The increasingly desperate Republicans must be grinding their molars over President Obama’s nomination of John O. Brennan to run the CIA, a place where he spent about 30 years.
I mean, what’s the worst they can say about the shooting guard of “The Reaper Presidency,” as the U.K.-based Bureau Investigative Journalism calls Obama’s first term? That he’s talks too much?
Some Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee are braying over Brennan’s briefings to the makers of “Zero Dark Thirty,” but that’s pretty small potatoes. Likewise, their complaints about alleged administration leaks on reported U.S.-Israeli cyber-attacks on Iran won't get much of a hearing, since the revelations began with private internet sleuths, not the White House, by many accounts -- and the details remain deeply classified.
Of course, then there's Brennan’s wildly misleading press briefing on how the Navy SEALs took down Osama Bin Laden.
As the New York Times’ David E. Sanger recounts neatly in his book, “Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power,” Brennan gave reporters a yarn "based on a true story."
The SEALs and Joint Chiefs skipper Mullen were said to be furious.
Big deal. The Republicans can howl over that while Brennan picks out new furniture for his seventh floor office in Langley.
No, the only faintly injurious criticism of Brennan will come from the left, if it’s raised at all. And that -- recounting Brennan’s passive-aggressive support for renditions and torture during the Bush administration--has a slightly musty feel. True, it was toxic enough in 2008 to knock him out of contention for the CIA the first time around, but liberals aren’t likely to reach into their garbage cans for that dead rabbit now.
As no less than Glenn Greenwald put it today in The Guardian:
What they should ask about, of course, is the CIA’s support for current renditions.
The Washington Post’s tireless Craig Whitlock raised a tent flap on the continuing, legally questionable practice in an important Jan. 1 story on the round-up of three Europeans with Somali roots by U.S. agents in Djibouti last summer. It was kept secret until the men appeared in a Brooklyn court Dec. 21, Whitlock reported.
Then there are the record number of Brennan-directed CIA drone strikes in Pakistan -- six times more there under Obama than under Bush -- as well as Yemen and elsewhere, which critics maintain has created more budding terrorists then they have eliminated.
That’s pretty hard to prove, of course (although I buy into it), and in any event, Obama has dubbed himself the killer-in-chief when it comes to drone strikes. So Brennan skates on that, too.
Going back further, there’s Brennan’s stewardship of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center starting in 2003 (later to evolve into the National Counterterrorism Center), which was seriously marred by the inclusion of thousands of innocent people’s names on No-Fly lists.
He’ll say he’s sorry. And neither Republicans or Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee will complain -- about anything, really.
No, it’s gonna be a real love-fest for John Brennan on Capitol Hill, a quick in and out, I predict. Back slaps and high fives all around.
I mean, what’s the worst they can say about the shooting guard of “The Reaper Presidency,” as the U.K.-based Bureau Investigative Journalism calls Obama’s first term? That he’s talks too much?
Some Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee are braying over Brennan’s briefings to the makers of “Zero Dark Thirty,” but that’s pretty small potatoes. Likewise, their complaints about alleged administration leaks on reported U.S.-Israeli cyber-attacks on Iran won't get much of a hearing, since the revelations began with private internet sleuths, not the White House, by many accounts -- and the details remain deeply classified.
Of course, then there's Brennan’s wildly misleading press briefing on how the Navy SEALs took down Osama Bin Laden.
As the New York Times’ David E. Sanger recounts neatly in his book, “Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power,” Brennan gave reporters a yarn "based on a true story."
“Brennan gave the impression that bin Laden was armed and died in a firefight; almost as soon as the seventy nine SEALs involved were debriefed, the world learned that only Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, the courier, got off the shot. Brennan said that bin Laden used a woman as a human shield; it turned out that she actually rushed the SEALs. Brennan described the Al Qaeda leader is living a luxurious lifestyle in his about Abbottabad villa. While he lived better than many in Pakistan, the pictures of his apartment actually reveal something closer to squalor.”
The SEALs and Joint Chiefs skipper Mullen were said to be furious.
Big deal. The Republicans can howl over that while Brennan picks out new furniture for his seventh floor office in Langley.
