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CIA Brennan To Be Fired In 3, 2, 1 …
Six days ago I wrote about the CIA spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee. At issue was a still secret report the committee wrote about the CIA's torture program. The CIA was going all out to prevent the report from becoming public:
One can reasonably predict that this will become a huge scandal and that John Brennan's half-life as CIA chief is now very limited.
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At the center of this scandal is CIA chief and drone killing promoter John Brennan who was in a leading CIA position when the torture happened. I find it likely that he is personally responsible for the coverup attempt just as he personally was responsible for the crime itself.
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Now, the intelligence committee is well know for usually being very protective of the spies, but I find it likely that it will react very harsh to being spied on itself.
Any pretense of a functioning democracy becomes incredible when the executive subverts the legislative arm overseeing it. To keep up the pretense will now necessitate a big purge at the CIA.
In a speech (added: video, transcript) held this morning in the Senate the committee chair Diana Feinstein, usually best friend of the spies, agreed. She summed up: "I have grave concerns that the CIA search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the US Constitution."
Feinstein alleged that the CIA had, without any basis in law, searched the committee's secure stand alone data network for evidence that the committee staff had copied a daming internal CIA report on torture the CIA did not want the staff to see. Feinstein explained that the staff had acquired that internal report from a shared network that was used to research through CIA material for the torture report. She said that the CIA later decided to remove inculpating documents from that shared network and after that accused the committee staff of illegally acquiring the documents it had earlier shared. Feinstein:
In May of 2010, the committee staff noticed that [certain] documents that had been provided for the committee’s review were no longer accessible. Staff approached the CIA personnel at the offsite location, who initially denied that documents had been removed. CIA personnel then blamed information technology personnel, who were almost all contractors, for removing the documents themselves without direction or authority. And then the CIA stated that the removal of the documents was ordered by the White House. When the committee approached the White House, the White House denied giving the CIA any such order.
The CIA spied, without any legal base, against the committee that oversees it. This to cover up its torture history. It first provide and then removed some documents and accused Senate staff that made legal copies of criminally accessing the later removed stuff. This is surely a personal work of CIA chief John Brennan but there were more people involved. The CIA's general council had referred one Senate committee staffer to the justice department for allegedly stealing the internal report. That general council, Robert Eatinger, was also involved in illegally destroying videos of torture sessions. He is mention himself, according to Feinstein, over 1,600 times in the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report.
The whole scandal leaves a lot of egg on Obama's face. He had pressed for Brennan to become head of the CIA. I would be astonished if Brennan manages to survive in that role beyond Friday afternoon. It will be the coverup, not the crime, that will do him in.
Obama will likely use some assertiveness in foreign policies to distract from this scandal.
Pirouz-2
“Should we even care what Obama’s real personality is, or what his real intentions are?”
I think so, because his type, amoral, conformist, eager to please the powerful and contemptuous of the poor and powerless (his stepfather Colonel Seotoro’s ‘weak men’) needs to be exposed. People need to understand that Obama is not just an extreme example of cynical careerism but is the product of a society ruled by terror, namely Indonesia after 1967. His position was very difficult, as a black child in a society in which race underpinned the genocide there, he had to be very careful, wary and conscious of what was happening around him. As an American with connections to the Embassy, the CIA and the Suharto army his was a privileged, protected perch. Rootless? Cosmopolitan? (I know the type because I am one myself.)
“Does it really play such an important role?”
It was a lot easier to organise scepticism of US Foreign Policy when the faux cowboy, ignoramus and callous W was in office. In that sense Obama, has been a huge distraction from the reality that nothing has changed. And that, given the term limit, is enough for the ruling class. When he leaves office he will still very likely retain the loyalty of a third of the “progressives” the “blacks” the poor and others he has betrayed.
The importance is that people learn by experience to judge politicians by what they do, promises by their specificity and policies from the small print.
“Let me ask a question, would it make a substantial difference if we were to replace him with someone with a sound personality and with the best of intentions?”
It would not be “us”, as you understand very well, doing the replacing. But, yes, I do think it would represent progress if the next puppet the financiers and their political machines put forward didn’t turn out to have a swastika carved on his forehead, wear a Goldmann Sachs T-shirt and believe the Constitution didn’t apply to him.
The point is that while these office holders are almost invariably bought and paid for, they emerge from a process in which the candidate’s ability to win public sympathy and support is important. Obama was elected because he was mistaken by large numbers of Americans as a man committed to change and reform, which was, again, mistaken to be something shared by the party and the organisation around him. So, in November 2008, millions of Americans voted for what they sensed was “radical.”
