Douglas Caddy Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 Exclusive: 27-Year CIA Vet says Obama May be Afraid of the CIA ... For Good Reason... Alluding to the assassination of JFK, long-time high-level CIA analyst says Panetta and the President 'afraid of these guys because these guys have a whole lot to lose if justice takes its course'... Posted By Brad Friedman On 11th September 2009 @ 15:00 In CIA, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Barack Obama, Dept. of Defense, Torture, Eric Holder, Bush Legacy, Leon Panetta | 6 Comments http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7408 During my interview last night with 27-year CIA analyst Ray McGovern on the Mike Malloy Show [1] (which I've been guest hosting all this week), the man who used to personally deliver the CIA's Presidential Daily Briefings to George Bush Sr., among other Presidents, offered an extraordinarily chilling thought --- particularly coming from someone with his background. In a conversation at the end of the hour (audio and transcript below), as I was trying to pin him down for an opinion on whether or not he felt it was appropriate for CIA Director Leon Panetta to have reportedly attempted to block a lawful investigation [2] into torture and other war crimes committed by the CIA, McGovern alluded to a book about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and noted he felt it likely that both Panetta and President Obama may have reason to fear certain elements of the CIA. "Let me just leave you with this thought," he said, "and that is that I think Panetta, and to a degree President Obama, are afraid --- I never thought I'd hear myself saying this --- I think they're afraid of the CIA."... McGovern went on to note "the stakes are very high here," in relation to Attorney General Eric Holder's recently announced investigation [3] of the CIA now under the direction of Panetta. "His main advisers and his senior staff are liable for prosecution for war crimes. The War Crimes statute includes very severe penalties, including capitol punishment for those who, if under their custody, detainees die. And we know that at least a hundred have, so this is big stakes here." He then recommended James W. Douglass' new book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters [4] . "He makes a very very persuasive case that it was President Kennedy's, um, the animosity that built up between him and the CIA after the Bay of Pigs, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because he was reaching out to the Russians and so forth and so on. It's a very well-researched book and his conclusion is very alarming," the long-time CIA veteran noted in what turned out to be a chilling end to our interview in which he described "two CIAs". One, he says, was created by President Truman to "give him the straight scoop without any fear or favor. And then its covert action arm, which really doesn't believe --- which doesn't belong in this agency." McGovern referred to that CIA "advisedly" as the President's "own personal gestapo" which acts without oversight by the Congressional committees once tasked to do so. "And so if you're asking why Obama and Panetta are going very very kid-glove-ish with the CIA, I think part of the reason, or the explanation is they're afraid of these guys because these guys have a whole lot to lose if justice takes its course." "So, it's pretty scary. Yes, it is," he concluded. * * * • The complete audio archive of the entire interview (appx. 37 mins.) can be download here [5] or heard online here... • The final few minutes (appx. 6 mins) containing the conversation described above, as transcribed below, can be heard here... The transcript of the above-described 9/10/09 conversation between Brad Friedman and 27-year CIA analyst Ray McGovern on the Mike Malloy Show, follows below... BRAD FRIEDMAN: Was it appropriate, in your opinion, for Panetta to try to block this lawful investigation into torture by Eric Holder's investigation. Is that the appropriate thing for a CIA Director to do? RAY MCGOVERN: Well, you and I know that it's not appropriate if he's Director. If he sees his role as the agency's lawyer --- which apparently he does --- then there's nothing unlawful about him pleading their special causes. The stakes are very high here. His main advisers and his senior staff are liable for prosecution for war crimes. The War Crimes statute includes very severe penalties, including capitol punishment... BF: Yeah... RM: ... for those who, if under their custody, detainees die. And we know that at least a hundred have, so this is big stakes here. And let me just leave you with this thought, and that is that I think Panetta, and to a degree President Obama, are afraid --- I never thought I'd hear myself saying this --- I think they're afraid of the CIA. And you look in history...look to the incredible book written recently by Jim Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable [6] . He makes a very very persuasive case that it was President Kennedy's, um, the animosity that built up between him and the CIA after the Bay of Pigs, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because he was reaching out to the Russians and so forth and so on. It's a very well-researched book and his conclusion is very alarming. And so if you're asking why Obama and Panetta are going very very kid-glove-ish, with the CIA, I think part of the reason, or the explanation is they're afraid of these guys because these guys have a whole lot to lose if justice takes its course. And that's why I think Attorney General Holder is to be applauded. I'm really just delighted to have somebody from The Bronx, where I grew up, try to do something to wipe out the blot that Colin Powell has put on The Bronx. BF: Even though its a narrow investigation, you still applaud it. But Ray McGovern, 27-year CIA analyst, you're saying that there is reason to be concerned about the CIA --- that Barack Obama should be concerned. Having been there 27 years, I guess you know what you're talking about. Uh...but that's a chilling thought I gotta say, Ray. RM: Well, read the book. James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable [6] . Uh, Brad, as you probably know, there are two CIAs. Okay? The one that was set up by Truman to give him the straight scoop without any fear or favor. And then its covert action arm, which really doesn't believe --- which doesn't belong in this agency --- but is the one that is entitled, so to speak, by one sentence in the National Security Act of 1947 which says 'the Director of Central Intelligence shall perform such other functions and duties as the President shall direct.' That gives the President the ability to use the CIA as his own personal gestapo --- and I use the word advisedly --- the only check on that are what used to be called the oversight committees of Congress, now they're called the overlooked committees of the Congress... BF: Indeed. RM: So it's pretty scary. Yes, it is. Article printed from The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com URL to article: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7408 URLs in this post: [1] Mike Malloy Show: http://MikeMalloyShow.com [2] block a lawful investigation: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7380 [3] recently announced investigation: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7372 [4] JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/157075755...-20&linkCod e=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1570757550 [5] download here: http://www.bradblog.com/audio/MikeMalloy_B...91009_Hour1.mp3 [6] JFK and the Unspeakable: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/157075755...-20&linkCod e=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1570757550 [7] JFK and the Unspeakable: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/157075755...-20&linkCod e=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1570757550 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted September 13, 2009 Share Posted September 13, 2009 Am I missing something or is there nothing more to this than pure speculation by someone who hasn't worked for the CIA for almost 20 years? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted September 18, 2009 Author Share Posted September 18, 2009 Am I missing something or is there nothing more to this than pure speculation by someone who hasn't worked for the CIA for almost 20 years? Torture and Accountability By RAY McGOVERN www.counterpunch.org September 16, 2009 Unlike many of my progressive friends, for me the current administration’s behavior on torture is a glass half full. In my view, the real scandal is how very few have taken a sip. Sure, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have adopted some of the secrecy habits of the previous administration. But, for heaven’s sake, read what Obama and Holder have gone ahead and released—and done—before you grouse any louder about the torture photos and other data still suppressed. Lecturing around the country, I have come to expect blank stares when I ask how many in the audience have read any of the downright sickening “torture memos” appearing under Department of Justice letterhead. You know, the ones that Obama released on April 16; remember? Nor have many read the horse’s-mouth “Special Review” by the CIA’s own Inspector General on torture and interrogation, which was released on August 24. Sure, it’s heavily redacted, but I am tired of hearing about delicate stomachs as an excuse for not reading and pondering the 60 per cent of that report that survived. Think for a moment, would you, about the detainees’ stomachs. I feel fortunate to be part of the “Five for Truth” presentations and workshops that Veterans for Peace is arranging for New Mexico – at Taos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque – on Oct. 9, 10 and 11. The presenters will be Ann Wright, David Swanson, Cindy Sheehan, Elliot Adams, and I. In thinking through how I might organize the workshop on “Torture and Intelligence,” I decided to bar those who have not read significant portions of the Justice Department torture memos and/or the CIA IG report. And if no one comes, well, so be it. For me, the attendance will be a microcosmic answer to whether American citizens, including progressives, care enough about the torture conducted in their name that they will have the courage to learn more about it and then to hold accountable those responsible. I think we can safely assume that Obama and Holder are even more interested in a bottom-line answer to that. We Five for Truth were asked to provide background on our workshops, including what a participant could expect to learn and references for further study. For me, this was an opportunity to do a short précis, distilling the abundant evidence now available on torture. Why, for example, is President Obama so wary of letting justice take its proper course regarding CIA functionaries and contractors (not to mention administration insiders). If we can extrapolate from the glass half full—the courage that the President and Holder have shown on the issue of torture—we might have to conclude that they need strong support from us, the American people. So far, I am afraid, what they see is a preponderance of “quiet Germans.” Here’s what I sent to the Veterans For Peace organizers: Workshop on Torture and Intelligence On April 16, President Barack Obama released official memoranda demonstrating serious crimes by the previous administration. The documents reveal that top CIA officials solicited and obtained from handpicked Department of Justice lawyers legal opinions based on an extraordinary premise; namely, that so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” did not amount to torture unless they caused “pain equivalent to organ failure or death.” With that very high threshold, the CIA was given free rein to use harsh techniques like waterboarding