12-13-14, Take A Walk On the Dark Side

++The release of the Feinstein Report psychologically marked the end of the Obama era. Obama may have some victories ahead but we have been thrust back into the dark times post 9-11, which we hoped we have gone beyond.

++I support Andrew Sullivan, Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, and all those arguing that the culprits for the torture policy must be held responsible. But political reality tells me they will not.

++All the things I talk about concerning torture appeared in this circumstance. I always try to persuade foreign governments it doesn't produce "good intelligence". I say that torture corrupts every institution it touches. 

++In this case, you can see this in  John Brennen's pained support of those involved and the torture lawyers self-defense. The APA had to come out and condemn torture as against everything psychologists stand for and they had to note the two psychologists who created the program weren't members. We have yet to hear from the medical doctors about why they participated in the war crime.The international community had to protect their own institutions by condemning the United States.

++But let's go back to my axiom it doesn't produce "good intelligence". Clearly, recent books about the Nazi occupation of France document that Hans Barbie's torture did assist in rolling up the cells of the French resistance and discover where French Jews were hiding. We forget that the international humanitarian law pioneered by the United States made torture a "crime against humanity" after WWII to prevent the klaus Barbie's of the future.

++But let's go to the word "good". In this case, it was so-called "actionable intelligence". Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Integrity sats "Both Sides are wrong: Torture did work-to produce lies for War (see Footnote 857 of the Report)" Printed in Huffington Post ,Husseini refers to a footnote that describes the torture of al-Libi by the Egyptians which produced the misinformation that Colin Powell used before the United Nations to justify the Iraq War. 

++Husseini goes into depth that one of the reasons the CIA destroyed the torture tapes because they exposed the whole program. CIA personnel directed by characters in Washington were torturing detainees to find out about connections of bin Laden with Saddam Hussein (there were none) and if these ever saw the light of the day the torture program would be shown to be elaborate manipulation of American and world public opinion.

++This makes sense when we saw the curious release by Senator Levin of the CIA letter informing him that Al Atta, the so-called Al Qaeda agent never met and Iraqi in Prague--one of Dick Cheney's old saws to support Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. I thought Senator Levin was doing a Chuck Schumer for the media coverage but rather he was signaling that he knew what lay behind the torture program.

++The Torture program was a raving success. Dick Cheney and other apologists just don't tell you the reason. It was to fabricate intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. And it succeeded. We even have a newly elected Senator Joni Ernst from Iowa who campaigned saying Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.

++Despite all the evidence the torture program did not prevent a single terrorist plot,the entire Republican Party with the exception of John McCain and Lindsey Graham, supported it then and supports it now. But I am sure they don't know it's real purpose.

++The Defense appropriation bill set to President Obama represents over 60% of our government spending. In it is authorization for his fight against ISIS. The administration objected that the authorization was too limited in scope and time. John Brennen was right in saying at his press conference policy-makers may use the torture program again.

++Remember how quickly the CIA dissolved its bin Laden office after the invasion of Iraq? Remember George W. Bush's jokes at the National Press Club about not finding bin Laden. The pathetic attempt in the lost week by former CIA chiefs to claim intelligence obtained under torture led to Bin Laden's demise just hides the fact the program produced the results it was designed for--The Invasion of Iraq. 

++The monkey is still on our back and will haunt the remaining days of the Obama Administration as they try to grapple with the aftermath in Iraq and Syria brought forth by the last administration.