Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Waterboarding Our Democracy

Waterboarding Our Democracy
Posted on Dec 11, 2007
By Robert Scheer
When the CIA destroyed those prisoner interrogation videotapes, was it
also destroying the truth about 9/11?  After all, according to the
9/11 Commission Report, the basic narrative of what happened on that
day--and the definition of the enemy in this war on terror that George
W. Bush launched in response to the tragedy--comes from the CIA's
account of what those prisoners told their torturers.  The commission
was never allowed to interview the prisoners, or speak with those who
did, and was instead forced to rely on what the CIA was willing to
relay.
On the matter of the existence of the tapes, we know the CIA lied, not
only to the 9/11 Commission but to Congress as well.  Given that the
Bush administration has for six years refused those prisoners any sort
of public legal exposure, why should we believe what we've been told
about what may turn out to be the most important transformative event
in our nation's history?  On the basis of what the CIA claimed the
tortured prisoners said, President Bush launched a "Global War on
Terrorism" (GWOT), an endless war that threatens to bankrupt our
society both financially and morally.
How important to the 9/11 Commission Report were those "key
witnesses"?  Check out the disclaimer on Page 146 about the
commission's sourcing of the main elements laid out in its narrative:
Chapters 5 and 7 rely heavily on information obtained from captured al
Qaeda members. ... Assessing the truth of statements by these
witnesses ... is challenging.  Our access to them has been limited to
the review of intelligence reports based on communications received
from the locations where the actual interrogation took place.  We
submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control
over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be
asked.  Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we
could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify
ambiguities in the reporting.  We were told that our requests might
disrupt the sensitive interrogation process.
Videos were made of those "sensitive" interrogations, which were
accurately described as "torture" by one of the agents involved, John
Kiriakou, in an interview with ABC News.  Yet when the 9/11 Commission
and federal judges specifically asked for such tapes, they were
destroyed by the CIA, which then denied their existence.
Of course our president claims he knew nothing about this whitewash,
and he may be speaking the truth, since plausible deniability seems to
be the defining leadership style of our commander in chief.  But what
about those congressional leaders who were briefed on the torture
program as early as 2002?  That includes Democrats such as Nancy
Pelosi, who has specialized in heartfelt speeches condemning torturers
in faraway places like China.
Pelosi press aide Brendan Daly told me that The Washington Post report
on her CIA briefing was "overblown" because Pelosi, then the ranking
Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, thought the techniques
described, which the CIA insists included waterboarding, were merely
planned and not yet in use.  Pelosi claimed that "several months
later" her successor as the ranking Democrat, Jane Harman, D-Calif.,
was advised that the techniques "had in fact been employed." Harman
wrote a classified letter to the CIA in protest, and Pelosi
"concurred." Neither went public with her concerns.
Harman told The Washington Post, "I was briefed, but the information
was closely held to just the Gang of Four.  I was not free to disclose
anything." The "Gang of Four" is an insider reference to the top
members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and not to the
thugs who ran Mao's China during the Cultural Revolution.
Not only did the congressional Gang of Four fail to inform the public
about the use of torture by our government, but it also kept the 9/11
Commission in the dark.  Pelosi testified before the commission on May
22, 2003, but uttered not a word of caution about the methods used.
However, more than two years later, on Nov. 16, 2005, Pelosi stated
correctly that on the basis of her "many years on the intelligence
committee," she knew that "[t]he quality of intelligence that is
collected by torture is ... uncorroborated and it is worthless."
Having admired Pelosi for decades, I hope I am missing something
here.  If she and the others in the know have another version of these
events it's time to come clean.  As matters now stand, they not only
concealed torture but, more significantly, they abetted the
waterboarding of our democracy.

 By Robert Scheer
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il goebbelsuccio tonibaruch prima di grugnire che questo articolo è OT
dovrebbe leggersi il manifesto del ng
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