Posts Tagged ‘CIA’

We Need Congress To Be The Boss

The CIA operates in stealth; it is associated with some of the worst abuses of power in recent American history, including assassinations, coups, and torture; it has military capabilities. Congress needs to be firmly in control of its relationship with such an agency. The Constitution demands no less.

Knocking the Songs Out of the Park: Chess

A first-rate production of a second-rate show. The astonishing cast delivers song after song that sails out of the park.

The Torture Report: We Need Names and Consequences

Is the ingenuity of our judges and lawyers so trifling we cannot establish that linkage without revealing things that are truly secret? (Establish waterboarding, for instance, without going into what questions the torturers were asking? Or conduct certain proceedings in camera?) Is it beyond all possibility to chart a judicial path to consequences for the people who did these things?

The Messy But Necessary Leakocracy

The role of the leakers and the press and bloggers who disseminate what the leakers share is not institutionalized, and there is little or no quality control. But as a result of their actions, things that need to be made public, like torture and illegal wiretaps, often are publicized. The Leakocracy serves as a valuable if not vital safety valve in our society.

Just Following Orders

Just Following Orders   [I]t can never be maintained that a military officer can justify himself for doing an unlawful act, by producing the order of his superior. Chief Justice Taney, Mitchell v. Harmony, 54 U.S. 115, 137 (1851)[1]              Last time, we started with the premise that the MPs who abused the detainees […]

“A Few Bad Apples”

 “A Few Bad Apples”               On October 19, 2003,[1]  Specialist Sabrina Harman of the 372nd Military Police Company picked up a Sony Cybershot camera and began taking photographs of life on Tier 1A at Abu Ghraib prison.  She documented naked prisoners being stacked like cordwood, prisoners being threatened by attack dogs, hooded prisoners, beaten […]

Various Circles of Hell

Various Circles of Hell Jack L. B. Gohn               Because of the agonizingly slow leakage of information concerning the previous administration’s practices of internment and interrogation of Muslim men, it is only recently that the Central Intelligence Agency component has come into focus.               When the Abu Ghraib photos were first leaked to […]

War Powers, War Lies: Part 12: Not GWOT

It may have been lousy intelligence. It was effective public relations, however. In February 2003, 72 percent of Americans polled answered yes to the question: “Was Saddam Hussein personally involved in the September 11 attacks?” And this result was in line with poll after poll.

War Powers, War Lies: Part 10: Kangaroo

And here is the moral, strategic, and tactical problem: How we can expect the world to accord full faith and credit to that court’s eventual verdict when we establish and countenance tribunals that are themselves human rights violations? A question urgently worth pondering.

War Powers, War Lies: Part 8: Playbook

When the International Committee of the Red Cross reported in February 2004 on our various Iraqi detention centers, they noted that at all of them, there seemed to be a single playbook – the real playbook – of practices focusing on the sexual and religious humiliation of those detainees deemed “high value,” i.e. most likely to yield Actionable Intel.