and sleep deprivation, to name just two of the torture techniques that find antecedents in the Spanish Inquisition. Several detainees died in CIA custody; the murders appear to qualify as capital offenses under 18 U.S.C. 2441, the War Crimes Act passed into law in 1996 by a Republican-controlled Congress. The president clearly is conflicted about what to do. That he wants to put this issue on the back burner is clear. Why, is less clear. What goes without saying — but shouldn’t — is that it is highly risky business to pursue felons who are armed and dangerous and fear the prospect of many years in prison or even execution, if they are brought to justice. And yet, Obama has done what he promised in letting Attorney General Eric Holder decide to put a prosecutor on the case. As a result, those responsible for the torture are at more risk than ever. And so, one might argue, is Obama. What might the president be expecting from us? What an attendee will learn: --In April, Obama faced down very strong pressure from, among others, CIA director Leon Panetta (not to mention Panetta’s four immediate predecessors) against releasing four Justice Department memoranda setting forth “approved” torture techniques. Why? --Obama was quite aware at the time that the court-ordered release of the explosive findings of the CIA Inspector General’s investigation was imminent. It would add to our knowledge of how heinous the CIA abuses actually were — and from the horse’s mouth. What did Obama expect — or at least hope — would happen once those damning findings were made public? --Attorney General Eric Holder, reportedly “sickened” after reading the CIA Inspector General report and facing growing pressure to hold accountable those responsible for the deaths and torture of detainees, has now authorized a preliminary investigation. This is precisely the fateful step that Dick Cheney and the corral of “anonymous” intelligence sources favored by the Washington Post have been agitating so strongly to prevent. The danger, as they see it, is that the whole ball of twine will unravel and that people will end up with prison terms or even worse. Are Holder and Obama willing to run that risk? What are they likely to do, or avoid doing, if they conclude that most Americans don’t give a hoot about torture carried out in their name? --Cheney’s current gambit is to make it crystal clear that he is not going down alone; that — as he told Bob Schieffer — it was his boss who “signed off” on waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques. The former vice president is betting on Obama not having the stomach to pursue a former president for crimes that the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) trivialize as “policy differences.” Conflicted though he may be, President Obama did take a solemn oath to ensure that the laws of the land are faithfully executed. What would give him the political support — and the courage — to ensure that justice is pursued, this time not exempting rotten apples at the top of the proverbial barrel? --What about the “just-following-orders” excuse, which was summarily dismissed at the post-WWII Nuremburg Tribunal? Does Obama’s and Holder’s curious willingness so far to accept that defense bespeak a preference for letting the torturers off rather than run the very real risks of bringing them to justice? Is it not the case that men and women instinctively know that it is wrong to abuse the person of another human being? But what about fear of the consequences of disobeying an order? There, at least the Nazi torturers had a stronger argument. They could expect to be shot in the head, whereas CIA operatives and contractors might expect to receive a bad fitness report. Do Obama and Holder really think they can hold to the view that “just following orders” is an adequate defense? Should we acquiesce in that? --The entire civilized world cooperated after WWII to ban torture. Our own tradition goes back to Patrick Henry who insisted that the “rack and the screw” were artifacts of the Old World and needed to be left behind there. And Gen. George Washington strongly insisted from the outset that, whatever the practices of the English, torture was not to be tolerated in the new American army. Where are the Patrick Henrys, the George Washingtons, of today? --How is it that the issue of torture, an intrinsic evil in the same moral category as rape and slavery, has gotten divorced from the realm of morality and been given a completely different focus; i. e., does torture “work?” Torture does not provide reliable information; but that’s not the main point. Why is it that religious leaders, by and large, cannot find their voices? Why do they take the course of least resistance, adopting as their model the cowardice of the institutional churches of Nazi Germany? What are the implications for us? What those who wish to attend the workshop will receive: --A NO ADMITTANCE notice for those who have not read at least portions of: 1 - The four Department of Justice memoranda on torture, which President Obama decided to bear the political cost of releasing on April 16; and 2 - The CIA Inspector General’s “Special Review” of May 7, 2004 released, pursuant to an ACLU lawsuit, on August 24, 2009. (Yes, that’s a wait of more than five years. Pay no heed to the heavy redaction. There is quite enough readable prose to “sicken” you.) Fair labeling: do not read these before bedtime. And think a bit on what Obama and Holder may be expecting of us at this point. How often has President Obama told us “make me do” the right thing? Are we unable to imagine effective ways to do that? --Those qualifying for admittance can expect a challenge to find effective ways to ensure that the history books read by our children and grandchildren will record that: —The Bush/Cheney chapter on torture as an immoral aberration in the life of our country, and —At least some of us refused to act as “silent Germans.” Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern@aol.com A shorter version of this article appeared at Consortiumnews.com. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted September 18, 2009 Share Posted September 18, 2009 (edited) I also exhibit a "blank stare", and I submit that I have a much higher than average familiarity with the contents of the documents Ray McGovern says are so important. My contention is that they do not matter to the degree McGovern thinks that they do, because Obama ignores what they say about the role of Obama's close advisor, John Rizzo, and the releases have not led to any consistancy in Obama's reaction to what the documents reveal, as to law breaking and crimes against humanity. Holder's appointed "special prosecutor" was appointed by Bush's AG Mukasey, back in January, 2008, to investigate the CIA's destruction of "the torture tapes", and has revealed no progress in nearly two years in that investigation, only to be given a new, narrow mandate by Holder to investigate those who physically meted out the torture, but not those who ordered it. Even this feeble whitewash from Holder, has cauised the shrill right, like BABY CHENEY, to launch a campaign of outrage and threats...... I am not buying what Ray McGovern is selling because Obama is so far ftom his own prior commitments, and has failed as president, so far....to uphold the rule of law, as if he thinks he has any choice in the matter, despite the comparatively few gestures of good will and sincerity he and Eric Holder have effected by the long promised, and then delayed and heavily redacted releases of torture authorization documents McGovern has described and laid on so much praise for. The US has not begun to meet it's treaty obligations to investigate and to prosecute, or candidate Obama's clear stances and higher commitment to roll back the damage and put the US government back on the footing it has always claimed to support, prior to the degradations of Bush/Cheney: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...ions/index.htmlSo we're supposed to roll into these negotiations righteously complaining about Iran's "obvious lack of due process." For the last eight years and counting, we've been imprisoning tens of thousands of Muslims around the world with no charges of any kind. Keeping people who have never been charged with any crime shackled in orange jumpsuits and locked in cages for years on a Cuban island has become our national symbol. Just yesterday, the Obama administration demanded that a court rule it has the power to abduct people anywhere in the world, ship them to Afghanistan, and keep them indefinitely imprisoned there with no trial of any kind -- which is exactly what we've been doing for years and still are (in a dank and nasty prison which happens to be right over Iran's Eastern border). Our current President just recently advocated and is currently devising a scheme of so-called "preventive detention" whereby he'd be empowered to lock up people indefinitely for crimes they might commit in the future. We continue to abduct people from all over the world and ship them to third-party countries for interrogation and detention ("renditions") without any pretense of due process. And right over Iran's own Western border, we not only continue to occupy Iraq, but maintain prisons in which thousands of people are imprisoned by our military without any charges of any kind -- including an Iraqi journalist who works for Reuters who was ordered released by an Iraqi court yet continues to languish in an American prison in Iraq, merely one of numerous foreign journalists we imprisoned for years, in Iraq and elsewhere, with no charges at all.... ....What would we say if the Iranians replied that how they run their prison system and how they formulated responses to internal rebellions are state secrets which cannot be revealed by courts without jeopardizing their security and that, under Iranian law, government officials enjoy immunity for any official acts they ordered, even if those acts constitute severe human rights violations? Or maybe the Iranians can produce some internal memos from some of their lawyer-underlings which conclude that the threats posed to their security by these street protests -- as well as the coming from more powerful, nuclear-armed countries -- justified the harsh techniques that were used on prisoners (they could even cite a Washington Post Editorial in support of that immunity theory). What would we say about that?http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...gram/index.html It's now apparent that the biggest sham in American politics is Barack Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo and, more generally, to dismantle the Bush/Cheney approach to detaining accused Terrorists. In August, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that Guantanamo detainees -- people abducted from around the world and shipped to our prison in Cuba -- have the constitutional right to habeas corpus (a court review of their imprisonment). Then-candidate Obama issued a statement lavishly praising that ruling: "....The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain. This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy. We cannot afford to lose any more valuable time in the fight against terrorism to a dangerously flawed legal approach." That was so moving. Yesterday, the Obama DOJ -- as expected -- filed a legal brief (.pdf) which adopted the arguments originally made by the Bush DOJ to insist that detainees whom they abduct from around the world and then ship to Bagram (rather than Guantanamo) lack any constitutional rights whatsoever, including habeas review. The Obama administration is appealing from a decision (.pdf) by Bush-43-appointed District Court Judge John Bates which, applying Boumediene, held that detainees at Bagram who are originally detained outside of Afghanistan have the right to habeas review (Afghan citizens detained in Afghanistan have none, he found). In