We Tortured Some Folks: Obama Defends Brennan and Admits War Crimes

Four words uttered during President Barack Obama's Friday White House press conference sum everything up: "we tortured some folks". It was an admission of how far that America has fallen since the dawn of the twenty first century, the phony war on terror, the real wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the coming ones in Europe and the Middle East. The days of America always being the "good guys"  is over. Gone forever is the tremendous amount of global goodwill that came after our fathers and grandfathers saved the world from totalitarianism and suffering under the yoke of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. This is what it can be distilled down to: "we tortured some folks".  The sitting leader of the 'free world' just admitted that this country committed war crimes of the type that had the leaders of the Axis powers hanged for at the post-war tribunals held at Nuremberg and Tokyo. These are dark and terrible days to be an American as lawless charlatans like Obama drag us into what will be a full-blown fascist state in the coming years if something isn't done now to slow the juggernaut.

Obama's presser was largely used to defend his hand-picked CIA Director John Brennan, a vicious thug who was forced to confess to his lies after an investigation found that the agency was indeed spying on a key Senate committee that was investigating torture. Brennan had flat out fibbed about this when called out by the Senate Intelligence Committee overlord Dianne Feinstein and has now been exposed as a liar. Obama is standing by his man. Brennan is however in good company, Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper perjured himself by lying to Congress over the nature of NSA surveillance programs. Obama stood by him too. Both men are still serving in their posts despite being exposed as liars and having covered up unconstitutional activities in the capacity of their jobs. Both men are also defended by the biggest liar of them all: Barack Obama. How far out of control does this all have to go before Americans finally wake up and demand that the rule of law be restored and the criminals in high places held accountable?

The entire system is breaking down with the protection by the government of those who either have the money to purchase influence or who serve as lackeys for the regime. The haughty Obama and the US elite, particularly those in the political class are drunk on hubris and openly flout both domestic and international law. This is the era of the potent intoxicant of American exceptionalism and those in power who have sipped it believe that they are untouchable and able to act with impunity. The American empire though is built upon a foundation of shifting sand and economic fraud. Thanks to Obama's hand-picked finance industry fixer and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the same Wall Street casinos that crashed the economy in 2008 were allowed to not only avoid accountability but have been given and endless supply of low interest money with which to gamble. The too big to fails are now bigger than ever and the next implosion of this house of cards - which is coming - will take the economy down for good. Even almighty Rome fell, it took time but the fall was abetted by the decadence and impunity of a rotten ruling class. The late writer I.F. Stone put it perfectly: "all governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out". The hookah seems to be getting quite a workout at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue these days.

You know that things are spinning out of control when even the beltway propaganda organ and defender of the entrenched power of the surveillance state Gomorrah is even calling for Obama to fire Brennan for his lies. An editorial in The Washington Post, "Obama Should Fire John Brennan" states the obvious:

An apology and an internal review board might suffice if this were Brennan or intelligence leaders’ first offense, but the track record is far from spotless. In 2011, Brennan claimed that dozens of U.S. drone strikes on overseas targets had not killed a single civilian. This remarkable success rate was not only disputed at the time by news reports — even supporters of the drone program called it “absurd” — but as the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the New York Times both reported later, President Obama received reports from the very beginning of his presidency about drone strikes killing numerous civilians.

As Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser at the time, Brennan would have received these reports as well, so either Brennan knew that his claim was a lie, or he is secretly deaf. Similarly, Brennan denied snooping on Senate computers six weeks after Feinstein first made the accusation to the CIA in private, which means either that he was lying, or he had ignored a serious charge against his agency for six weeks, then spouted off about it without any real knowledge — hardly the behavior expected of an agency director.

And last year, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied under oath to Congress when he told Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and the Senate Intelligence Committee that the National Security Agency did not collect any kind of data on millions of Americans, a claim later disproved by documents leaked by former NSA employee Edward Snowden. Despite Clapper receiving criticism from both sides of the aisle, the damage to Clapper’s and the White House’s credibility on intelligence and civil liberties issues and, well, the fact that lying to Congress is a crime (though one that’s difficult to prosecute), Obama has not disciplined Clapper in any way.

Sadly, it’s unlikely that this latest incident will encourage Obama to finally induce some accountability in the intelligence community: White House press secretary Josh Earnest called the CIA’s illegal activities mere “misunderstandings.” But as Brennan said when he denied the allegations, “if I did something wrong…he is the one who can ask me to stay or to go.” It’s time for Obama to take that responsibility head-on and start to restore in U.S. intelligence agencies some semblance of responsibility to the Constitution and the public.

No amount of public outcry or newspaper editorial writing will compel Obama to do the right thing and give Brennan his walking papers. Nor will it be quietly done through Brenner 'voluntarily' submitting his resignation for the sake of preserving the credibility of the US government. There is no credibility left to preserve and with each passing day, outrageous scandal, revelation of unconstitutional conduct and lies to justify more wars the institutionalized cancer of corruption further eats away at what was once a strong and vibrant system of democracy.

