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Tag Archives: CIA

Obama Administration Pot Calls Out Pakistani Kettle

31 Friday Dec 2010

Posted by Craig in Afghanistan, Bill of Rights, drone strikes, Justice Department, Obama, Obama administration, Pakistan, torture, war on terror

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al Qaeda, Bill of Rights, Bush administration, CIA, Department of Justice, drones, due process, extrajudicial killings, Gitmo, human rights, hypocrisy, indefinite detention, look forward not back, Obama administration, Pakistan, Poland, Taliban, torture investigation, treaties, war on terror

From the Department of Blatant Hypocrisy, Do As I Say, Not As I Do Division:

“The Obama administration is expressing alarm over reports that thousands of political separatists and captured Taliban insurgents have disappeared into the hands of Pakistan’s police and security forces, and that some may have been tortured or killed.

The concern is over a steady stream of accounts from human rights groups that Pakistan’s security services have rounded up thousands of people over the past decade, mainly in Baluchistan, a vast and restive province far from the fight with the Taliban, and are holding them incommunicado without charges.”

Welcome to the Hotel Gitmo. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

“Separately, the report also described concerns that the Pakistani military had killed unarmed members of the Taliban, rather than put them on trial.

…Two months ago, the United States took the unusual step of refusing to train or equip about a half-dozen Pakistani Army units that are believed to have killed unarmed prisoners and civilians during recent offensives against the Taliban. The most recent State Department report contains some of the administration’s most pointed language about accusations of such so-called extrajudicial killings.”

Kind of like this?

“From the moment he stepped foot inside the White House, Obama set about expanding and escalating a covert CIA program of “targeted killings” inside Pakistan, using Predator and Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles..that had been started by the Bush administration in 2004.

On 23 January 2009, just three days after being sworn in, Obama ordered his first set of air strikes inside Pakistan; one is said to have killed four Arab fighters linked to al-Qaida but the other hit the house of a pro-government tribal leader, killing him and four members of his family, including a five-year-old child.

…During his first nine months in office he authorised as many aerial attacks in Pakistan as George W Bush did in his final three years in the job…According to the New America Foundation thinktank in Washington DC, the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan more than doubled in 2010, to 115. That is an astonishing rate of around one bombing every three days inside a country with which the US is not at war.”

And then there’s this from the Obstruction of Justice Department, Look Forward Division:

“The U.S. Department of Justice has rejected a request from prosecutors in Warsaw for assistance in the investigation into the alleged CIA prisons in Poland, where captives claim they were tortured. On 18 March, the Prosecutor’s Office of Appeal in Warsaw filed a motion for legal assistance from the US Department of Justice into the probe…[T]he US informed prosecutors that the motion had been rejected on the basis of the international Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters and that the U.S. authorities consider the matter “to be closed”.

So far, the U.S. Justice Department has failed to comply with its treaty obligations to supply information requested by prosecutors in Spain, Germany, Italy, and Poland who are probing allegations of kidnapping, false arrest, assault, and torture by persons believed to be CIA agents in connection with extraordinary rendition operations.”

This has, by far, been my biggest disappointment with the current administration. Legislative policies are one thing-legislation can be amended, superseded, or repealed. But by continuing, and in some cases expanding upon, the Bush administration “war on terror” tactics, and pursuing this “look forward, not back” lunacy, it has now become the accepted and established policy of two successive administrations—one Republican and one Democratic–that the United States of America now condones actions (indefinite detention without charges, denial of due process) that were once upon a time (pre-9/11) considered a violation of our Bill of Rights.

It also lets other countries that enter into treaties with us know that we will abide by the conditions of those treaties only so far as it is convenient and politically expedient for us to do so, and denies us any credibility on the world stage when it comes to the condemnation of other country’s human rights violations.

In short, we prove to the world that America is a nation of preachers and not practicers.

I Thought We Were “Looking Forward”

30 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by Craig in Justice Department, Obama, Politics, torture, war on terror

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Attorney General Eric Holder, Balloon Juice, CIA, confidential sources, James Risen, John Cole, Obama administration, State of War, subpoena

Wait a minute. I sense some inconsistency here. What happened to “look forward, not back?”:

“The Obama administration is seeking to compel a writer to testify about his confidential sources for a 2006 book about the Central Intelligence Agency, a rare step that was authorized by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

The author, James Risen, who is a reporter for The New York Times, received a subpoena on Monday requiring him to provide documents and to testify May 4 before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., about his sources for a chapter of his book, “State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration.” The chapter largely focuses on problems with a covert C.I.A. effort to disrupt alleged Iranian nuclear weapons research.”

