When you let the CIA choose what to redact in a report that is critical of their activities, you deserve the criticism you get.
On June 7th, I wrote the following:
It’s really kind of incredible that the CIA is in charge of declassifying a Senate Intelligence Committee report that condemns the CIA for torturing people and then lying about it. There couldn’t be a greater conflict of interest.
I understand that the CIA is used to doing the declassification process, and that they have equities and must have a say in what is declassified. But they certainly should not have the final word on what is and is not divulged from the Senate report.
As things stand, the Chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Diane Feinstein of California, has been told that the declassification will be completed by July 4th. At that point, I expect we’ll get a report with a few sentences here and there separated by giant blocks of blacked-out paragraphs. And there won’t be any way to appeal the CIA’s decisions. The only way to avoid this is for the administration to be the appellate board. They should promise that they’ll look at the job the CIA did and have the president unilaterally declassify anything he thinks is basically a bad faith classification.
So far, my predictions are correct. It’s up to the Obama administration to unilaterally declassify the report’s bad faith redactions.
I expect them to do exactly that, and I will be very critical of them if they don’t make significant concessions to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
You have a Hell of a lot more faith than I do.
I mean that I want them to do the right thing, which is not the same as predicting that they will. I hold out hope.
Oh!
I think it is tied to when he thinks he is officially lame duck and his agenda is otherwise as complete as it is going to get.
This will stir up a real dust storm that is important for the nation to sort out. I can see him wanting this to be a legacy thing. And even handing out a few pardons to on his way out to let the country move on. Serious Accountability and reforms are needed hear but try to get every bad actor will not work and might do more damage to the nation in the long haul. I think that’s why he didn’t go after these assholes in 2008. That wasn’t why Americans elected him ( generally)
The issue is institutional, not just bad actors. When you totally shield an agency from accountability, it becomes totally unaccountable and does what whatever actors at the time think expedient or even “neat”. When that agency has plausible deniabiity, the authority to lie, and the power to assassinate, it becomes a monster.
We saw this in the 1970s, and Congress failed at that time to take the issue seriously and fix it. And the fix goes to redoing the fundamental authorities put in place in the 1940s by the Truman administration and interpreted broadly by the courts.
That said, there are certain bad actors who should be impeached (in the sense ever again allowing them into a position of public trust). Yoo and Bybee for starters and a lot of the chain of command that is hidden in that report. Plus all of those who have gone on to their corporate revolving door rewards.
And then there are the brutes who followed the orders and committed the torture and killing with their own hands. Instead of being idolized on fictional TV shows, they should be held up to the scorn and moral shame. And punished severely.
The UN Convention on Torture admits no excuses. The Nuremberg principles admitted no excuses. That precedent needs to be reinforced not undermined with glib comments about sanctimony. For the sake of the furture, there must not be a reaction of expediency.
Failure to carry out this sort of extensive reform breeds a Praetorian Guard sense of impunity in those agencies, which undermines both democratic governance and the Constitution. I trust that those quaint notions are still important to some people in this country although of late I am beginning to have my doubts.
Maybe it’s because I live in a GOP district, but any attempt by Obama to hold about anyone accountable – particularly soldiers or high ranking elected republicans like Cheney – would stir up a revolt the likes of which this country hasn’t seen. Not tea party wimps, either. Real violence.
Will that make for less torture? Or tip the US into political instability from which we would not recover?
I don’t know if you live in a red district or blue or somewhere in between, but the deep, knife’s edge bitterness out here in bachmann-land cannot be underestimated.
“Folks” that can’t handle the truth? It’s high time the USG stopped treating them like fragile flowers. That only makes them weaker. Whatever the Warren Commission covered up, we were capable of handling at that time. LBJ couldn’t have been more wrong in covering the Nixon gang’s derailment of the Paris Peace Talks in 1968. Ford was wrong in pardoning Nixon. The public had the right to see/hear all his crimes. Reagan should have been impeached over Iran-Contra. etc.
I don’t agree. Despite all the talk about “Second Amendment Solutions” these people are just loud mouthed blowhards.
Do you know what will bring violence to the streets? The Republican House impeaching Barack Obama and the Republican Senate removing the first black President on trumped up charges. Don’t know if you remember the ’60s and the MLK riots, but I do. I’m firmly convinced they would re-occur. Hell, I’d join them if my white skin didn’t get me lynched.
