Senate Panel to Investigate CIA
By Susie Madrak Friday Feb 27, 2009 1:30pmWe can't allow the CIA to hold the country hostage. We just can't. Too many horrors in the last eight years to let it go, and Panetta better make it clear to his employees. I do feel for the people who were caught in the middle of the White House and their jobs, but it doesn't excuse torture:
WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee is completing plans to begin a review of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program, another sign that lawmakers are determined to have a public accounting of controversial Bush administration programs despite White House concerns about the impact of unearthing the past.
The review, Congressional officials said, will focus in part on whether harsh interrogation procedures authorized by President George W. Bush actually succeeded in extracting important intelligence, as Mr. Bush and his advisers have asserted. The full scope of the inquiry is still being debated on the panel, but it is expected to address broader questions of whether the steps taken by the Central Intelligence Agency to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects were properly authorized.
The Obama administration has been cool to proposals by Democrats to investigate the previous administration, fearing that any protracted inquiry could alienate some within the C.I.A. and have a chilling effect on operations at the spy agency. On Wednesday, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, said he opposed a blanket investigation into the C.I.A. program, saying agency operatives had been carrying out orders and acting with approvals from the Justice Department.
Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill have given little evidence that they will heed White House concerns.
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why arent bush, cheney and rummy being investigated????
the orders for torture came from on high
dont emasculate the cia
big fucking mistake
What exactly does that mean? How do you "emasculate" an agency? And why do we need the covert operations branch of the CIA in the first place? When it was formed it was as a reaction to the dirty tricks that the other side did as part of the cold war. But the cold war has been over for a while. We are a democracy we have no right to be over throwing other governments just because we don't like them. As the book "Legacy of Ashes" makes clear just about everything the CIA has ever done has been a short term or long term failure. Even the things (such as overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran and installing the brutal torture loving Shah) that seemed like a success in the short term end up being disasters in the long run as they lead to the US being despised by many people in the region and an Islamic theocracy in charge of a government that had a liberal democracy before we messed with it.
Congress should go on with a substantive investigation, regardless what Panetta or Obama want. The WH is wrong on this issue, and Panetta is out of his mind if he thinks that "I was only following order" is a legitimate defense. Nobody who would claim that defense can also claim to have grown up in a moral or ethical vacuum in which they were ignorant of national and international legal standards regarding war crimes and crimes against humanity. Each person , at whatever level they operated, made choices.Those choices have disgraced the nation and placed a burden of guilt on all of us, because crimes were committed in our name.
Justice.
BTW, I hope Congress realizes that a bogus investigation along the lines of the Warren Commission or the 9/11 Commission isn't going to be accepted.
BTW, I hope Congress realizes that a bogus investigation along the lines of the Warren Commission or the 9/11 Commission isn't going to be accepted.
Or rejected. Americans will flip the channel to the next reality tv special.
"Those choices have disgraced the nation and placed a burden of guilt on all of us, because crimes were committed in our name."
Thank you for the most honest comment I've seen in a long time.
The Senate, plutocratic aristocratic oligarchs investigating policies
they bankrolled and tacitly approved?
Breaking News: Foxes investigate civil rights violations by outlaw Hens...film at 11.
Question: What do these committees and panels ever accomplish?
Answer: Absolutely nothing.
You ask why?
Look at the 1970s HSCA investigation of the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations.
Chief Counsel Robert Blakey thought he was getting full CIA cooperation.
Not so.
Recently declassified documents establish the CIA undermined the whole JFK investigation by the HSCA.
e howard hunt basically fingered the CIA and LBJ for planning and carrying out JFK's murder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHZl91gN63g
check it out it's pretty amazing how under the radar this still is.
I agree about the assasination comision being undermined from the beginning. The amazing thing though is that almost no one remembers that they concluded that there WAS a conspiracy in the killing of JFK. Yet its still treated as common wisdom by the MSM that only loonies believe in such stuff.
The American People can handle the truth.
The truth is all that matters.
Dismantle the CIA.
Or do you believe an intelligence gathering agency is not necessary to protect Americans?
...it would be fine. It's the covert ops that need to be eliminated. The agency could stand to be severely pared down. I believe there is a great deal of overlap in intel gathering between various agencies both military and civilian and the CIA in its present form has way too much influence.
an agency that gathers intelligence without running psy ops on our own population?
They have two main divisions: the analysis division and the cover ops division. The analysis division does the intelligence gathering. It is needed and when they aren't undermined by politics they do excellent work. The covert ops division overthrows governments we don't like, assasinates people, plants disinformation, etc. They are supposed to work only outside the US (although why from a moral perspective its somehow OK to commit crimes against non-americans I've never understood) but they have done things in this country at times. I see no reason for the covert ops division, I agree it should be abolished. The history of covert ops has been one criminal disaster after another (see the book Legacy of Ashes).
