It appeared that Obama and Brennan had a single purpose, which was to not “lose Langley,” as people in Washington say, meaning that they didn’t want to alienate those still working at the C.I.A. This calculation—that C.I.A. officers, unlike soldiers, law-enforcement officers, and other public servants who risk their lives to serve the country, are too fragile for criticism, too valuable to fire, and too patriotic to prosecute—somehow tied the Obama Administration in knots.
CIA morale ‘deeply hurt’ following Senate report
Another revelation was the construction of prisons abroad to detain suspects in countries beyond the reach of the US Department of Justice. In addition, the CIA hired numerous contractors to operate the prisons and do the “dirty work.”
According to Ullman, the US government employed many outside companies following the 9/11 attacks, and not all were in secret. It was simply the result of a lack of available staff for all the new tasks, he said.
But Wippl believes it was also an effective way to disguise ultimate responsibility, pointing out that contractors can be held less responsible than someone working for a government agency.
.. With a reference to history, Ullman said he expects little to change in the future. “We had the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro by two administrations. We had Jack Kennedy working with the Mafia. I mean, it’s absurd. But the fact of the matter is this is unfortunately the way governments operate.”
.. Bamford called it outrageous that there will apparently not be any legal consequences for the perpetrators of the murder and torture. Ullman, however, sees things differently.
“They had the findings of the president, the authorization of the president, and the findings of the attorney general that this was legal,” he said. “If anybody is to be prosecuted, it seems to me it should be the president.”
Frank Rich on the National Circus: America Is Still in Denial About Torture
There are two important things to remember about this report: (1) We have only seen a fraction of it — a heavily redacted 524-page executive summary of a document whose full text exceeds 6,000 pages. Given how grotesque that censored executive summary is, it beggars the imagination to guess what horrors didn’t make the cut.
.. Addressing the passions aroused by Ferguson a couple of weeks ago,Obama reminded everyone that we are a nation of laws. But what does that even mean when the nation’s laws are not applied to those in power — whether CIA officers and others who practiced torture, or Wall Street executives who brought the world’s economy to the brink of ruin, looted their companies and their investors, and then escaped with their ill-gotten gains? The more flagrant the offense, the easier it is to escape, it seems.
.. The only Washington officials of stature who have been outspoken about the need to expose the truth — Dianne Feinstein, John McCain, Mark Udall — have in common that their careers as national politicians are nearing an end. The GOP’s presidential hopefuls are running for cover, Rand Paul included. And Hillary Clinton, who has said almost nothing publicly about torture, could be found, as usual, straddling.
On Monday, the Times and the Washington Post published stories on the desire of GOP megadonors to coalesce early around a 2016 presidential nominee and avoid a repeat of the drawn-out and circuslike 2012 primaries. Predictably, big Wall Street donors are pining for Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, or even a return of Mitt Romney, while a host of more tea-party-friendly candidates like Rand Paul and Rick Perry have begun to mount their own backers. The GOP almost always nominates an Establishment candidate, but you’ve been clear that the party’s present and future lies with its radical wing. Is there any way the Republicans don’t have an even more drawn-out and circuslike primary season than they did in 2012?
What emerges from both these stories is yet another example of how adrift America is from its identity as a “nation of laws.” A bunch of billionaires just assume — not entirely without reason — that they can choose the next president and, with their fortunes, install him as the Republican nominee and, perhaps, as the next president.
C.I.A. First Planned Jails Abiding by U.S. Standards
While C.I.A. and Justice Department lawyers debated the legality of the tactics, the report reveals, Mr. Zubaydah was left alone in a cell in Thailand for 47 days. The Senate report asserts that isolation, not resistance, was the reason he stopped talking in June. Mr. Soufan said he was livid when he read that. “What kind of ticking-bomb scenario is this if you can leave him in isolation for 47 days?” he said.