The New York Times reported today that some of the information that led U.S. intelligence officials to ultimately determine Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts was obtained from detainees at Guantanamo Bay:

The real breakthrough came when they finally figured out the name and location of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, whom the Qaeda chief appeared to rely on to maintain contacts with the outside world.

Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Torture apologists on the right immediately extrapolated from this passage in the Times that this information was gleaned from using “enhanced interrogation” techniques (i.e. torture). Former Bush administration speechwriter Marc Theissen wrote that “it turns out the detainees in question were KSM and Abu Faraj al-Libi” (although it’s unclear how he knows this) and noted that both were tortured. Thus:

Before coming to Gitmo, both were held by the CIA as part of the agency’s enhanced interrogation program, and provided the information that led to bin Laden’s death after undergoing interrogation by the CIA. In other words, the crowning achievement of Obama’s presidency came as a direct result of the CIA interrogation program he has denigrated and shut down.

Bush torture program architect John Yoo agreed:

Also, buried in the stories may be yet another sign of the vindication of the Bush administration’s war on terror policies. Anonymous government sources say that the al Qaeda courier who led our intelligence people to bin Laden was a protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks who was captured in 2002, subjected to enhanced interrogation methods, and yielded a trove of intelligence on al Qaeda.

Dick Cheney said today that “it wouldn’t be surprising” the intel came from Bush’s torture program. However, there is currently no evidence to suggest that the detainees that provided the information that led to bin Laden were subject to torture. And Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who presumably has some knowledge about what went on at Gitmo, today threw some cold water on this theory:

“The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”

Without any evidence, and without Rumsfeld’s blessing, it seems like conservatives are going to have to work a little bit harder at trying to take credit for bin Laden’s death.

Last night, President Obama announced that the world’s most wanted terrorist had been captured and killed by U.S. special forces. A CIA-led Navy SEALs squadron of just a few dozen men were tapped to perform the mission. One of the soldiers selected to participate in the “counterterrorism group [that is] so specialized that no one can apply to join it” is Rubén Mejía, the son of Mexican immigrants.

Mexico’s El Universal newspaper reports that Mejía’s parents came to the U.S. from Guanajuato, a city in central Mexico. Rubén Mejía was born in the U.S. and enlisted at the Moreno Valley, California military base six years ago. After spending 7 months in Afghanistan, Mejía joined the SEALs and was able to see Osama Bin Laden’s corpse as it was carried out of the building where he was killed yesterday.

Mejía’s father, a machine operator, recalled the moment that soldiers in uniform came to his home in Los Angeles holding a folded flag. “It was one of the biggest scares,” explained Martín Mejía. “When they [the soldiers] saw us [the family] begin to cry they clarified that bringing the flag was an expression of recognition and honor because our son had carried out a great mission for our nation,” stated the SEAL’s father.

For a long time, Latinos were underrepresented in the armed forces. Yet, this started to change dramatically as the Army launched “a vast recruiting campaign targeting Latino youth, placing ads in Spanish-language media, including magazines, radio, and television.” In fact, several military experts have come out in support of the DREAM Act which would legalize undocumented youth who go to college or serve in the military precisely because it would significantly increase the pool of qualified recruits in the Latino population — which comprises the majority of undocumented immigrants and is more likely to enlist and serve in the military than any other group.

There is a flip side to this as well. Casualties among Latino soldiers in Iraq ranked the highest compared to other minority groups in 2007. In fact, Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez — an orphan who made the 2,000-mile journey from Guatemala City to the U.S. at age 14 — was one of the first U.S. servicemen killed in combat in Iraq.

Meanwhile, many also claim that Latinos are being left out of the military’s highest ranks. “In the last 75 years, there have been only three (Latino) officers on active duty with three stars and just one with four. What’s the problem? We’re as capable, competent and educated as any other segment of society,” retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez stated last year. If the hundreds of Latinos who have died serving our country abroad aren’t enough to change that, hopefully Rubén Mejía’s brave and historic actions are.