I live in the bluest Congressional District in North Carolina, which is not saying more than it votes reliably for Democrats (so far). But I have neighbors and friends who reflect or know people who reflect that antagonism that you are talking about and who are glued to Fox News and Rush and Pat Robertson.
The issue of the runaway intelligence community is too serious for the future of American governance to hesitate because it might stir up some bigots. That is effectively what the Kennedy brothers decided about the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s–however reluctantly.
The key will be the facts, which likely will apall a lot of Republicans of charity and good will who have been sleeping as their party has gone off the rails. And the fact that the people will be brought up on war crimes charges; that must be a critical part of the response.
Accountability and solid facts broke the Nixon propaganda spell in the 1970s. It can again. The truth when it is accepted as the truth allows for change. And the FoxNews/Rush shtick is not so predictable and boring it is losing audience although the practice of loyalty checking in red states keeps that from being readily apparent.
One only has to see how many Tea Party folks turn out as compared to Moral Majority folks (to take the example of the red part of NC) to understand that the crazies are about overstating their numbers and power. It’s the nostalgic Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I Republicans who keep the Republicans delivering red states year after year, but where Republicans have seized state legislatures with ALEC power and are following the ALEC agenda, a lot of those nostalgic folks are thinking about ticket-splitting to get rid of those legislators.
Stepping up to hold the intelligence agencies accountable in my opinion accelerates that process of disenthrallment to conservatism instead of pushing folks over the edge.
If they don’t, it’s time for a Senator to do it for them.
The fact is that the SSCI has already negotiated with the CIA once about the contents of the report and trimmed it down.
And as far as names go, the public report should blow covers and name names. There is a precedent for naming names–just not one that served the public — so the President can sprinkle pixie dust on the report and insta-declassify it. Give a real issue for the Republicans to howl about for once. And after all, the names named are likely those who need to be charged with war crimes under US domestic law.
Now, now, now, the people who tortured and who oversaw the torture were
only following orderspatriotic Americans. They must be protected from any consequences because that’s what patriotism means, right?Always tricky to know where the buck stops!
This shit happens & besides have you seen how mean Cheney/Bush family looks? Whoa..boy, I don’t want to go to court w/ that bunch.
China Boosts Investment in Africa …
Total trade between Africa and China surpassed the $210bn mark in 2013. US trade slumped from $113bn to below $98bn last year. China has organized five summits with African leaders who were given the full red carpet treatment. Obama, too busy with U.S. Congress, military aggression and failed states, has organized just one in which he himself is not scheduled to meet African leaders.
○ China’s second foreign aid white paper published
Posted earlier @MoA – Cuba: Obama Promissed Better Relations, Sent USAID For “Regime Change”.
On the one hand, China’s influence is not likely to result in more stable democracies, and their interest in exploiting natural resources will likely not make average African people much richer (natural resource economies are usually disastrous – even in the US).
On the other hand, they don’t tend to be religious nuts. Africa needs less of those these days.
What they really need is some steady manufacturing out there, but infrastructure is lacking. Perhaps in some cases China’s gifts of infrastructure will really help. We can hope.
Of course Obama has barely made up for the loss of over $100bn annual exports to the African continent by contracts of arms shipments to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and soon Ukraine and Poland. Libya, Syria and Iraq appear a lost effort for return on investment during his second term.
Yer dreamin’.
When was the last time the Senate Intelligence Committee took out a president?
WTFU.
The fix has been in since the day Obama announced his first candidacy. Too late to back out now. Somebody…possibly a number of somebodies… will play the public patsy after the promise of some sort of under-the-radar remuneration when the hubbub dies down.
Bet on it.
And the beat will go on.
And on and on and on and on and on…
It’ll go on as long as the sound system doesn’t explode from a fatal case of feedback..
Bet on that as well.
AG
P.S.
Y’got ’em trembling in their boots, Booman!!!
Or is that uncontrollable laughter?
I can hear it now.
Please.
Man….
The world of political writing must have a feeling of such helplessness, that you really have to start believing in something & that you can influence in the direction of our nation.
I think the republicans were waiting all along for the democrats to push their progressive agenda.
Just something that I always strike as odd why no one else is seeing this who is hi-fiving the Republicans in ‘disorder’