forms of prevarications by intelligence officials . Of course no such trial in public made any sense and the danger to ongoing intelligence activities of testimony such as Williams would have had Helms provide was so great the ill- advised indictment of Helms resulted only in a slap on the wrist . Williams made a deal in which Helms pled guilty to a misdemeanor with no punishment . Later ,  President Ronald Reagan gave Helms the National Intelligence Medal as an obvious act of apology . Perjury is not to be condoned and lying before the Congress is criminal conduct . But the intelligence world involves subtle issues . If we want to have a major intelligence effort , there are clear costs to be accepted . One of them is that much of the necessary supervision by Congress has to be done with deft caution . It can hardly be conducted in open hearings . Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law Professor and prominent civil libertarian, contends torture to save lives should be permitted as long as there are rigorous procedural safeguards . He points out the Israelis have used torture for years with apparent success . Getting information from unwilling prisoners cannot be done without some risks to civilized process . It can be a dirty game . I once visited Vice President Walter Mondale at his White House office where he served under President Carter from 1977 to 1981 . His desk was piled high with documents he said were mainly reports from the CIA . He volunteered his frustration at the then weaknesses at the CIA . He told me he had come to regret he had been such a vigorous supporter of the gutting of that agency that followed the suggestions of the so-called Church Committee on which Mondale had served as a Senator . His comment was an isolated one and I merely listened . But the effects of the Church Committee recommendations were damaging to the CIA and the remedial work took years . Every forty years we may have to endure periodic reports like those produced under Senators Church and Feinstein that represent well intentioned reviews of the intelligence community . The suggested reforms speak of following our sense of justice and fairness and civility . The problem is obvious : Our enemies do not play fair and war is Hell . Any reforms of the intelligence universe cannot easily be effected . The idea of a transparent intelligence agency is an inherent contradiction . Moreover how can Congress talk openly of reforms without damaging our intelligence efforts? And politicians are among those least likely to be willing to accept the secrecy that is at the core of any well managed intelligence agency . Can we imagine a Congress that can keep the secrets? The new flurry of attacks on the intelligence community -- harmful and unnecessary-- will not have any more lasting impact than did the indictment of Helms or the work of the Church Committee . But there should be some quiet and thoughtful debate within our Congress about how it can supervise these vital intelligence programs . After all ,  our national intelligence work is existential .

SOLUTION: As I read news reports detailing the Senate Committee Report on the CIA interrogation program after the September 2001 terrorist attacks