John Cole at Balloon Juice makes the call:

“It’s just a damned shame Risen didn’t torture anyone. I’m serious- can’t Risen just claim he tortured someone to get the information, but destroyed the tapes? Then mumble something about a few bad apples.

Doesn’t that get you a pass under the current rules?”

If We Sink to the Level of the Terrorists, Haven’t They Won?

22 Wednesday Apr 2009

Posted by Craig in Obama, Politics, Uncategorized

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CIA, CNS News, Dennis Blair, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, memo, New York Times, Obama, Osama bin Laden, remarks, waterboarding

There are a couple of articles in the news this morning that are bringing cries of ‘See, we told you so’ from the defenders of the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

One is from CNS News, which says that the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed yielded information that prevented a terrorist attack on Los Angeles.

The other is from the New York Times, which contains this quote from a memo sent by national intelligence director Admiral Dennis Blair to his staff:

“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country.”

Those are headlines you are likely to see from those who seek to justify the use of torture. What you aren’t likely to read in those same places is this quote, also from Admiral Blair, also in the NYT article:

“The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”

So I’ll ask you, should the policy of the United States of America regarding interrogation be ‘whatever it takes?’ Do we adopt the tactics, such as waterboarding, used by Imperial Japan in WWII, tactics which were later prosecuted as war crimes, and which were common in Pol Pot’s Cambodia?

Personally, I’ll side with President Obama, who said this in his remarks to the CIA:

“What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and ideals even when it’s hard — not just when it’s easy; even when we are afraid and under threat — not just when it’s expedient to do so. That’s what makes us different.”

One more question. If we sink to the level of Osama bin Laden and his followers who seek to do us harm, haven’t they won?

Prosecute The Torturers

19 Sunday Apr 2009

Posted by Craig in Obama, Politics, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

accountable, CIA, Justice Department, look forward, Marquis de Cheney, memos, Obama, torture, waterboarding

To prosecute or not to prosecute, that is the question. With the release of the Justice Department memos last week detailing the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (aka torture) used by the CIA, the debate has begun over what to do to those who were involved.

I fully understand the desire of the administration to, as the President said, “look forward and not backward.” We are facing the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression and the President wants the focus to be on getting our economy back on a solid footing. I get that.

But at the same time I believe that the people responsible for the despicable acts described in those memos need to be held accountable. Not only the people who carried out those acts but those who approved and condoned their use.

The reason being that if we don’t hold them accountable it seems to me we are setting a dangerous precedent for (God forbid) a future administration with a vice-president like the Marquis de Cheney.

A vice-president who would have this to say about waterboarding:

“I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn’t do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it. ”

And this:

“We proceeded very cautiously; we checked, we had the Justice Department issue the requisite opinions in order to know where the bright lines were that you could not cross. The professionals involved in that program were very, very cautious, very careful, wouldn’t do anything without making certain it was authorized and that it was legal. And any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong.”

“Very cautiously” and knowing “where the lines were that you could not cross.” Really? See if you think this sounds cautious and does not cross any lines.

“According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002″.

That’s 6 times a day, every day for a month for Mohammed. That’s cautious and not crossing lines?

A couple of conclusions with which I agree. First from Donklephant:

“The point isn’t whether or not Mohammed is a bad man. There’s no doubt he is. The point is that we can’t allow ourselves to act just as despicable as him. I mean, Bush said they hate our freedoms, right? Well what happens when we compromise our values to mirror theirs? Doesn’t that make us less free?”
And this from Emptywheel:
“The CIA wants you to believe waterboarding is effective. Yet somehow, it took them 183 applications of the waterboard in a one month period to get what they claimed was cooperation out of KSM.

That doesn’t sound very effective to me.”

So back to the question, to prosecute or not to prosecute?

Despite the possible loss of focus on economic issues, I see the option of not prosecuting having far greater repercussions than that of going forward with prosecution.

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