No, the only faintly injurious criticism of Brennan will come from the left, if it’s raised at all. And that -- recounting Brennan’s passive-aggressive support for renditions and torture during the Bush administration--has a slightly musty feel. True, it was toxic enough in 2008 to knock him out of contention for the CIA the first time around, but liberals aren’t likely to reach into their garbage cans for that dead rabbit now.
As no less than Glenn Greenwald put it today in The Guardian:
“Although I actively opposed Brennan's CIA nomination in 2008, I can't quite muster the energy or commitment to do so now. Indeed, the very idea that someone should be disqualified from service in the Obama administration because of involvement in and support for extremist Bush terrorism polices seems quaint and obsolete, given the great continuity between Bush and Obama on these issues.”
What they should ask about, of course, is the CIA’s support for current renditions.
The Washington Post’s tireless Craig Whitlock raised a tent flap on the continuing, legally questionable practice in an important Jan. 1 story on the round-up of three Europeans with Somali roots by U.S. agents in Djibouti last summer. It was kept secret until the men appeared in a Brooklyn court Dec. 21, Whitlock reported.
“The men are the latest example of how the Obama administration has embraced rendition — the practice of holding and interrogating terrorism suspects in other countries without due process — despite widespread condemnation of the tactic in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
Then there are the record number of Brennan-directed CIA drone strikes in Pakistan -- six times more there under Obama than under Bush -- as well as Yemen and elsewhere, which critics maintain has created more budding terrorists then they have eliminated.
That’s pretty hard to prove, of course (although I buy into it), and in any event, Obama has dubbed himself the killer-in-chief when it comes to drone strikes. So Brennan skates on that, too.
Going back further, there’s Brennan’s stewardship of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center starting in 2003 (later to evolve into the National Counterterrorism Center), which was seriously marred by the inclusion of thousands of innocent people’s names on No-Fly lists.
He’ll say he’s sorry. And neither Republicans or Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee will complain -- about anything, really.
No, it’s gonna be a real love-fest for John Brennan on Capitol Hill, a quick in and out, I predict. Back slaps and high fives all around.
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3 comments:
I had this to say again and again, I expect it's repeating here
My view would be the fact of the USA evolution to impunity is relative to both renditions & targeted killings in international law. Courts in Italy and Germany have delivered verdicts on the CIA in the case of renditions, but the political will necessary to demand extraditions are not forthcoming. In Spain, the one european judge with a demonstrated willingness to invoke ‘universal jurisdiction’, Baltasar Garzon, had been removed from the bench after what amounted to a show trial (the Spanish court's own prosecutor actually opposed Garzon’s prosecution but was over-ruled) following pressure from the USA.
Inasmuch as there is serious concerns in the international law community at the damage done to the rule of law relevant to drone strikes, not only in the case of renditions and targeted killings, short of concerted political will to push back at Obama coming from a credible source such as a NATO ally like Germany, which could build on the case of Khaled El-Masri with widening scope of prosecution under universal jurisdiction, attempting some salvage of the rule of law, the courage and foresight are plainly lacking in the political leadership to bring pressure and rein in what has become out of control, extra-judicial license to kill.
Brennan/Obama’s claims of the preciseness of the strike with little to no collateral effect is plainly in error and mainstream press does not challenge him on that factual error or the extra-judicial nature the state security apparatus has taken in the larger view. Until/unless there is a break in the ranks, and that seems least likely to originate in the USA with its "Alice in Wonderland" deferral to state secret doctrine that goes so far as shields so-called 'legal justifications' and opinions from disclosure, it would appear ‘color of law’ will have replaced ‘rule of law’, in which case the USA is no more a republic than the classic fascist states of a not so distant history-
Ronald, Please tell me what international law that the terrorists followed in killing Americans in New York and elsewhere over the last twenty years?
If they come after us, we can come after them. Maybe they should not have attacked us. Now that they have attacked us and started this war, they get to take whatever we want to give them!
Lesson is, even if we end up in economic trouble, if you attack us, we will kill you all. No matter how long it takes, you will die.
Have a nice day.
Nice try, al qaeda, but we will kill you all.
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