other words, after Obama praised Boumediene as "defending the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy," he's now attempting to make a complete mockery of that decision by insisting that it is inapplicable as long as he decides to ship detainees from, say, Thailand to Bagram rather than Guantanamo. Obama apparently sees "our core values" as nothing more than an absurd shell game, where the U.S. Government can evade the limits of the Constitution by simply moving the locale of its due-process-free detention system. Back in April, when the Obama DOJ announced it would appeal the decision, I wrote at length about the Bagram issue, and yesterday, in the wake of this new filing, numerous commentators made excellent points about these shenanigans. Spencer Ackerman notes that, the day before the ruling, the administration leaked that they were creating "new procedures" for Bagram detainees which are very similar to Guantanamo's "Combatant Status Review Tribunals" -- the very Bush/Cheney system the Boumediene court rejected as unconstitutional. This means that, at best, the Bagram detainees will now languish in prison for still more years with no habeas review while the Obama DOJ spends years litigating whether its "new system" is a sufficient Constitutional replacement for habeas review. Ackerman quotes David Remes, the legal director of the non-profit Appeal for Justice law firm who represents 19 Guantanamo detainees, as saying: "It’s another stall. And one I would have expected from the Bush administration but not the Obama administration." Worse still, both British journalist Andy Worthington and The New Yorker's Amy Davidson highlight this rather odd and disturbing sentence from The New York Times article on the Bagram appeal: Officials say the importance of Bagram as a holding site for terrorism suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq has risen under the Obama administration, which barred the Central Intelligence Agency from using its secret prisons for long-term detention and ordered the military prison at Guantánamo closed within a year. Why would the closing of Guantanamo and the shuttering of secret CIA prisons increase the "importance of Bagram" -- unless Bagram was going to replace and replicate those specific weapons, which Obama is ostensibly "ending" because they became politically unpalatable as Bush/Cheney symbols? ..... ....The two candidates' starkly different reactions to that ruling was supposed to underscore one of the true differences between them: that Obama, the Constitutional Law Professor, would insist on adherence to core Constitutional liberties even while prosecuting the War on Terror, but McCain wouldn't. Yet here we are, barely more than a year later, and the Obama DOJ is filing a legal brief chock full of Bush/Cheney/McCain arguments about how "Habeas rights under the U.S. Constitution do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram" and "No court has ever extended the Great Writ so far" and granting such rights "risks opening habeas claims brought by detainees in other theaters of war during future military actions" and doing so would pose "impediments to the military mission and threats to the national interest." As The New York Times' Charlie Savage wrote about the District Court proceeding: "The Obama administration has told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team." If the Obama administration were to prevail, it would render Boumediene -- and the promised closing of Guantanamo -- absurd nullities. Who needs Guantanamo if you can just ship them to Bagram instead and deny them all rights? And who cares if the Boumediene Court found that detainees have a right of habeas review if that right magically vanishes the minute you send them off to Afghanistan instead of Cuba? Here's what Obama said when he voted against the Military Commissions Act, the statute which denied habeas rights to War on Terror detainees (the same statute on which the Obama DOJ is now relying to deny those rights at Bagram): "Mr. President, I would like to address the habeas corpus amendment that is on the floor and that we just heard a lengthy debate about between Senator Specter and Senator Warner. A few years ago, I gave a speech in Boston that people talk about from time to time. In that speech, I spoke about why I love this country, why I love America, and what I believe sets this country apart from so many other nations in so many areas. I said: "That is the true genius of America--a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door --" Without hearing a sudden knock on the door....." ....The same person who spoke those pretty, pretty lyrics is now arguing that the U.S. Government must have the power to abduct people, ship them to Bagram, and imprison them with no court review. It's true, as Adam Serwer notes, that we cannot know for certain if the Obama administration is, in fact, using Bagram as its new Guantanamo until they stop concealing the information about the numbers, identities, and places of capture of Bagram detainees which the ACLU has been seeking. But we do know that they are desperately seeking to preserve the power to use Bagram as exactly that. When that is combined with the fact that they have already announced they will continue "renditions" -- abducting people from around the world and shipping them off to third countries with no legal process -- the danger is as severe as it is self-evident: by shipping them to Bagram, they will be denied all of the rights which they would have if brought to Guantanamo. No wonder they want to close Guantanamo: who wants to be bothered with irritating habeas reviews -- 28 out of 33 have resulted in judicial findings that insufficient evidence exists to justify the detention -- when you can just ship them off to the Black Hole of Bagram and imprison them for as long as you want with no court interference? Apparently, what the Bush administration did that was so terrible, the heinous "shredding of the Constitution" they perpetrated, wasn't about the fact that they imprisoned people indefinitely with no charges -- but that they did it in Cuba rather than somewhere else. Who knew that such grave Constitutional transgressions -- such severe denial of fundamental rights -- could be fixed so easily with a little change of scenery? UPDATE: Digby, citing this report from torture expert Jeffrey Kaye, notes what might very well be the most despicable document of the Bush era, which is obviously saying quite a bit. But if you close your eyes really tightly and only look forward, you may be able blissfully to ignore it all. If familiarization with the documents Ray McGovern says are a requirement for admittance to his conference are so vital, why didn't he include links to them? Am I missing something or is there nothing more to this than pure speculation by someone who hasn't worked for the CIA for almost 20 years? Torture and Accountability By RAY McGOVERN www.counterpunch.org September 16, 2009 ....What those who wish to attend the workshop will receive: --A NO ADMITTANCE notice for those who have not read at least portions of: 1 - The four Department of Justice memoranda on torture, which President Obama decided to bear the political cost of releasing on April 16; and 2 - The CIA Inspector General’s “Special Review” of May 7, 2004 released, pursuant to an ACLU lawsuit, on August 24, 2009. (Yes, that’s a wait of more than five years. Pay no heed to the heavy redaction. There is quite enough readable prose to “sicken” you.) Fair labeling: do not read these before bedtime. And think a bit on what Obama and Holder may be expecting of us at this point. How often has President Obama told us “make me do” the right thing? Are we unable to imagine effective ways to do that? --Those qualifying for admittance can expect a challenge to find effective ways to ensure that the history books read by our children and grandchildren will record that: —The Bush/Cheney chapter on torture as an immoral aberration in the life of our country, and —At least some of us refused to act as “silent Germans.” http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/...hn-rizzos-lies/The OLC Memos, “Erroneous and Inflammatory Assumptions,” and John Rizzo’s Lies By: emptywheel Thursday April 16, 2009 7:18 pm In his statement on the torture memos today, Obama suggested that some of the "assumptions" about what Americans had done were wrong, and that releasing the memos would correct these "assumptions." First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program - and some of the practices - associated with these memos. Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.[my emphasis] This suggests (though weakly) that the OLC memos--and not other evidence--should be taken as authoritative on the events surrounding our interrogation program. Though, on several counts, this is not true. The most troubling example pertains to Abu Zubaydah's mental state before he was tortured. ...... http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/08/24/working-thread/ IG Report: Working Thread By: emptywheel Monday August 24, 2009 Spencer and the Washington Independent have posted the documents. There is significantly more in here. One thing to note: IG was complaining about water dousing in 2004. And then they wrote the 2005 memos to include water dousing, done on Hassan Ghul, sometime in 2004. Interesting timing. The report started because of illegal techniques used with al-Nashiri, among others. Yet Durham hasn't found any reason to show that the torture tapes were destroyed because of that? It says CTC with Office of Technical Services came up with the techniques. I suspect Jeff Kaye will have a lot to say about that combination. Note, it doesn't say that OGC (John Rizzo) was also working with DOD's GC (Jim Haynes) to come up with the torture techniques, thereby hiding SERE's involvement. "OGC briefed DO officers" at interrogation sites on what was legal. Doesn't say whether OGC briefed the contractors. But in any case, Rizzo bears some responsibility here, right? Okay, this is significant. ..... It seems significant....and outrageous, that.....if Ray McGovern is indeed giving Obama credit where it is due, that Obama has kept John Rizzo as his principle advisor on counter-terrorism, to the point where he has had to avoid appointing Rizzo to any official position requiring Senate confirmation hearings, because of Rizzo's personal culpablilty in formulating, executing, and then attempting to justify and cover up the very offenses that McGovern claims Obama is so committed to ending an bringing accountability for. Rizzo's alleged role has cost him any chance of appointment to a position he was originally considered for....such as DCI, but it has not cost him his role as a principle Obama advisor.....why? Edited September 18, 2009 by Tom Scully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted September 19, 2009 Author Share Posted September 19, 2009 I also exhibit a "blank stare", and I submit that I have a much higher than average familiarity with the contents of the documents Ray McGovern says are so important.My contention is that they do not matter to the degree McGovern thinks that they do, because Obama ignores what they say about the role of Obama's close advisor, John Rizzo, and the releases have not led to any consistancy in Obama's reaction to what the documents reveal, as to law breaking and crimes against humanity. Holder's appointed "special prosecutor" was appointed by Bush's AG Mukasey, back in January, 2008, to investigate the CIA's destruction of "the torture tapes", and has revealed no progress in nearly two years in that investigation, only to be given a new, narrow mandate by Holder to investigate those who physically meted out the torture, but not those who ordered it. Even this feeble whitewash from Holder, has cauised the shrill right, like BABY CHENEY, to launch a campaign of outrage and