The significance being that the ruling class knows instinctively that it is a tiny minority that exists only on the sufferance of the masses, so it understands that it can never ask for more than the best compromise it can get. Sometimes that involves progressive taxation, social security, full employment, free healthcare and education; sometimes it gets away with much less. That is what it’s doing now: cashing in on the illusion that Obama means full employment etc, because to the untutored, inattentive eye he looks as if he should.
We saw something similar with “W”, believe it or not! He won many votes from ordinary Americans who viewed Gore as an elitist (lifetime Washingtonian) prig and felt that W, with his criticism of meddling in other countries, “nation building”, was an isolationist from the boondocks who shared the ambitions and tastes of the “regular” people.
What I suspect will happen, perhaps as soon as 2016, is for a candidate putting forward a popular socio- economic platform- which, though very mild, will seem highly radical- to emerge from the primaries. This is likely because the Democratic Party is so controlled by corporate interests and political “pros” that they will try to run Hillary and or Biden both of whom have “Sell by 1999” printed on their faces.
What will that signify? We will see, especially as it is not impossible that the Republicans will counter with their own non-traditional candidate.
Any change of direction could upset the applecart of the status quo, the deep consensus which reduces politics to celebrity contests.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 12 2014 22:55 utc | 42
There isn’t much difference between J Sorrentine’s analysis and any other form of anti-intellectualism.
Which means not opposition to intellectuals as a caste but, opposition to thought as a guide to action.
The role of the individual in history is not something fixed by rule. Systems and classes are made up of individuals, ideologies are developed by individuals, often auditioning for power and rewards before individuals acting on behalf of class interests, who guide the system.
The system does not run itself.
The thesis that Obama is incompetent is perfectly tenable. There is a wealth of evidence supporting it, and it will not dissolve because someone shouts at it or laughs at the very idea of its existence.
This may be news to J, and others, but the history of imperialism is rife with examples of incompetence in high places.
Some of the greatest, which is to say the most influential and revered among their peers, leaders have been the architects of spectacular disasters.
The fact that the system survived them does not, contrary to the Sorrentine school of logic, mean that they, far from being disasters were parts of cunning plots designed to give an implacable system an air of vulnerability, in order to…The possibilities are endless. But they always come down to the same thing: imperialism cannot be beaten.
Juan Moment explains why:
“…What is not mentioned often enough is how much truth there is in the old proverb ‘people get the leaders they deserve’. Tell me what leader a country has and I tell you what its people are like. Much can be said about the mindset prevalent in the electorate of NATO countries who continuously vote in proven sociopaths ready to bomb foreign places at the drop of a hat….”
So “democracy” does work, is that the conclusion?
Remarkably it is precisely what the imperialists themselves tell us. It is what the apologists for Congress tell us. It is what at least five members of the Supreme Court tell us.
And it isn’t true. I don’t have to explain why-or do I?- because everyone here knows why what the Capitalist class call representative democracy is neither.
As to J’s answer:
“It’s real simple. Someone acts like a pariah, treat them – and those who cover for them – like a fucking pariah. It is not that hard.”
I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work. I’ve been giving Obama, just like I used to give Tony Blair, the pariah treatment for years. And neither pays me any heed. Call them thick skinned but they just persist in their evil ways. And yet there are millions like me and J.who despise them.
So, as you see, I’m reduced to doing what David Bromwich is doing: patiently explaining to anyone who will listen why I have concluded that these people are not what they are presented as being-(knowing as I do that J. Sorrentine and Juan Moment are either not convincing the population or don’t have the ear of the masses)- but are nothing more than puppets acting for the Ruling Class. And I explain this by suggesting why this might be. And that could include psychology, horrible though the thought is.
The job of ridding the world of a dangerous and evil system of government, which I call Imperialism (because I’m not very inventive?), requires that we begin somewhere. And that place is where the great weight of humanity is. So we begin, (and this is a labour of Sysyphus, which requires repeated beginnings), by asking people what they think and proceeding from there.
Of course it is always tempting to tell the masses to shut the fuck up, because any fool can see that Obama is a war criminal and anyone who disagrees is just as bad as him, and if everyone just follows instructions-does what we tell them, and leaves the thinking to the ranters among us, everything will turn out great.
The only problem is that though nobody expects the masses to think they might have to give up their lives. In the meantime they will certainly have to give up a night a week for branch meetings, early mornings for newspaper sales, 20% of their income for funding the “party” and resign themselves to being blacklisted by employers, while their families, if they have any, live in poverty and constant apprehension of disaster.
It is tedious always to have to return to the same positions: some people regard the ruling class, its figureheads and creatures as being completely aware of the consequences of everything that they do. They see everything that happens as having been consciously planned and executed. What they do is evil.
Those brought up in religious cultures may recognise this sort of thinking.
The devil is everywhere, he is a fount of evil plans, inspiring evil deeds. And the way to deal with him is to denounce him. To expose the cloven hoof.