You have 16. Isn't that a bit paranoid? Or, truth is, these agencies know how bad America has really been all these years and know everyone wants revenge. Protecting America from their f$#@-ups?
John F. Kennedy vowed to do that after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Cost him his life.
For which we're all still paying.
RFK made some very revealing comments about his brother's death in the years before he was killed. Its impossible to know for sure but I think its quite likely that he was keeping his feelings about who killed his brother to himself and was planning a real investigation if he was elected president. Unfortunately, the people who killed his brother probably thought the same thing.
The CIA Legacy....
Torture,
mind control experiments,
economic sabotage,
drug smuggling,
political destabilization,
terrorism,
kidnapping,
extortion,
overthrow of democratically elected governments,
spying on our allies,
propaganda,
psychological warfare,
war crimes,
collabaration with Nazis,
collusion with organized crime,
assassination,
burglary,
rape,
medical experiments,
genocide,
black marketing,
larceny,
embezzlement,
perjury,
falsification of records,
fraud,
stock and currency manipulation,
murder,
assault,
cover ups,
bribery,
all in the name of truth, justice and the American way.
Not just drug smuggling, but drug dealing.
Involving GHWB.
money laundering
wire fraud
mail fraud
bank fraud
domestic wiretapping
hacking
copyright infringement
conspiracy
armed criminal action
Really good.
Funny how 'stuff happens' whenever Pappy Bush is around.
I seem to recall him saying that 'if the American people knew what we had done, we would be chased down the street and lynched'.
The whole Military/Industrial/PETROLEOM mafia killed the Kennedys, you know, the ILLEGAL mob that can't be 'investigated'. Sooo........, maybe it's common knowledge (outside the precious Beltway) that the Bushes/Kissenger/LBJ were the perps.
you investigate CIA. They say "Yeah we wuz bad, but BUSHCO MADE ME DO IT!!!"
The Senators say "Oh really? Who?"
CIA says "Not tellin!"
Senator says "OK, how's this, give up the Bushco names, and we'll let you slide..."
CIA says "OK, fair deal. So Rumsfeld knew everything, and he ordered all kids of crazy shit. And we got notes from Cheney demanding more of the same. Bush signed off on a bunch of bad stuff too."
Next thing you know? Bush, Rummy, and Cheney are hanging from a lamp-post with their balls in their sewn shut mouths as a warning to others. No no no - that won't happen. Justice is never served to the rich. Violence doesn't go up the hierarchy with rationalisation. It only goes down the heirarchy that way. So, the CIA will give up the Junta and they'll all go before the cameras all defiant and tough, and get 6 months in the slammer, if that.
Because that's how it works in the USA.
...shit to roll up hill?
Lots of powerful individuals (e.g., GHWB) don't want you to pick at it.
There is an infection underneath.
Maybe best not to pick at it.
That's the CIA.
Sure sounds like a round about way of investigating the Bush administration. The CIA answers to one person and that person is the president of the United States.
It seems to me Obama at least needs to do some investigating because whatever the CIA is doing or will do in the future will be a definite reflection on his administration.
"The CIA answers to one person and that person is the president of the United States."
tell that to JFK
I wish the media AND Obama's most ardent supporters would STOP with the meme that somehow Obama is reluctant or opposed to investigating and prosecuting members of the Bush administration.
It is Obama's job to steer the ship of state forward. That is the job of the Executive Branch.
It is the job of the Congress to investigate, and if their investigations reveal the wrong-doing we are all certain it should, then the Congress recommends Criminal Prosecution.
There are numerous good reasons for Obama not to get involved, but simply to allow the wheels of justice to roll in the Congress and the Judiciary. But the single most important reason is that he must focus on the present and the future.
Mike....you da damn SLOB of Bisbee
Now this one is rich! In other news, OJ Simpson is now going to investigate the murder of his wife! And also Rev. Rick Warren will investigate if religion is entrenched in politics. Both reports should be totally unbiased.
Another fact finding commission and white wash to reinstate public faith in a corrupt government agency.
I'm going to get a bag of peanuts ready for this one. I love to eat peanuts at the circus.
Stay tuned! Shell, BP and all the major oil corporations are going to investigate if the oil companies have the entire world by the throat or not. Should be a completely open commission.
I believe many of the people who were conducting 'interrogations' were not CIA members at all, but members of private security firms.
You know who that means.