threats...... I am not buying what Ray McGovern is selling because Obama is so far ftom his own prior commitments, and has failed as president, so far....to uphold the rule of law, as if he thinks he has any choice in the matter, despite the comparatively few gestures of good will and sincerity he and Eric Holder have effected by the long promised, and then delayed and heavily redacted releases of torture authorization documents McGovern has described and laid on so much praise for. The US has not begun to meet it's treaty obligations to investigate and to prosecute, or candidate Obama's clear stances and higher commitment to roll back the damage and put the US government back on the footing it has always claimed to support, prior to the degradations of Bush/Cheney: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...ions/index.htmlSo we're supposed to roll into these negotiations righteously complaining about Iran's "obvious lack of due process." For the last eight years and counting, we've been imprisoning tens of thousands of Muslims around the world with no charges of any kind. Keeping people who have never been charged with any crime shackled in orange jumpsuits and locked in cages for years on a Cuban island has become our national symbol. Just yesterday, the Obama administration demanded that a court rule it has the power to abduct people anywhere in the world, ship them to Afghanistan, and keep them indefinitely imprisoned there with no trial of any kind -- which is exactly what we've been doing for years and still are (in a dank and nasty prison which happens to be right over Iran's Eastern border). Our current President just recently advocated and is currently devising a scheme of so-called "preventive detention" whereby he'd be empowered to lock up people indefinitely for crimes they might commit in the future. We continue to abduct people from all over the world and ship them to third-party countries for interrogation and detention ("renditions") without any pretense of due process. And right over Iran's own Western border, we not only continue to occupy Iraq, but maintain prisons in which thousands of people are imprisoned by our military without any charges of any kind -- including an Iraqi journalist who works for Reuters who was ordered released by an Iraqi court yet continues to languish in an American prison in Iraq, merely one of numerous foreign journalists we imprisoned for years, in Iraq and elsewhere, with no charges at all.... ....What would we say if the Iranians replied that how they run their prison system and how they formulated responses to internal rebellions are state secrets which cannot be revealed by courts without jeopardizing their security and that, under Iranian law, government officials enjoy immunity for any official acts they ordered, even if those acts constitute severe human rights violations? Or maybe the Iranians can produce some internal memos from some of their lawyer-underlings which conclude that the threats posed to their security by these street protests -- as well as the coming from more powerful, nuclear-armed countries -- justified the harsh techniques that were used on prisoners (they could even cite a Washington Post Editorial in support of that immunity theory). What would we say about that?http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...gram/index.html It's now apparent that the biggest sham in American politics is Barack Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo and, more generally, to dismantle the Bush/Cheney approach to detaining accused Terrorists. In August, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that Guantanamo detainees -- people abducted from around the world and shipped to our prison in Cuba -- have the constitutional right to habeas corpus (a court review of their imprisonment). Then-candidate Obama issued a statement lavishly praising that ruling: "....The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain. This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy. We cannot afford to lose any more valuable time in the fight against terrorism to a dangerously flawed legal approach." That was so moving. Yesterday, the Obama DOJ -- as expected -- filed a legal brief (.pdf) which adopted the arguments originally made by the Bush DOJ to insist that detainees whom they abduct from around the world and then ship to Bagram (rather than Guantanamo) lack any constitutional rights whatsoever, including habeas review. The Obama administration is appealing from a decision (.pdf) by Bush-43-appointed District Court Judge John Bates which, applying Boumediene, held that detainees at Bagram who are originally detained outside of Afghanistan have the right to habeas review (Afghan citizens detained in Afghanistan have none, he found). In other words, after Obama praised Boumediene as "defending the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy," he's now attempting to make a complete mockery of that decision by insisting that it is inapplicable as long as he decides to ship detainees from, say, Thailand to Bagram rather than Guantanamo. Obama apparently sees "our core values" as nothing more than an absurd shell game, where the U.S. Government can evade the limits of the Constitution by simply moving the locale of its due-process-free detention system. Back in April, when the Obama DOJ announced it would appeal the decision, I wrote at length about the Bagram issue, and yesterday, in the wake of this new filing, numerous commentators made excellent points about these shenanigans. Spencer Ackerman notes that, the day before the ruling, the administration leaked that they were creating "new procedures" for Bagram detainees which are very similar to Guantanamo's "Combatant Status Review Tribunals" -- the very Bush/Cheney system the Boumediene court rejected as unconstitutional. This means that, at best, the Bagram detainees will now languish in prison for still more years with no habeas review while the Obama DOJ spends years litigating whether its "new system" is a sufficient Constitutional replacement for habeas review. Ackerman quotes David Remes, the legal director of the non-profit Appeal for Justice law firm who represents 19 Guantanamo detainees, as saying: "It’s another stall. And one I would have expected from the Bush administration but not the Obama administration." Worse still, both British journalist Andy Worthington and The New Yorker's Amy Davidson highlight this rather odd and disturbing sentence from The New York Times article on the Bagram appeal: Officials say the importance of Bagram as a holding site for terrorism suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq has risen under the Obama administration, which barred the Central Intelligence Agency from using its secret prisons for long-term detention and ordered the military prison at Guantánamo closed within a year. Why would the closing of Guantanamo and the shuttering of secret CIA prisons increase the "importance of Bagram" -- unless Bagram was going to replace and replicate those specific weapons, which Obama is ostensibly "ending" because they became politically unpalatable as Bush/Cheney symbols? ..... ....The two candidates' starkly different reactions to that ruling was supposed to underscore one of the true differences between them: that Obama, the Constitutional Law Professor, would insist on adherence to core Constitutional liberties even while prosecuting the War on Terror, but McCain wouldn't. Yet here we are, barely more than a year later, and the Obama DOJ is filing a legal brief chock full of Bush/Cheney/McCain arguments about how "Habeas rights under the U.S. Constitution do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram" and "No court has ever extended the Great Writ so far" and granting such rights "risks opening habeas claims brought by detainees in other theaters of war during future military actions" and doing so would pose "impediments to the military mission and threats to the national interest." As The New York Times' Charlie Savage wrote about the District Court proceeding: "The Obama administration has told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team." If the Obama administration were to prevail, it would render Boumediene -- and the promised closing of Guantanamo -- absurd nullities. Who needs Guantanamo if you can just ship them to Bagram instead and deny them all rights? And who cares if the Boumediene Court found that detainees have a right of habeas review if that right magically vanishes the minute you send them off to Afghanistan instead of Cuba? Here's what Obama said when he voted against the Military Commissions Act, the statute which denied habeas rights to War on Terror detainees (the same statute on which the Obama DOJ is now relying to deny those rights at Bagram): "Mr. President, I would like to address the habeas corpus amendment that is on the floor and that we just heard a lengthy debate about between Senator Specter and Senator Warner. A few years ago, I gave a speech in Boston that people talk about from time to time. In that speech, I spoke about why I love this country, why I love America, and what I believe sets this country apart from so many other nations in so many areas. I said: "That is the true genius of America--a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door --" Without hearing a sudden knock on the door....." ....The same person who spoke those pretty, pretty lyrics is now arguing that the U.S. Government must have the power to abduct people, ship them to Bagram, and imprison them with no court review. It's true, as Adam Serwer notes, that we cannot know for certain if the Obama administration is, in fact, using Bagram as its new Guantanamo until they stop concealing the information about the numbers, identities, and places of capture of Bagram detainees which the ACLU has been seeking. But we do know that they are desperately seeking to preserve the power to use Bagram as exactly that. When that is combined with the fact that they have already announced they will continue "renditions" -- abducting people from around the world and shipping them off to third countries with no legal process -- the danger is as severe as it is self-evident: by shipping them to Bagram, they will be denied all of the rights which they would have if brought to Guantanamo. No wonder they want to close Guantanamo: who wants to be bothered with irritating habeas reviews -- 28 out of 33 have resulted in judicial findings that insufficient evidence exists to justify the detention -- when you can just ship them off to the Black Hole of Bagram and imprison them for as long as you want with no court interference? Apparently, what the Bush administration did that was so terrible, the heinous "shredding of the Constitution" they perpetrated, wasn't about the fact that they imprisoned people indefinitely with no charges -- but that they did it in Cuba rather than somewhere else. Who knew that such grave Constitutional transgressions -- such severe denial of fundamental rights -- could be fixed so easily with a little change of scenery? UPDATE: Digby, citing this report from torture expert Jeffrey Kaye, notes what might very well be the most despicable document of the Bush era, which is obviously saying quite a bit. But if you close your eyes really tightly and only look forward, you may be able blissfully to ignore it all. If familiarization with the documents Ray McGovern says are a requirement for admittance to his conference are so vital, why didn't he include links to them? Am I missing something or is there nothing more to this than pure speculation by someone who hasn't worked for the CIA for almost 20 years? Torture and Accountability By RAY McGOVERN www.counterpunch.org September 16, 2009 ....What those who wish to attend the workshop will receive: --A NO ADMITTANCE notice for those who have not read at least portions of: 1 - The four Department of Justice memoranda on torture, which President Obama decided to bear the political cost of releasing on April 16; and 2 - The CIA Inspector General’s “Special Review” of May 7, 2004 released, pursuant to an ACLU lawsuit, on August 24, 2009. (Yes, that’s a wait of more than five years. Pay no heed to the heavy redaction. There is quite enough readable prose to “sicken” you.) Fair labeling: do not read these before bedtime. And think a bit on what Obama and Holder may be expecting of us at this point. How often has President Obama told us “make me do” the right thing? Are we unable to imagine effective ways to do that? --Those qualifying for admittance can expect a challenge to find effective ways to ensure that the history books read by our children and grandchildren will record that: —The Bush/Cheney chapter on torture as an immoral aberration in the life of our country, and —At least some of us refused to act as “silent Germans.” http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/...hn-rizzos-lies/The OLC Memos, “Erroneous and Inflammatory Assumptions,” and John Rizzo’s Lies By: emptywheel Thursday April 16, 2009 7:18 pm In his statement on the torture memos today, Obama suggested that some of the "assumptions" about what Americans had done were wrong, and that releasing the memos would correct these "assumptions." First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program - and some of the practices - associated with these memos. Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.[my emphasis] This suggests (though weakly) that the OLC memos--and not other evidence--should be taken as authoritative on the events surrounding our interrogation program. Though, on several counts, this is not true. The most troubling example pertains to Abu Zubaydah's mental state before he was tortured. ...... http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/08/24/working-thread/ IG Report: Working Thread By: emptywheel Monday August 24, 2009 Spencer and the Washington Independent have posted the documents. There is significantly more in here. One thing to note: IG was complaining about water dousing in 2004. And then they wrote the 2005 memos to include water dousing, done on Hassan Ghul, sometime in 2004. Interesting timing. The report started because of illegal techniques used with al-Nashiri, among others. Yet Durham hasn't found any reason to show that the torture tapes were destroyed because of that? It says CTC with Office of Technical Services came up with the techniques. I suspect Jeff Kaye will have a lot to say about that combination. Note, it doesn't say that OGC (John Rizzo) was also working with DOD's GC (Jim Haynes) to come up with the torture techniques, thereby hiding SERE's involvement. "OGC briefed DO officers" at interrogation sites on what was legal. Doesn't say whether OGC briefed the contractors. But in any case, Rizzo bears some responsibility here, right? Okay, this is significant. ..... It seems significant....and outrageous, that.....if Ray McGovern is indeed giving Obama credit where it is due, that Obama has kept John Rizzo as his principle advisor on counter-terrorism, to the point where he has had to avoid appointing Rizzo to any official position requiring Senate confirmation hearings, because of Rizzo's personal culpablilty in formulating, executing, and then attempting to justify and cover up the very offenses that McGovern claims Obama is so committed to ending an bringing accountability for. Rizzo's alleged role has cost him any chance of appointment to a position he was originally considered for....such as DCI, but it has not cost him his role as a principle Obama advisor.....why? Ex-CIA chiefs seek halt to interrogations probe The Associated Press Friday, Sept. 18, 2009 | 12:50 p.m. Seven former CIA directors asked President Barack Obama on Friday to quash a criminal probe of harsh interrogations of terror suspects during the Bush administration. The CIA directors, who served both Democratic and Republican presidents and include three who worked under President George W. Bush, made their request in a letter sent Friday to the White House. Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that he was appointing an independent counsel to investigate possible incidents of abuse by CIA personnel during interrogations that went beyond guidelines imposed by the Bush administration. The incidents were referred by the CIA inspector general to the Justice Department during the Bush administration, but Justice officials at the time prosecuted only one case. "If criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless," wrote the former directors. The seven former CIA directors included Michael Hayden, Porter Goss and George Tenet, who served under Bush; John Deutch and James Woolsey, who worked for President Bill Clinton; William Webster, who served under President George H.W. Bush; and James Schlesinger, who ran the agency under President Richard Nixon. Tenet also served under Clinton. They urged Obama to reverse Holder's Aug. 24 decision to reopen the investigation of interrogations following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the agency is cooperating with the Justice Department review "in part to see that they move as expeditiously as possible." "The director has stood up for those who followed legal guidance on interrogation, and he will continue to do so," said Gimigliano. In their letter, the former directors warned that the investigations could discourage CIA officers from doing the kind of aggressive intelligence work needed to counter terrorism and may inhibit foreign governments from working with the United States. "As a result of the zeal on the part of some to uncover every action taken in the post-9/11 period, many countries may decide that they can no longer safely share intelligence or cooperate with us on future counter-terrorist operations. They simply cannot rely on our promises of secrecy," the letter says. The letter said the CIA referred fewer than 20 incidents to Bush administration prosecutors, including the case of CIA contractor David Passaro. Passaro was prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to eight years for beating an Afghan detainee in 2007. The detainee later died. One former CIA official familiar with the cases now under review said that Bush-era Justice lawyers declined to prosecute either because they were not certain they could win conviction or because some of the CIA personnel involved had already been disciplined by the agency. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the cases. Though not a signatory to the letter, current CIA Director Leon Panetta also opposed Holder's investigation. "I think the reason I felt the way I did is because I don't believe there's a basis there for any kind of additional action," Panetta said. "My concern is ... that we don't get trapped by the past. My feeling is ultimately, we're going to be able to move on," he told reporters this week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted September 19, 2009 Share Posted September 19, 2009 (edited) .....Ex-CIA chiefs seek halt to interrogations probeThe Associated Press Friday, Sept. 18, 2009 | 12:50 p.m. Seven former CIA directors asked President Barack Obama on Friday to quash a criminal probe of harsh interrogations of terror suspects during the Bush administration. The CIA directors, who served both Democratic and Republican presidents and include three who worked under President George W. Bush, made their request in a letter sent Friday to the White House. Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that he was appointing an independent counsel to investigate possible incidents of abuse by CIA personnel during interrogations that went beyond guidelines imposed by the Bush administration. The incidents were referred by the CIA inspector general to the Justice Department during the Bush administration, but Justice officials at the time prosecuted only one case. "If criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless," wrote the former directors. The seven former CIA directors included Michael Hayden, Porter Goss and George Tenet, who served under Bush; John Deutch and James Woolsey, who worked for President Bill Clinton; William Webster, who served under President George H.W. Bush; and James Schlesinger, who ran the agency under President Richard Nixon. Tenet also served under Clinton. They urged Obama to reverse Holder's Aug. 24 decision to reopen the investigation of interrogations following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the agency is cooperating with the Justice Department review "in part to see that they move as expeditiously as possible." "The director has stood up for those who followed legal guidance on interrogation, and he will continue to do so," said Gimigliano. In their letter, the former directors warned that the investigations could discourage CIA officers from doing the kind of aggressive intelligence work needed to counter terrorism and may inhibit foreign governments from working with the United States. "As a result of the zeal on the part of some to uncover every action taken in the post-9/11 period, many countries may decide that they can no longer safely share intelligence or cooperate with us on future counter-terrorist operations. They simply cannot rely on our promises of secrecy," the letter says. The letter said the CIA referred fewer than 20 incidents to Bush administration prosecutors, including the case of CIA contractor David Passaro. Passaro was prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to eight years for beating an Afghan detainee in 2007. The detainee later died. One former CIA official familiar with the cases now under review said that Bush-era Justice lawyers declined to prosecute either because they were not certain they could win conviction or because some of the CIA personnel involved had already been disciplined by the agency. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the cases. Though not a signatory to the letter, current CIA Director Leon Panetta also opposed Holder's investigation. "I think the reason I felt the way I did is because I don't believe there's a basis there for any kind of additional action," Panetta said. "My concern is ... that we don't get trapped by the past. My feeling is ultimately, we're going to be able to move on," he told reporters this week Douglas, The former DCIs who sent the letter described above, to president Obama are men who ran an intelligence gathering and propaganda dissemination organization with a secret annual budget of tens of billions of dollars, and were, by circumstances, the culture of that organization, and sometimes even because of necessity, accustomed to making misleading and even untrue public statements. They resisted congressional oversight and almost any accountability to the American people and their elected representatives. I'd like to push back against their audacity, because it seems to me they intended to mislead the public and the president by means of this letter, to politicize the investigation to hopefully end it by the deceitful and inaccurate points communicated in their letter to the president. The DOJ came out today with this response: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/200...18/2075151.aspx A Justice Department spokesman sends First Read this response to the letter the ex-CIA leaders have written Obama: The Attorney General works closely with the men and the women of intelligence community to keep the American people safe and he does not believe their commitment to conduct that important work will waver in any way. Given the recommendation from the Office of Professional Responsibility as well as other available information, he believed the appropriate course of action was to ask John Durham to conduct a preliminary review. That review will be narrowly-focused and will be conducted by a career prosecutor who has shown an ability