Sunday, December 14, 2014

the world as it is vs the world as you would like it to be...,


theatlantic |  So why not punish them now?

If CIA officers did abhorrent things that even their waterboarding colleagues managed to avoid, exceeding the orders and legal strictures they were given, why haven't they been prosecuted for torture as a duly ratified treaty compels the U.S. to do? Why hasn't Brennan ever remedied the failure to hold those men accountable? Why has he allowed people even he regards as criminals to remain at the CIA?

The reason is that he does not believe the rule of law should apply to the CIA.

Dick Cheney, Michael Hayden, and Brennan make a big show of invoking the legal cover given by John Yoo and others, as if they respect the rule of law. But beneath the posturing, they oppose jailing CIA officers no matter what, perhaps because those officers know things that could put them in prison. Among torturers, there can be only one code: Stop Snitchin'. Do you think that I exaggerate? 

As The Week notes, the only person in jail over CIA torture is a man who tried to expose it.

In the end, Andrew Sullivan comes close to the mark. "There is no organization in the US government that exercises the kind of power the CIA does–over the presidency, Congress, and the media," he writes. "It is unimaginable that any other agency in government could commit war crimes, torture innocents, murder people, wreck this country’s moral standing… and yet escape any consequences... There is no other government agency that launches elaborate public relations campaigns to discredit and undermine its Senate oversight committee. There is no other organization whose head can tell blatant lies about spying on its overseers and receive the president’s wholehearted support. There is no other agency where you can murder someone already in your captivity and get away with it."

The head of the CIA can go on national television, acknowledge that some CIA officers tortured using "abhorrent" tactics, admit that those tactics went beyond their orders and the law, note that they were never held accountable... and then do nothing more. This is a man President Obama still wants to head the intelligence agency, perhaps because while Brennan may not know "where all the bodies are buried," he knows where they were droned to death on sometimes illegal Obama orders.

Lawlessness begets lawlessness begets lawlessness.

2 comments:

Constructive_Feedback said...

Brother CNu:


The ATLANTIC MAGAZINE?
Isn't this the employer of Ta-Nehisi Coates? The man who didn't see the "Humanitarian Mission In Libya" as torture or a "War Crime" - yet when the Nation Of Islam dared criticize Obama - he and Dr Earl Ofari Hutchinson (Al Sharpton's radio adviser) went after the NOI, rather than rendering an "Anti-American Imperialist Protest" position, like they would normally do?


The "Clown Car" aspects of all of this is the fact that we are left with one essential argument:


"THEIR CIA = BAD"............"The CIA Of Today, Ran By MY GUY = Good".


When IN TRUTH - President Obama is a more EFFICIENT Imperialist than Bush - as he had learned: "KILL THE OTHER PERSON OF COLOR In The Fight For 'American Foreign Policy'. DO NOT Put US Troops In Harms Way During This Process, Lets AMERICANS Feel A Personal Stake In Such US Foreign Policy.

CNu said...

we are left with one essential argument: "THEIR CIA = BAD"............"The CIA Of Today, Ran By MY GUY = Good".lol, if that's what you come away with, then you need to see your case worker about getting resized for a new halo and bit, and while you're at it, see about getting that one thick shoe replaced too,

Bro.Con.Feed (say it quickly)..., What did I write to Ken? Try and grasp the fact that this administration lacks the testicular fortitude and moral rectitude to prosecute the rampant war crimes of its predecessor. Further, comprehend that that flagrant violation of the "Rule of Law" is the only relevant expression of two parties, one ideology that you need to see.

One needn't be a pack of filthy prison rapists like Bush-Cheney to be rotten to the core. It's enough to know they were lawless - and not do
anything about it
. Oh, and uh.., accept the fact that your partisanship is in support of filthy prison-rapists and executioner-cops, and, that that's what it means to be a not-see.Why you feel the need to underscore the Hon.Bro.Preznit's dirtiness, when I stated in no uncertain terms that "failure to prosecute" equals full culpability? Add to this injury the insulting fact that the Hon.Bro.Preznit was busy working the phones just last week with Jamie Dimon in support of gutting Dodd-Frank

Remember Remember The 4th Of December...,