PROBLEM: Pope Francis, Salman Rushdie and Charlie Hebdo. There is some common ground, but not much . The killings in Paris last week were horrifying crimes that expose the vulnerability of democratic societies to lethal vigilante violence, whether facilitated from outside or as a spontaneous expression of homegrown psychopathic alienation . Beyond this morbid reality associated with the murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, police officers, and the supermarket hostages, there is nothing but darkness , and in that darkness some additional monsters lurk . We can be thankful once more for the moral clarity of Pope Francis who in the impromptu setting of a plane taking him from Sri Lanka to Manila shined some light on the darkness . Unlike those who so ardently wielded the slogan "Je Suis Charlie", the pope understood that free speech without limits is an invitation to indulge the worst negative impulses that will then operate as viruses destroying the vital organs of the body politic . What Pope Francis underscored was the impossibility of reconciling dignity with hurtful insults . He illustrated his view by saying that if his companion on the plane, Dr Alberto Gazparri, a Vatican official, were to insult Francis' mother, he could expect to be punched . He called such behaviour normal:"It's normal. It's normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others." Perhaps, this is too strong an expression of limits , but it does indirectly raise the Derrida urgent question of learning to "live together" in peace and with respect within globalising social space . Response to provocation . Francis goes on to say that to kill in response to provocation, however severe, is not compatible with religion properly understood . It is behaviour of "deviant forms of religion" . He goes on to say"To kill in the name of God is an aberration" . At the same time , how lines are drawn with respect to acceptable and unacceptable forms of provocation is highly political and culturally influenced . In one respect, France and other governments understand both sides of this argument, but twist it for political purposes . The popular comedian Dieudonne is being currently prosecuted in France for"defending terrorism" because his humour deeply offends Jews, Zionists, and Israel . There are no less than 54 cases in the country associated with "condoning terrorism" . The Associated Press reports that just now "France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism, and glorifying terrorism" . But note no message by the French government is sent mentioning "hate cartooning" or addressing the surge of "Islamophobia" in the country in the days following the January 7 attack on the Charlie Hebdo editorial offices . A large number of mosques in France and elsewhere in Europe have been desecrated in the last week . This kind of double standards performs a variety of insidious functions for the French state . It uses the language of "terrorism" to demonise its political enemies and "free speech" to immunise its political friends . It merges the criminalisation of anti-Semitism with strong criticisms of Israel along with any advocacy of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) . And it makes it even clearer to Muslims that they are fair game for Islamophobes and xenophobes . In effect, a French political community is being upheld that seeks to include Jews as valued and protected members while reinforcing the Muslim understanding that their residences and social standing can be fully understood by reference to the no-go banilieus of the country . Salman Rushdie's ordeals . In the wake of these events, there is a new sympathetic look back at the ordeals of Salman Rushdie endured after the publication of his satirical novel "The Satanic Verses" in 1988 . Rushdie, appearing as a guest on Bill Maher's talk show and delivering a lecture at the University of Vermont, understandably defended freedom of expression as an absolute right . His words, deeply felt, are worth heeding as the counterpoint to the views expressed by Pope Francis : "And so artists who ... push outwards often find very powerful forces pushing back . They find the forces of silence opposing the forces of speech . The forces of censorship against the forces of utterance ... At that boundary is that push-and-pull between more and less . And that push and pull can be very dangerous to the artist . And many artists have suffered terribly for that." The context of Rushdie's recent remarks was the Charlie Hebdo incident , but his outlook was intended to be sweeping in its generality . And yet he did not, nor did Bill Maher, pause to take note of those powerful forces in the West that have tried to shut down critics of Israel by shouting "anti-Semite" at the top of their lungs . Without some degree of consistency it is difficult to consider clearly the societal choice at stake . What makes this confrontation so difficult to resolve is that it engages two truths, not one . The beginning of ethical credibility is to insist upon consistency . Either Rushdie and France have to abide by the unsavoury views of Dieudonne as well as those of Charlie Hebdo or it should suppress them both . If it allows both then it is opting for the Rushdie view that members of a modern society must learn to live with the extremes of cultural freedom even if hurtful . If it allows neither then it is choosing to protect the sensibilities of minorities and others whose dignity is under attack . Of course ,  there are many compromises that can be made to ensure maximum freedom of expression while acknowledging certain limits . The US Supreme Court long ago decided that free speech does entitle someone to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre . This is what courts are for , to draw these lines in specific cases, balancing opposing truths in the light of practicality and the evolving values of the community . What a judicial body had to say about race or homosexuality a century ago is different than what it says today . And as we in the US know too well , the prevailing ideology among the justices is often of greater importance to determining how such lines are drawn than are the legislative or constitutional enactments being interpreted . In some respects, then, such determinations are more part of the problem than of the solution . Abstract sentiments . I find myself siding with the abstract sentiments of Pope Francis, but with Rushdie's view of minimising the role of law and the state . In this respect , if we impose limits by way of government we are entering the domain of censorship . At the same time ,  we need to protect individuals and groups against malicious forms of defamation and hateful attacks on identities without confusing such protection with efforts to channel public awareness in certain prescribed directions . My own experience suggests that "freedom" of this sort has been used by some pro-Zionist and pro-Israeli organisations to discredit and deter and criticism of Israel, and especially of Israeli state crimes victimising the Palestinian people . In Rushdie's case we need to protect his right to publish "The Satanic Verses", while condemning the fatwa imposing a death sentence for blasphemy and apostasy, yet upholding the right of non-western political communities to prohibit distribution of such a book because of its provocative nature in certain civilisational settings . Obviously, there are no cookie cutter answers . The proper limits are a matter of history, ethics, cultural priorities, and circumstances . I feel that the central question is raised by Derrida's inquiry into how we can learn to live together . For me, living together, given the originality of our historical moment, involves the construction of overlapping political communities of destiny - from family to world, with a major focus on the national political community combined with a greater effort to establish a global political community so that challenges posed by climate change, nuclear weaponry, infectious disease, and world poverty can be addressed more effectively and humanely .

SOLUTION:
For me, living together, given the originality of our historical moment, involves the construction of overlapping political communities of destiny - from family to world, with a major focus on the national political community combined with a greater effort to establish a global political community so that challenges posed by climate change, nuclear weaponry, infectious disease, and world poverty can be addressed more effectively and humanely