to handle cases involving classified information. Durham has not been appointed as a special prosecutor; he will be supervised by senior managers at the Department. The Attorney General's decision to order a preliminary review into this matter was made in line with his duty to examine the facts and to follow the law. As he has made clear, the Department of Justice will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees. Here is the full text of their letter, with challenges to their "facts" posted in red: http://politics.theatlantic.com/Letter%20t...DCIAs%20(2).pdfSeptember 18, 2009 The President The White House Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President: We have served as Directors of Central Intelligence or Directors of the CIA for Presidents reaching back over 35 years. We respectfully urge you to exercise your authority to reverse Attorney General Holder’s August 24 decision to re-open the criminal investigation of CIA interrogations that took place following the attacks of September 11. Our reasons for making this recommendation are as follows. Note that these men are asking the President to intervene in a DOJ investigation. They're not asking Obama to pardon those CIA officers under investigation, which would be a proper request of the President; they're asking Obama to spike an investigation the Attorney General has deemed necessary. They are, in short, asking for legal process to be set aside for, ultimately, a political decision. The post-September 11 interrogations for which the Attorney General is opening an inquiry were investigated four years ago by career prosecutors. And they're making that request by appealing to an investigation conducted under a prior Attorney General--Alberto Gonzales--still (as far as we know) under investigation for politicizing DOJ. The CIA, at its own initiative, forwarded fewer than 20 instances where Agency officers appeared to have acted beyond their existing legal authorities. Career prosecutors under the supervision of the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia determined that one prosecution (of a CIA contractor) was warranted. They're further making that request by appealing to a US Attorney--Paul McNulty--also involved in that politicization. So they pile up political interference on top of political interference. Now, these former DCIs repeat the term "career prosecutor" four times. And it may well be the case that--unlike some other cases under Alberto Gonzales--there was no interference here. But they ignore one of the precipitating causes for the investigation being reopened: The Office of Public Responsibility's finding that there was serious misconduct involved with the referrals in these cases (the DCIs say there were fewer than 20). http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/us/politics/24detain.html "It has been known that the Justice Department ethics report had criticized the authors of the legal opinions and, in some cases, would recommend referrals to local bar associations for discipline. But the internal inquiry also examined how the opinions were carried out and how referrals of possible violations were made — a process that led ethics investigators to find misconduct serious enough to warrant renewed criminal investigation. " A conviction was later obtained. They determined that prosecutions were not warranted in the other cases. In a number of these cases the CIA subsequently took administrative disciplinary steps against the individuals involved. Attorney General Holder’s decision to re-open the criminal investigation creates an atmosphere of continuous jeopardy for those whose cases the Department of Justice had previously declined to prosecute. Moreover, there is no reason to expect that the re-opened criminal investigation will remain narrowly focused. Of course, the misconduct involved in those referrals may well implicate the two DCIs who served during those referrals: George Tenet and Porter Goss. Which might be why the DCIs make this claim, in a letter that's supposed to be about ongoing legal jeopardy for the officers who conducted the torture. They don't explain what the problem is with a criminal investigation that has an expanded focus, mind you (again, they ignore OPR's finding of misconduct in referrals themselves). It just is bad, I guess, if you're a DCI who oversaw such activities. If criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless. Those men and women who undertake difficult intelligence assignments in the aftermath of an attack such as September 11 must believe there is permanence in the legal rules that govern their actions. They must be free, as the Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Senator Lieberman, has put it: “to do their dangerous and critical jobs without worrying that years from now a future Attorney General will authorize a criminal investigation of them for behavior that a previous Attorney General concluded was authorized and legal.” Similar deference needs to be shown to fact-based decisions made by career prosecutors years ago. Not only will some members of the intelligence community be subjected to costly financial and other burdens from what amounts to endless criminal investigations, but this approach will seriously damage the willingness of many other intelligence officers to take risks to protect the country. From there, the former DCIs just make STUFF up. They claim, notably, that those being investigated will be subject to huge legal bills by Holder's decision. ....As a threshold matter, the Detainee Treatment Act by law provides for the legal representation of those officers who conducted act that were "officially authorized and determined to be lawful at the time that they were conducted.".... And Goss and Hayden must know this, as they were both in intelligence leadership positions when DTA was passed (indeed, Goss was involved in some of the meetings at which McCain was pressured to put this clause in DTA). http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/42C21D.txt .....Sec. 2000dd-1. Protection of United States Government personnel engaged in authorized interrogations -STATUTE- (a) Protection of United States Government personnel In any civil action or criminal prosecution against an officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States Government who is a United States person, arising out of the officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent's engaging in specific operational practices, that involve detention and interrogation of aliens who the President or his designees have determined are believed to be engaged in or associated with international terrorist activity that poses a serious, continuing threat to the United States, its interests, or its allies, and that were officially authorized and determined to be lawful at the time that they were conducted, it shall be a defense that such officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful. Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful. Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit or extinguish any defense or protection otherwise available to any person or entity from suit, civil or criminal liability, or damages, or to provide immunity from prosecution for any criminal offense by the proper authorities. ( B ) Counsel The United States Government shall provide or employ counsel, and pay counsel fees, court costs, bail, and other expenses incident to the representation of an officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent described in subsection (a), with respect to any civil action or criminal prosecution or investigation arising out of practices described in that subsection, whether before United States courts or agencies, foreign courts or agencies, or international courts or agencies, under the same conditions, and to the same extent, to which such services and payments are authorized under section 1037 of title 10. -SOURCE- (Pub. L. 109-148, div. A, title X, Sec. 1004, Dec. 30, 2005, 119 Stat. 2740; Pub. L. 109-163, div. A, title XIV, Sec. 1404, Jan. 6, 2006, 119 Stat. 3475; Pub. L. 109-366, Sec. 8(a), Oct. 17, 2006, 120 Stat. 2636.)..... .....But even assuming some of the officers who might be investigated here didn't act pursuant to orders, the CIA has already said it's going to pay everyone's legal bills. So no one is going to be subject to costly financial burdens. Yes, they might think twice before they break the law, even if they've got a Yoo memo protecting them. And the problem is??? In our judgment such risk-taking is vital to success in the long and difficult fight against the terrorists who continue to threaten us. Success in intelligence often depends on surprise and deception and on creating uncertainty in the mind of an enemy. As President you have the authority to make decisions restricting substantive interrogation or any other intelligence collection method, based on legal analyses and policy recommendations. But, the administration must be mindful that public disclosure about past intelligence operations can only help Al Qaeda elude US intelligence and plan future operations. Disclosures about CIA collection operations have and will continue to make it harder for intelligence officers to maintain the momentum of operations that have saved lives and helped protect America from further attacks. The DCIs go on to argue that the investigation will release information that will make it easier for al Qaeda to elude intelligence officers. ......Just last week, a bunch of spooks close to Cheney's hagiographer were announcing they want more of this information to be out. Perhaps they're just different spooks, but it seems the intelligence community can't agree on whether the release of more information hurts or helps their cause. Besides ... who said an investigation would end in the release of more information on the torture methods in the first place? Are they assuming the investigation is bound to end in a trial? And are they suggesting such a trial would somehow be devoid of all CIPA process? Finally, another certain result of these reopened investigations is the serious damage done to our intelligence community’s ability to obtain the cooperation of foreign intelligence agencies. Foreign services are already greatly concerned about the United States’ inability to maintain any secrets. They rightly fear that, through these additional investigations and the court proceedings that could follow, terrorists may learn how other countries came to our assistance in a time of peril. The United States promised these foreign countries that their cooperation would never be disclosed. And the DCIs ignore CIPA when they make this claim, too: As a result of the zeal on the part of some to uncover every action taken in the post-9/11 period, many countries may decide that they can no longer safely share intelligence or cooperate with us on future counter-terrorist operations. They simply cannot rely on our promises of secrecy. I guess as DCIs, some of whom oversaw the criminal referrals which OPR has determined involved serious misconduct, have forgotten that some of these same allies also hold us to international laws that require us to investigate torture allegations. Now, the letter from the DCIs is transparently wrong on several counts. Mostly, though, I find it sad. I mean, do they really think Obama doesn't know that CIA has already agreed to pay legal fees for those under investigation? Do they really expect Obama--who has overseen egregious claims of state secrets in court cases--will dispose of all CIPA process? We support your stated commitment, Mr. President, to look to the future regarding these important issues. In our judgment the only way that is possible is if the criminal investigation of these interrogations that Attorney General Holder has re-opened is now re-closed. Sincerely, Michael Hayden Porter Goss George Tenet John Deutch R. James Woolsey William Webster James R. Schlesinger So, in the quote box immediately preceding the one above, the DOJ made a statement challenging the DCIs description of AG Holder's inquiry, and immediately above, I have posted challenges to the DCIs outrageous intrusion and to their arguments for ending all inquiry, even that which OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) determined needed to be reopened due to political interference by members of the Bush DOJ. The DCIs, by means of this letter, are calling for more politicization in their desperate effort to sweep the inquiry into possible criminal activity by members of the agency, completely under the rug. The fact that they have to resort to misleading and untrue arguments in their letter, speaks for itself. This is what is needed, given the recent performance of this agency in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq and Colin Powell's woefully inaccurate presentation to the UN in early 2003, and because of it's intentional end runs around lawful, necessary, congressional oversight, and the destruction by the agency of the evidence in the "torture tapes: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090914/hayesThe Secret Government By Christopher Hayes This article appeared in the September 14, 2009 edition of The Nation. August 26, 2009..... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-naif/c...i_b_243416.html Meanwhile, at least one House Intelligence Committee Democrat wants to see Congressional investigations into CIA activities go even further. Rush Holt, Democratic Intelligence Committee member from New Jersey, has called for investigations "as intense and comprehensive as the probe conducted more than 30 years ago -- in the wake of the Watergate scandal -- by a special committee headed by U.S. Sen. Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat," according to the Newark Star-Ledger. (Hat tip to attackerman) The Church Committee, and its House of Representatives counterpart, the Pike Committee, carry legendary significance in CIA hallways. Spencer Ackerman of Washington Independent describes the Pike and Church Committees as having "divided the history of the CIA into before and after epochs, with the post-Church/Pike period being one of much greater congressional scrutiny." Edited September 19, 2009 by Tom Scully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted September 19, 2009 Share Posted September 19, 2009 (edited) [Polite (sic) but final warning to the new Prez, who is in deep **** with the ultra-right-wingnut-fundamentalist crowd who cry at the thought he is Muslim, like Stalin and Hitler...and talking to their children to 'warp' their minds towards his demonic views....... While the CIA guys are not that crazy, they will use the frenzy as cover for any action they take....and Obama is not too stupid to figure that out.... He has always been very much in the pocket of the financial elites and lied to us about his 'change'. He will soon be being attacked IMO from the left as much as from the right....and he is going to have to make a BIG stand...lets see if he is man enough to do so..... Peter, I've come to believe that Obama was put up for election by the likes of Lester Crown (MIC, AIPAC) and his son James (JP Morgan Chase director) to do what he has done....blunt almost any change while shilling for it to win the election. JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs. BofA, the owners of the Fed, big Pharma, MIC, and the Forbes 400, can be predicted to use their concentrated wealth/power to keep Obama alive and well as a target of the wrath of right wing America. The risk is that, without Obama, ACORN, and the powerless, weathless class to scapegoat, Americans might actually look behind the curtain that their revered king Reagan solidfied so many years ago: http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=eve...&lnav=hist2'Welfare Queen' Becomes Issue in Reagan Campaign; Hitting a Nerve Now... $3.95 - New York Times - Feb 15, 1976 They were angry al "welfare ." Mr. Reagan had hit a nerve. The problem is that the story does not quite check out. According to the welfare authorities in . ... Related web pages Reagan's Stories Don't Always Check Out . Eugene Register-Guard - Google News Archive - Feb 9, 1976 They were angry" at "welfare chiselers Reagan had hit a nerve . The problem is that the story doesn't quite check out. chairman of it committee that has ... http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DBMRA...an+linda+taylor Eugene Register-Guard - Google News Archive - Feb 9, 1976 real- it, but Linda Taylor, a 47-year-old Chicago welfare recipient, ... Former California Ronald Reagan has referred to her at nearly every stop, ... So we watch the ridiculous charade that is the contents of the letter from the seven former DCIs. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200.../cia/index.htmlUPDATE: In other breaking news, Erik Prince announces that he believes criminal prosecutions of Blackwater are unwarranted; Wall Street CEOs -- past and present -- conclude that an investigation of fraud and abuse among investment banks would serve no real purpose; Alberto Gonzales reveals his opposition to any proceedings against DOJ lawyers who acted in bad faith; police unions announce that the problem of brutality is overstated and there's no need for added oversight; medical doctors agree that malpractice lawsuits need to be limited; and a poll of felons currently in prison reveal that 99% of them believe that the country would have been better off if it had just let bygones be bygones and decided not to proceed with prosecutions in their particular case. Imagine, if, instead of ranting against "ultra liberal" right wing toady Obama, and against powerless and insighificant ACORN, the American, right wing majority started wondering if the CIA is part of the problem and does more harm than good, or about precisely who Upton Sinclair was talikng about? http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&so...sa=N&tab=wpThe brass check: a study of American journalism - Page 222 Language Arts & Disciplines - 1920 - 443 pages “Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters. ..." http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&so...sa=N&tab=wp The brass check: a study of American journalism - Page 262 Language Arts & Disciplines - 1920 - 443 pages "You will miss the point of this book if you fail to get clear that the perversion of news and the betrayal of public opinion is no haphazard and accidental thing; for twenty five years…it has been a thing deliberately planned and systematically carried out, a science and a technique. High-priced experts devote their lives to it, they sit in counsel with the masters of industry, and report on the public minds, and determine precisely how this shall be presented, and how this shall be suppressed”... Peter, Obama is the centerpiece of the corporatist junta's current propaganda campaign; ACORN is just a side show, but a component that fits in to the master distraction that is the Obama target, lesser "issues" like his birth certificate, his middle name, and the flimsy but important speculation as to his muslim "roots", cement the "seriousness" of the legitmacy of the idea that Obama is of the left wing, "other". If the CIA is under the control of concentrated corporate power and the Forbes 400 who own it, Obama has nothing to fear from violence sponsored or directed by a government agency source, or even from a surrogate, like Blackwater. The complication could be if the propaganda distraction works too well and succeeeds in influencing a grass roots campaign of violence from the ignorant, indignant right wing audience it has worked so well at programming to chase it's own tail, the powerless in our society, all these years. I suspect JFK was not as useful to the divide and conquer propaganda scheme of his time, not as integral a part of it as Obama clearly is today, and so JFK was expendable in the interersts of keeping the population intent on combatting the "red menace"' the unifying theme of distraction of the American population until the 1990's. Edited September 19, 2009 by Tom Scully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/03/...d-the-salt-pit/AP INVESTIGATION: Cautionary tale from CIA prison .....That wasn’t the end of the scandal with Dusty Foggo’s girlfriend, or John Rizzo’s inappropriate involvement with her employment. It turns out that ER was a terrible employee who refused to take direction from her supervisor. But rather than do something about ER, John Rizzo had her supervisor–a 20-year CIA veteran–transferred to DOD. In mid·2005, an attorney with the initial E.R. was assigned to work for me in [CIA's Administrative Law Division]. Mr. Foggo, as Executive Director, directed OGC to hire E.R. OGC previously had sent her a letter indicating she would not be hired. Although E.R. was new to the Agency, she made very little effort to perform the work required of her at an acceptable level. E.R. resisted my guidance and direction and outright refused my direction that she revise work that was sub-par. Instead of being receptive to my direction, E.R. made it clear to me that she had influence with Mr. Foggo, the Executive Director. I believe she complained about me to Mr. Foggo. In late summer 2005, following these encounters with E.R. and. the complaint I made to OIG, the Acting General Counsel [John Rizzo] informed me that I could no longer stay at the Agency, and that he had arranged that I would leave OOC/CIA to do a detail at the Department of Defense (“DOD”). After 20 years of service, it was absolutely not my choice to leave OGC. It was humiliating to be asked to leave my high-level Agency position and walk away from my long career with OGC. However, I understood that if I did not agree to leave and lake the other position., I would not have a position at CIA. Now, there is no definitive reason to think there’s a link between Foggo’s decision that two lower level guys who killed a detainee in Afghanistan should get off with no punishment and his girlfriend’s remarkable career at CIA. the But it’s clear from both the AP story on the Salt Pit and Yoo’s response to the OPR Report that the Salt Pit death happened at least partly because of instructions that came from Langley, instructions that may have involved Rizzo directly. And we know that within weeks of the time Foggo saw the details CIA revealed in his sentencing memorandum, he decided to get all chatty with John Durham about the torture tape destruction (note, this was before Durham’s mandate was extended to include the Salt Pit death, so Foggo’s testimony couldn’t have pertained directly to this review). We also know that DOJ started to have a “real problem” with Carol Lam’s investigation of Duke Cunningham and Brent Wilkes as soon as she asked for a search warrant of Foggo. Dusty Foggo got incredible levels of protection while in his last two years at CIA, protection that probably goes beyond what you’d expect of his senior position. With each new detail of his involvement in the torture program, it seems more and more likely that that protection extended at least in part from the role he played in covering up torture. Unaccountable agency with an unlimited, classified budget, run by partisan, political stooge, Porter Goss, with the aid of his handpicked, corrupt, career stooge, Dusty Foggo, best friend of the briber of congressman Randy Cunningham. Obama continues to go with John Brennan as his interlligence advisor. If the Obama administration, CIA, DOD, and DOJ, not to mention congress, were not also so unprincipled and compromised, wouldn't Obama and the rest of us be safer if he fired John Brennan and actually demanded an investigation of the practice of torture by John Durham, instead of a narrow white wash and cover up of the destruction of tapes documenting the torture? John Durhan was appointed by Atty Gen. Mukasey and Eric