"Holy Hell"
| Fri Apr. 3, 2009 7:58 PM PDT
Michael Isikoff reports that the White House is in the middle of an internal brawl over whether to release the last of the Bush-era torture memos:
As reported by Newsweek, the White House last month had accepted a recommendation from Attorney General Eric Holder to declassify and publicly release three 2005 memos that graphically describe harsh interrogation techniques approved for the CIA to use against Al Qaeda suspects. But after the story, U.S. intelligence officials, led by senior national-security aide John Brennan, mounted an intense campaign to get the decision reversed, according to a senior administration official familiar with the debate. "Holy hell has broken loose over this," said the official, who asked not to be identified because of political sensitivities.
....Brennan succeeded in persuading CIA Director Leon Panetta to become "engaged" in his efforts to block release, according to the senior official. Their joint arguments stalled plans to declassify the memos even though White House counsel Gregory Craig had already signed off on Holder's recommendationthat they should be disclosed, according to an official and another government source familiar with the debate. No final decision has been made, and it is likely Obama will have to resolve the matter, according to the sources who spoke to Newsweek.
Brennan's argument is that release of the memos might embarrass allies who helped us torture prisoners. He might even be right. But if that makes foreign intelligence services more cautious about helping us commit war crimes in the future, that would be a argument in favor of releasing the memos, not against it.
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Comments
I Think You're Missing The Point
Submitted by Rook on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 8:31 PM PDT.
The CIA is not worried about war crimes. Had they been, I doubt we'd be having this discussion.
No. The CIA is worried about these embarrassed countries cutting us loose and not supplying us with important information. Maybe even worse, exposing our spies.
If I had wanted cream and sugar, why order the damn coffee?
Looks like the blogosphere
Submitted by caitiedid on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 8:37 PM PDT.
Looks like the blogosphere was right about Brennan being bad news.
The CIA is worried about these embarrassed countries cutting us loose and not supplying us with important information. Maybe even worse, exposing our spies.
I am extremely dubious about this assertion.
Dubious, it is an evident reaction
Submitted by The Lounsbury (not verified) on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 3:09 AM PDT.
Intelligence agencies share and collaborate based on said collaboration staying in the shadows. There is no reason to be "dubious" about the impact - nor breezy as Drum. You would surely see a reduction in cooperation. If, of course, the released materials did not simply redact the pointers to who participated.
Insofar as redacting said information should be possible, the objection would be rendered moot.
Of course it is an excuse, but it is a valid excuse. However it can be met.
whatever
Submitted by J. Frank Parnell on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 10:59 PM PDT.
Shorter CIA: "No really, we are not worried about what we did. we just don't want to embarass our allies." Ya, sure.
worth doing carefully
Submitted by Jeff S. on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 6:18 AM PDT.
Whether or not the concerns of the foreign intelligence services are the true motivation of the CIA here, my guess is it makes sense to proceed cautiously. I very much want Bush Admin figures to be held accountable for their actions, but their approach of "this is our decision, and you foreigners are either with us or against us" is not something I'd like to see this administration duplicate.
Another government might have good reasons for wanting to protect their spy agencies. By the same token, they may just want to cover their own butts for domestic political considerations. In either case, caution seems justified. It seems to me that, done carefully, the administration can let the American people know what US officials were up to without causing unnecessary international friction.
Do you really believe....
Submitted by pelican1 (not verified) on Sun Apr. 5, 2009 9:18 AM PDT.
that the people of these countries don't already know about their involvement.
I have read the names of the above listed "allies" as torture sites on well-connected Internet sites as well as the foreign news media, including Al Jazerra.
As a matter of fact, I have seen other countries, who are supposed to be our allies, listed as our torture pals in the same places. The memo is only written proof of what everybody knows anyhow.
Anyone who has been paying attention to the unfolding night-terror called the Bush administration has to know these things. So, why will they be embarrassed now?
The information in out there and has been since at least 2005. Do you really believe that people in the countries indicated in this article trust their governments anymore than we trust ours? Unfortunately we don't know what distrust is compared to people in the named countries, as well as the people of other "outed torture pal" nations. Unlike we, the American shepple, these people in the named nations not only distrust their governments, with damn good reason, they hate and loathe them.
I doubt seriously that many of our spy buddies trust us much these days anyhow. After all, we still don't know who all died as a result of the Plame-outing.