The man of hope and change has turned out to be the man of dashed hope and chump change.

Top CIA Nazi Brennan Cops to Spying on Senate Staffers

CIA Director John Brennan fessed up today over his agency spying on staff members of a key Senate committee. Mr. Brennan's admission comes months after an ugly dust-up with Senate Intelligence Committee boss Dianne Feinstein (DiFi) over allegations that the CIA had hacked into the computers of staff investigating agency interrogation and detention programs or in layman's terms: torture programs.  DiFi went absolutely ballistic at the time, going to the extraordinary lengths of denouncing the CIA's tactics on the Senate floor. Brennan, being the career spook that he is did what comes natural: he lied, denying the accusation without qualification. Not that Senator Feinstein could ever be defended as a defender of American civil liberties - she is after all one of the NSA Stasi's most ardent defenders - but this time, like the adage of the broken clock she was right. It was her great shining moment.

Feinstein could be excused for doing a victory lap today being vindicated by the findings of an internal review showing that her committee was indeed spied on by Brennan's CIA goons. According to a story in The Guardian entitled "CIA admits to spying on Senate staffers" by Spencer Ackerman from which I excerpt:

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious and public denials.

Brennan acknowledged that an internal investigation had found agency security personnel transgressed a firewall set up on a CIA network, which allowed Senate committee investigators to review agency documents for their landmark inquiry into CIA torture.

Among other things, it was revealed that agency officials conducted keyword searches and email searches on committee staff while they used the network.

The admission brings Brennan’s already rocky tenure at the head of the CIA under renewed question. One senator on the panel said he had lost confidence in the director, although the White House indicated its support for a man who has been one of Barack Obama’s most trusted security aides.

The reference to Brennan being "one of Barack Obama's most trusted security aides" is particularly galling given the anti-constitutional rampage that El Presidente has been conducting out of the Oval Office. Forget about that political stunt of John Boehner in suing Obama, the real problem  is Obama's ongoing empowerment of a mammoth national security state apparatus that is setting into place all of the institutions of a totalitarian state for his successors. Being a libertarian myself, the concentration of such unchecked power in the Executive Branch absolutely horrifies me, but were I a Republican the prospect of the turning over of the keys to this machine to Hillary Rodham-Clinton would be a nightmare of biblical proportions. The golden opportunity for the GOP to once and for all put a choke chain on this menace to American liberty lies in the coming retaking of the Senate in November. There will be an approximately one year window of opportunity to cage this monster and I hope that for the sake of all of our future that they will do so.

The CIA spying on Feinstein's committee is a part of the ongoing efforts by a rogue government to cover up our sad and disgusting choice to embark upon the path of a torture state after 9/11. This very concept, at least prior to that terrible day was antithetical to American values - we were the good guys and we did not resort to such vile practices which were what morally separated us from our enemies. Tragically, we lost our way and that "shining city on the hill" that was so eloquently evoked by President Ronald Reagan continues to recede into the rear view mirror as under our recent and current leadership. This leadership has no respect for our traditional values and has zero qualms about dragging us through the darkest alleys of humanity that are the route to a despotic torture state. Sucks that such a thing is seen by so many as being as American as apple pie now. Jack Bauer is a fictional character designed to create within the people an acceptance for the same type of conduct  that had men hanged at Nuremberg  after our fathers and grandfathers defeated fascism in Europe.

The covering up of the torture that our deranged and power drunk "leaders" turned to has truly been a bipartisan effort that spans two presidencies - one Republican and one Democrat with each one being for two terms. The administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama have continued to thwart efforts to reveal the truth of the heinous torture programs to the public and even Feinstein's efforts are tepid at best to get to the bottom of things and will continue to be fiercely resisted by the White House.

Brennan's admission along with his much hyped apology is a nice public relations gimmick which comes at a very opportune time. Our wonderful representatives in the US Congress are ready to decamp from Washington for their latest taxpayer funded extended vacation. By the time that they return all will be forgiven and most importantly forgotten by the public as the media feeds them the ridiculous horse race coverage of this most critical of mid-term elections along with the insane focus on non-issues that only benefit entrenched power.

DiFi is an Enormous Hypocrite

In a classic case of the injurious treatment of one who enjoys the exalted status of being above the law and therefore free to operate with impunity Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman blew her stack on Tuesday morning. DiFi, who has served as the impenetrable firewall of cellulite standing between the NSA Stasi and efforts to bring it under control for a spree of unconstitutional mass surveillance and data-mining doesn’t like it quite so much when the shoe is on the other hoof. The CIA, arguably the foremost terrorist entity on the face of God’s green Earth since its inception in 1947  seems to have been caught trolling through committee computers for information relating to a suppressed report on the agency’s role in the torture programs that took place during the reign of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

With her chins trembling like so much pink JELL-O the pride of California erupted for the cameras on the Senate floor raging against the CIA for - and get this - violating the Fourth Amendment. Raging for the maximum effect DiFi bellowed “I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers embodied in the Constitution” and that “Besides the Constitutional implications, the CIA’s search may also have violated the Forth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333 which prohibits the CIA from conductiong domestic searches or surveillance".  Now just let all of that sink in for just a moment.