Holder has kept him on the job. Durham has investigated only narrow issies for two years, extending the coverup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. A. Copeland Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Obama has been doing what he has been told to do lol, also, quite possibly being a CIA rat himself (colony14.net & breakfornews "Obama and the CIA" search.), I am sure he is in good alignment with the CIA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dolva Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 yet bk * ted soerensen endorsed him he awoke a part of america that seemed to have gone asleep and the inevitable thesis antithesis played out with him in reference to kennedy is most telling imo his presidency has perhaps for the first time since kennedy created a window of opportunity for change and most important imo the finger is being beginning to be pointed in the right direction Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter McGuire Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 (edited) yet bk * ted soerensen endorsed him he awoke a part of america that seemed to have gone asleep and the inevitable thesis antithesis played out with him in reference to kennedy is most telling imo his presidency has perhaps for the first time since kennedy created a window of opportunity for change and most important imo the finger is being beginning to be pointed in the right direction Something like that , but that is about the only thing, in my opinion that compares to JFK. Unlike JFK, Obama is without a doubt qualified to be President and there is no question about the legitimacy of his election. Nor are there questions about how he got to be president or the company he kept. There is no reason for the establishment to get rid of Obama. They sure are working hard to protect him I hear. At a recent Obama event according to some friends who were in the city where he was there were "767's and Blackhawk Helicopters in the sky" and the town was like a "police state" at every turn, even at the gas stations that afternoon. Nothing like the unprotected killing zone JFK rode into. ( his death) Edited March 29, 2010 by Peter McGuire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dolva Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 (edited) Good on him (for protection). Of course Kennedy is the one that qualifies as president. Effecting a countercoup wouldn't be easy. I wouldn't give up on Obama yet. edit:edit Edited March 30, 2010 by John Dolva Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hogan Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 LaRouche Reiterates Danger of Assassination Attempt on Obama Mar. 29, 2010 (EIRNS)—This release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC). The proliferation of terrorist threats, such as that represented by the "Christian militia" arrests in Michigan, should be taken very seriously, said Lyndon LaRouche today. We're in an environment like that before JFK's assassination, and President Obama should cut his bravado out now. His ego is his biggest vulnerability, and if he wants to survive, he should restrict his activity, and keep himself safe. As in the run-up to the JFK assassination, many of these so-called militia and terrorist groups will be bogus," LaRouche continued. "Most of them will be nothing—but they will create a cover for a real operation to go ahead. Just as before 9/11, when the advertised threat was a terrorist incident through demonstrations in Washington, D.C., but the reality was the Saudi-assisted plane-bomb operations which occurred. The sophisticated controllers of an assassination operation will count on Obama's ego to make him vulnerable," LaRouche said. "If they weren't sophisticated enough to realize and employ that, they wouldn't be running a serious assassination threat.... Full article: http://www.larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2010/lar...ass_danger.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Mauro Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 BRITISH AGENTS CAUGHT--AGAIN--IN TERRORIST PROVOCATIONS AGAINST UNITED STATES March 29, 2010 (LPAC)--British-run provocations are aiming to divert widespread hatred of Obama and his deathcare by a potential assassination and martyring of the President, as he is in their view, disposable damaged goods. A British agent named Mike Vanderboegh, self-styled as an anti-government "militia" leader, boasted to the news media last week that he was behind the notorious bricking of Democrats' windows. This same Vanderboegh is organizing an armed provocation near Washington, planned for the anniversary of the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. He claims publicly he is not aiming at Obama's assassination. But Vanderboegh vilifies Abraham Lincoln as a mass murderer and says when the coming civil war starts, we on the anti-government side won't make the same mistakes the Confederacy made -- we'll make sure the government starts shooting first. - Creating a British "Militia" Agent - Vanderboegh's entire career was created by the infamous British anti-U.S. operative Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. While resident in the U.S. in the mid-1990s as Britain's {Daily Telegraph} Sunday Washington bureau chief, Evans-Pritchard set up a web of paramilitary groups tied into British intelligence and into corrupted U.S. military elements. Mike Vanderboegh and another Evans-Pritchard agent named Jon Roland, worked together as sub-leaders of the British gang running outright agents and deluded populists in the "militia" movement, which Evans-Pritchard and other British manipulators said was directed against then-President Bill Clinton. In Evans-Pritchard's 1997 book {The Secret Life of Bill Clinton}, the Brit describes how he himself boosted Vanderboegh into the public eye, as his loyal follower in the wake of the 1995 terror-bombing of the Murrah Federal Builing in Oklahoma City. Evans-Pritchard put Vanderboegh into action in the British attempt to control public perception of covert criminal activities, and to blunt possible exposure of the British role. Evans-Pritchard wrote that with "the abdication of the grand press, Americans have had to turn elsewhere for a more illuminating perspective [on what was behind the bombing], notably the {John Doe Times}. It is an Internet cyber-journal published by a warehouse manager in Birmingham, Alabama -- Mike Vanderboegh -- dedicated to exposing evidence of a broader conspiracy." Evans-Pritchard relates that Vanderboegh was a militia man -- he doesn't let on that it was in the "Constitutional Militia," created by Jon Roland and the Evans-Pritchard gang beginning in 1994. He writes that Vanderboegh was put onto the bombing case in "a cordial meeting" with a Federal agent. "Vanderboegh's militia group had done a favor for the feds, helping them crack a case involving theft from a military base." Vanderboegh began putting out his {John Doe} cyber-journal "explaining" the bombing after reading an Evans-Pritchard article, and getting in touch with Evans-Pritchard's contacts. The entire output of Vanderboegh's British-bilge {John Doe Times} from 1996-1997, is accessible on Jon Roland's website. - The Murderous Provocation -- A Rerun - This April 19, the 15th anniversary of the terror bombing that killed 168 people, various witting and/or deluded participants plan to bring loaded automatic weapons to a rally at Fort Hunt National Park, south of Washington, D.C., to be incited by Mike Vanderboegh and his collaborators. They will then bring their weapons on buses up to Gravelly Point, directly across the Potomac River from the Washington Mall, seeking to goad a response from the Feds. On his own website, Sipsey Street Irregulars, where Vanderboegh instructs readers on how to prepare for inevitable civil war, he has posted a current article from his "old compadre Ambrose Evans-Pritchard"--British propaganda piece pushing conflict between the U.S. and China. The planned armed instigation repeats previous criminal actions by Evans-Pritchard's gang. A few days before the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, Jon Roland forwarded to militia participants a report put out by Lord Wiliam Rees-Mogg of the London {Times}, that the Clinton Administration would begin oppressing militia poeple, and would carry out a big terror bombing and blame it on the militias. He induced deluded militia men to turn out to a March 25, 1995 rally in Cuero, Texas, to see if they would be arrested or shot. Roland himself subsequently told this news service that Evans-Pritchard had put him "in touch with intelligence agents from around the world," and they had together set up varous agents in charge of miltia groups in the Midwest and Texas. One of these agents, self-proclaimed former Naval Intelligence man Brad Glover, was arrested in July 1997 on charges of plotting to bomb a military base. Jon Roland, a professed "world federalist," now takes part with Vanderboegh, a professed "former Maoist," in the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog, boosting the end of the United States for their "old compadre" Evans-Pritchard. Their British manager comes by his role with foreign dupes by family tradition. His father, Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, studied the irrationality of African native religions that would make them vulnerable to British imperial control, and later ran native troops for the British Intelligence Service, MI6. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dolva Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 (edited) When James Meredith was finally admitted to Ole' Miss it was largely because RFK informed Gov Barnett that his conversations with the Kennedys during the Crisis were taped. Barnett dropped his insistence that the federal troops at least draw their revolvers. He backed down and like in Alabama shortly after merely made a show of resistance before stepping aside. The shooting started later as Gen Walkers troops entered the fray and tried to provoke a large scale action. He was thwarted and arrested. The MO is remarkably similar which, imo, gives a clear pointer to where to find the assassins. http://www.usmarshals.gov/history/miss/02.htm ''In his book, “An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi,” author William Doyle stated that the NAACP’s backing was a key component in Meredith’s eventual success. Doyle also noted that two other factors were equally important: John F. Kennedy, seen as the first president to support civil rights, took office in January 1961; and the Brown ruling was still the official law of the land. Kennedy, who scored a narrow election victory with the help of many black voters, would indeed turn out to be sympathetic to Meredith’s cause, but the same could not be said of Mississippi’s governor, Ross Barnett. In a statewide television broadcast, Barnett stated, “[Mississippi] will not surrender to the evil and illegal forces of tyranny ... [and] no school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your governor.” Later, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Meredith attending classes. But Barnett was still defiant. He went on to call Meredith’s attempt to enter Ole Miss “our greatest crisis since the War Between the States.” Photo above right: Chief Marshal J.P. McShane (right), Assistant Attorney General John Doar (left) and Deputy Cecil Miller (in Background) escort James Meredith to classes at the University of Mississippi . The job of seeing to it that Meredith was safely admitted to the school clearly fell upon the federal government, and soon enough, President Kennedy sent deputy marshals into the fray. Three times, Chief U.S. Marshal J.P. McShane led a small contingent of deputies — without loaded guns — to register Meredith.'' edit:typos Edited March 30, 2010 by John Dolva Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now