Geeze Louise, some of us are paying attention. Are you?
J. Frank Parnell has it right. These are supposedly memos that 'graphically' describe torture techniques the CIA was allowed to use. And The Lounsbury has the solution to any mention of rendition site. Just redact it. There, another problem solved, Mr. Brennan.
Release them all.
Submitted by jrw on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 7:43 PM PDT.
This administration needs to show it is not complicit in torture by covering it up. If releasing the memos exposes the cooperation of other countries, so be it. Unless you think that protecting our allies is more important than coming to grips with our policy of torture.
I am coming to the conclusion that there are people out there, even in our own government, who are still in denial about just how much we have lost as a nation, the abyss we are still staring into. My fellow Americans, I think we have finally hit bottom with our national narcissism, sociopathic behavior on the world stage, not to mention at home.
Even recovering drunks and addicts will be happy to tell us all that the elevator we are on goes all the way to the basement of hell. The only way off, is to get honest about who we have been as a nation, the good, the bad and the ugly and to decide whether or not it is who we really want to be.
If we decide that we want to continue with our collective life of deception and fear-mongering and sloth, when it comes to being responsible citizens who stay informed, and not just from one or two sources, and have the courage to stand up for a nation we can believe in and insist on accountability for the deciders, I have no doubt that many of us will, finally, do what we knew we might have to do, sooner or later. Leave our beloved nation because we know too much to stay here, when it is clear nothing is going to be done to bring justice back to America.
However, if we decide that we don't like who we have been very much, when the inventory of our short but noisy history is aired, like dirty laundry, and we really do want to make some changes, we must realize that it will take far more courage to admit that, as a nation, we are empty, than it would to fight all the wars of history. We are a people of the lie, at our very worst, yet we will also see, with humility, that the potential for our nation rising to inspire and motivate others at home and around the world to seek liberty, justice and peace for themselves and each other is just as real.
We actually could be what we have pretended to be for over 200 years. Our nation is about as image conscious as they come. The problem with any image is that it isn't real; the image of Democracy, when recent elections have been manipulated on a massive scale, the image of prosperity, when some of us have been cooking the books for decades. The image of generosity, when everything we give is tied to some string or the other. (Maybe that's smart government. I don't really know. All I'm saying is tell the truth about it.) The image of being peace loving, when we were born in a bloody revolution and the years without blood flowing somewhere because of the insane policies of some administrations (Democrat and Republican) are far too few.
Image, Image, Image. It's all about image and spin; not real substance. Plastic, fantastic America, can we grow the hell up and get rid of the Mommy and Daddy parties? We are treated as children by the Republicans and the Democrats. We, innocent little kids can't handle the truth.
Funny thing is, we already know the truth, many of us have known for years, decades. Many, many more are waking up. We know and we are dealing with it just fine, thank you. My hunch is that the powers-that-be fear they might not deal with the truth as well as the people have, so far. They might not fair so well at all, when we air all the dirty laundry, and we must.
This is not a time for secrecy or intrigue. When deception and fear-mongering are the problem, the gateposts of the gates to hell, the only answer is to slam shut the gates of transparency and getting in touch with our origins, as a people. transparency will lead to truth and, once again, immersing ourselves in our founding documents and the meaning of being a responsible citizen in a country where we should know that tyranny is always is just one election away (whether the winner is really elected or not.) will remind us of who we started out to be, imperfect as that vision may have been. Since then we have raised the bar, yet we keep falling short. We will, until we get honest with ourselves and the rest of the world.
power corrupts.....
It's time to come clean. It isn't as if the whole world doesn't know more about our history and various administrations and congresses than we do.
"...We are a people of the
Submitted by MJmcGay (not verified) on Thu Apr. 9, 2009 6:32 PM PDT.
"...We are a people of the lie, at our very worst, yet we will also see, with humility, that the potential for our nation rising to inspire and motivate others at home and around the world to seek liberty, justice and peace for themselves and each other is just as real. We actually could be what we have pretended to be for over 200 years...." Pelican 1
I nod like a bobble head doll as I take this in because it's so true.
I'd say that
Submitted by tiffany jewelry (not verified) on Sat Aug. 15, 2009 1:06 AM PDT.
I'd say that counterinsurgency was quite successful everywhere in Latin America between the end of the Cuban Revolution and the start of the Sandinista revolution.
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