First off, Senator Feinstein wouldn’t know the Constitution if it sneaked up behind here and bit her in the ass when you consider her ongoing protection of the surveillance/warfare state and the myriad of crimes that are committed by it every single day against the little people. Other than the reigning king of Michigan’s safely gerrymandered 8th Congressional district, the foaming at the mouth fascist Mike Rogers there has been no bigger defender of the unconstitutional spying on millions upon millions of law-abiding American citizens without bothering with that pesky Constitution in regards to obtaining  warrants or for that matter recognizing probable cause. She has prevented any and all accountability for the menace from Fort Meade and has actually been working towards getting a bill passed that actually protects the power of the NSA to spy on everybody - except her of course. That she only manages to get up in arms when it is her own self and her own committee that are being spied on it is the utmost in hypocrisy. Not that anyone should ever bother to expect anything else from the rancid assembly of corrupt bitches and bastards who have occupied Congress, turned it into a money processing machine for corporate, military, big energy and foreign interests and feel that they are some sort of American royalty. Invoking the Constitution is laughable for the reigning queen of its violation.

Then there is the mention of that mysterious Executive Order 12333 put into place by Ronald Reagan. This is one document that certainly deserves scrutiny for it has been used as some sort of divine mandate to run roughshod over the civil liberties of everyone that Feinstein's hallowed NSA is currently accumulating massive and all-inclusive electronic dossiers on to be stored in restricted buildings the size of football stadiums for some vague future use that at best will be used to set up a system based on Philip K. Dick's "Pre-Crime" and at worst the equivalent of Gestapo style lists for apprehension, persecution and disappearing. This order if anything is the proverbial elephant in the room and the lid of secrecy must be pried off of the deep state sewer so that the American public can see exactly what sort of government malevolence has been spawned by it - that is what democracy is about is it not? 

Despite the odious messenger it is good to see the CIA finally taking some well-deserved flak, I am sure that Obama's hand-picked director John Brennan has been ecstatic with all of the attention being focused on the NSA while his own thugs are able to engage in their criminality out of the limelight. That is about to change because as of this morning the firestorm over Feinstein's hissy fit continues and she is getting backing from the neocon beltway propaganda organ The Washington Post, notably in a column by Dana Milbank - allegedly another member of Skull and Bones, the elitist Yale secret society that Secretary of State John Kerry also belongs to. In the Milbank column which is entitled “Allegations of CIA spying on the Senate deserve investigation” I excerpt the following:

President Obama’s foes have been trying for years to uncover scandal in his administration. But the most damning allegation of wrongdoing was leveled on the Senate floor Tuesday morning — by a friend.

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, has been an ally of Obama and a staunch defender of the administration during the controversy over the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. So her credibility could not be questioned when she went public, reluctantly, to accuse Obama’s CIA of illegal and unconstitutional actions: violating the separation of powers by searching the committee’s computers and intimidating congressional staffers with bogus legal threats.

All of this was allegedly being done to keep quiet information about the CIA’s detention and interrogation programs during the George W. Bush administration. Feinstein said that the CIA’s actions may have violated the Constitution’s speech-and-debate clause and the Fourth Amendment, not to mention criminal law and the ban on domestic spying by the CIA.

This is a serious scandal alright and it isn’t only Obama’s presiding over a run amok national surveillance system that he has only further empowered through his inaction. There is also the inconvenient truth that he chose not to hold the Bush regime torturers and war criminals legally accountable for their actions post-September 11, 2001, many of them that should have the perpetrators and those who provided legal cover such as John Yoo who despite his interpretation of the law to include the chief executive’s right to order the crushing of a child’s testicles has landed an elite position in academia. We are an exceptional people in how we honor rather than punish our war criminals. Not that Obama broke any new ground with his ‘looking forward’ failure to punish or even bother to acknowledge the high crimes of his predecessor’s administration – Bubba Clinton let Poppy Bush and his minions slither away from their roles in Iran-Contra and Gerald Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon.

The festival of bloviating ignoramuses that held their annual festival of the victimized at CPAC where they railed against Barack Obama for basically bullshit now have a real scandal on their plates if they choose to pursue it. This isn’t the futile tilting at windmills of trying to repeal Obamacare nor of trying to manufacture criminal complicity in the Benghazi disaster that resulted in the death of a US ambassador and others – they never had the street cred on this one anyway given their failure to hold Bush in any way accountable for 9/11 happening on his watch. They now however have Obama by the balls and have true bipartisan support for an investigation as long as DiFi’s outrage holds up, it is only a matter of whether they choose to give them a good hard squeeze.

Now is the time to impeach the bastard.