CIA Director John Brennan angrily condemned the release of the summary of the Senate’s CIA Torture Report today, saying the report was flawed and incomplete, and unfair to the torturers, who were not interviewed for the report.
The reason no CIA officials were interviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee for the report? That’s because the Justice Department wouldn’t allow it, because those torturers might face legal ramifications for all the laws they broke.
Which would be a better legal argument if the Justice Department had any intention of holding anyone accountable for any torture, which they clearly did not, and after the damning report they didn’t contradict a single fact, they just insisted they knew everything already and didn’t see a reason to prosecute anyone.
Even Brennan conceded some of the things done were abhorrent, but shrugged off the notion of liability for anything, saying there were “no easy answers” and that it was “unknowable” if the torture really worked or not.
That “unknowable” factor seems to loom large in all CIA statements, and even the captures long claimed to be a result of torture, like of Indonesian cleric Hambali, have counter-evidence suggesting the CIA stumbled across them and tried to attach them to the torture in an attempt to try to make it look like something good came out of it.
Ultimately, the arguments against the report center around putting torture and the people who did it in a negative light, and come from officials who, despite insisting they oppose torture in some vague manner, have no intention of ever holding anyone accountable for it.
Torture should never be allowed, EVEN IF it would save lives or lead to actionable intelligence.
Without multiple prosecutions, the torture report will quickly fade from memory and the United States will go off into history standing tall with its Nazi and Stalinist equals.
The prosecutions should start with the current and former President and Vice Presidents of the United States, and all the way down to the people who did the actual torturing.
It really lowers whatever little moral standing AmeriKa had. All they overlords have left now is, "well people are still lining up in droves to come here," which is weak because they are coming here to make money to send back to their relatives in their impoverished home countries…just ask the myriad number of Mexican day laborers who haunt all manner of construction sites, lumberyards, etc why they are here, up in the Northeast so far from home.
No one will take us seriously when we lecture them about human rights: Not China, not Iran, not Russia, not even African dictatorships.
US people are made less safe around the world by US torture of other people.
What we need is a World Court Trial of these CIA torturers, a trial similar to the Nuremberg Trials.
Have heard that building the perception that x is 'unknowable' is the purpose of disinformation…
Beside the blame game, hej, he is the work of USG and he works for cia, what els did we expect from him to do, blame the Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney for cia inhuman acts!
Not that it matters, but some other sources are reporting that the CIA people were not interviewed because CIA would not allow it as they were already being investigated by Justice. As I say it doesn't matter, but I think it is important to note that the Senators would have been interviewing the snake oil salesmen at the top of CIA, not the actual interrogators, so they would have heard nothing but bullshit in any event.
"…it was “unknowable” if the torture really worked or not."
Is that an "known" unknowable or one of those pesky (read convenient) "unknown" unknowables?
That was an "unknown known" that would then be blustered as "unknown," and it sure felt good to the savages employing it.
As usual US crimes are always called mistakes ,unlike other nations.
What should be a "known certainty" would be that; "Slam-Dunk" Tenet; Brennan; "Medical-Procedure" Hayden; "Not-knowingly" Clapper ; Alexander; a short list for the next Liars-Night-Out; should be cooling their heels in Leavenworth, in a cozy 8 by 10 foot cell. Let's not waste space, throw-in Bush, Cheney, Wolfiwitz, et.al. in the same cell. There should be adequate space for Mr. Hayden to pursue the benefits of the "Medical Procedure" he endorses.
CIA — Answer directly to the corporate rich
Of course there is no accountability by the CIA toward the President or the Congress, for who in government is the President accountable to? Who in government is the Congress accountable to? Same situation in spades with the courts, for the corporate rich donate 90% of the funds for political campaigns and this gives them absolute power over all of government, which requires that no one but the rich have interfere with anything that goes on in government.
If what we have so far is only a sample of this DISGUSTING record, what do the thousands of pages not disclosed reveal? How much more disgusting can it get?