Blackwater is one firm we know of. Which do we NOT know about?
Blackwater reorganizes and its past gets wiped out. Nobody will be able to trace it back to them.
Lynndie England is a rancid little shit (she wasn't even assigned to that area of Abu Ghraib in the first place and had no right being near those prisoners) but she and her meth head pals didn't come up with those psyops themselves. And England refused to say who directed the operations. She knew she'd be dead in less than a heartbeat if she revealed that military intelligence outsourced to Blackwater and other firms/people we've never even heard of.
Timing is everything. Blackwater even gave themselves a new name.
These slick creeps have already hidden all of their crimes.
The regular CIA or the Texas CIA?
Excellent point. I bet it's the Texas CIA now making all the trouble with Mexico too.
say that the President can be intimidated and brow-beaten by a government agency?
I think he'd want investigations...
lol
"The Obama administration has been cool to proposals by Democrats to investigate the previous administration, fearing that any protracted inquiry could alienate some within the C.I.A. and have a chilling effect on operations at the spy agency".
Substitute E.P.A for C.I.A and environmental for spy and see how much sense it makes. It is to say, in effect, that congressional oversight is incompatible with executive branch operations. Sound familiar?
why republicans are starting to like Obama,We been had
Well, the other choice you had was McCain/Palin. How would that be working? Iran might be radioactive by now.
it (Iran) probably will be in the near future also
"The review, Congressional officials said, will focus in part on whether harsh interrogation procedures authorized by President George W. Bush actually succeeded in extracting important intelligence..."
And if they were successful, then it's all OK? For reasons of national security the report cannot be released?
It's Congress's job to oversee the administration officials while they are still in office. The Democrats controlled Congress since January 2007. They should have done this then. Now, it will be little more than a dog and pony show to make it appear that they are fulfilling their oversight role.
Truth is stranger then science fiction. How about demonic evil spiritual warfare. Gang stalking, street theater, 24/7 satellite survelliance, v2s, holographic projection, gang rape, pornographic, homosexual, child pedophile SCUM of the EARTH.
CIA CREATED MONARCH MKULTRA TARGETED INDIVIDUAL living in Dallas, TX with numerous other victim's who are aware of being TI of non-lethal weapon's and the real extent of domestic spying/abuse. HA
The more frightening issue is the number of people this is happening to who have no clue and the one's aware who suffer the crime's and are labeled mentally ill by the perp's or lack of knowledge regarding the advanced weapon's which have made electronic mind control possible.
Due to protection offerd under National Security Act we are told there is nothing we can do. I myself have been told "You need to stop talking about this before you get yourself murdered".
Well wakeup everyone alot of ti's have already been murdered or driven to commit suicide unable to defend themselve's or after losing all hope from torture and denied repeatedly the opportunity to be heard in a court of law.
Think this isn't happening? You have your head in the sand. Get involved we need all the help we can get.
Does Austin still have a lot of AIDS cases?
I live in a country that put 20 of Bush's depraved thugs out of here and then Interpol issued arrest warrants for them. You there in the USA and particularly in Texas could be living right next door to some of those goons. Keep a good eye on your kids.
And be careful in Brodie Oaks. A woman had her throat slit there in June 2000. Imagine that! Abu Ghraib practice in Austin.
All the conspiracy nuts are always claiming the same conspiracy over the same events. Does anyone else find that odd?
If we are all "whackjobs" shouldn't we be claiming aliens or spacemonkeys or the devil is doing it?
But we don't. We put the blamed for JFK, RFK, Drug Running and 9/11 on the backs of the same people. The exact same people. Some might say Mossad and the CIA, some might say GHWB family and friends... But in the end they are the same people.
Harriman and Prescott Bush founded the CIA basing it on Army intelligence. Putting long time friend and conspirator Dulles in charge. This intermingled group of monsters has been working with large powerful men to help reshape the USA into it's current obedient form.
Please examine evidence carefully and learn so you are not duped into dying for them.
Yeh, the Bush-mob is really MAFIA, not to insult the real ones. Bush/Cheney murdered the Kennedys, MLK, many, many, many others. Examples, Wellstone, Callahan, Dr. David Kelley, ............. any and all 'suspicious' politically 'convient' deaths are THEIRS, and let me just say, THEY ARE PROUD of what they did.
Not holding/sentencing/indicting, these murders gave them the oppertunity to reap POWER from all those mysterious deaths.
Yes, you have to believe a lot of people inside the beltway think this is a pretty good joke. S.O.B. to spin some wheels, no nothing, and "resolve" the issue. I assume at least the report's title and the names of the people on the committee will be unclassified?
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