There can be no backsliding here, brothers and sisters, do not talk to the evil one.
Or to his servants because they are evil too. Oh ,there will be those, serpents tempting you-let us call them the “smart set”-who will tell you that we are dealing with capitalism and that it has contradictions to be exposed and probed, that it can be torn apart and a better world built.
But that is the devil’s talk, too! There can be no compromise with evil! Do not be tempted by the smart set! You could end up thinking for yourselves. God knows you might end up thinking that you could play an equal part in ruling the world, organising your own lives.
Yes, friends, the “smart set” are clever, they are tempting you. But pay them no mind! Your brains aren’t up to it. We have seen the mess that you make when given the chance: look at the wars that you have brought us, that you have imposed upon your poor hardworking leaders, enslaved by your blood lust and racism into attacking unoffending countries. Laying waste and mowing down the innocent in their thousands, yea, and tens of thousands, even unto millions!
Have faith and leave the thinking to your betters: you will recognise them by the violence of their ranting-the wrath of God is within them, brothers and sisters, Hallelujah.
(At which point members of the smart set slink out from the meeting house, pursued by an angry mob.)
Posted by: bevin | Mar 14 2014 3:46 utc | 58
This has been a discussion about the nature of evil, which is always a worthy subject, at any time, at any place, under diverse circumstances. It is worth taking time with. This is not phenomenology; this subject does not make its home in the adrenal glands; and even thoughtful people who once sat around at night together under the stars, or who were perhaps in the barracks of a concentration camp under a collective sentence of death, are remembered for taking the time to talk quietly, and considerately to one another, about this.
We’re looking at the nature of this destructive political alliance, this whole system, asking whether the apparatus of an authoritarian office like the presidency or the State department, has, since the establishment of the National Security State, been rigged in such a way, as to rewire the men who take hold of its reins. But as Chris Hedges has written “Those who are attracted to power are mediocre at best”. And living through the tenure of a series of presidents, we have seen what the worst examples can be.
President Obama is not incompetent, if the criteria for competence is his purposeful aim toward the frightful gamble into which he has thrown our country, along with Europe, into possible war with Russia. I’d like to understand the trajectory of this madness.
When the president more or less convicted Pvt. Manning in the public forum, extemporaneously, without turning to the teleprompter for guidance, I would say that it was his own idea. I would say that the private, hidden Obama, thought all along that Manning deserved all the abuse he suffered in solitary, while in military custody. Obama, in my view, has left his personal stamp on the presidency, through his associate, the Attorney General, Holder. The war on whistle-blowers, an extravagant departure from precedent, driving the war wagon of the Espionage Act. All that reveals Obama, as I see it. And his private, secretive conclave with Hillary after the primary election was over: it cries out intentionality, strategy, personal style of governing, Hillary’s designation as his hatchet person in the arena of vulnerable nations, and maybe even a quid pro quo, wherein he promised his support for 2016, for her future presidency.
A president who boasts that he’s “good at killing people”, to his staff, is surely the stuff of nightmares. And General Dempsey, grinning and announcing he’s ready to go toe to toe with the Russkies: an about face, from the cold feet the military seemed to have during the crisis over Syria. And Secretary of State, John Kerry, whose whole demeanor seems to match a physical change, his face is transformed into a brutish mask.
What is going on with these men?
Posted by: Copeland | Mar 14 2014 4:26 utc | 60
[…] any other form of anti-intellectualism. Which means not opposition to intellectuals as a caste but, opposition to thought as a guide to action. […]
Bevin, in my opinion what you wrote here is nonsense. The problem is that two crucial elements in your “thought as a guide to action” are missing: thought and action.
If anything the exact opposite is true. What is most frustrating is that despite overwhelming evidence clearly showing most senators, reps or presidents being nothing more than enablers of this anti-social plutocratic killer system, there is no ‘thought’ amongst the electorate. If there was and it is indeed guiding their actions, say when they re-elect the same bunch of idiots over and over again, one doesn’t have to be ‘anti-intellectual’ to be not impressed with the quality of said thought.
[…] The thesis that Obama is incompetent is perfectly tenable. There is a wealth of evidence supporting it, and it will not dissolve because someone shouts at it or laughs at the very idea of its existence. […]
Has it occurred to you that people can be both, incompetent and depraved enough to intentionally blow up human beings? No one denies that Obomber is incompetent, what is argued here is that in addition his personality has all the properties required to order executions of innocent people all over the world and still manage to fall asleep with a smile.
[…] Of course it is always tempting to tell the masses to shut the fuck up, because any fool can see that Obama is a war criminal and anyone who disagrees is just as bad as him, […]
What are you smoking man? The core message is to speak the fuck up, and I mean not by writing essays explaining Obama’s dirty deeds away as him guided by incompetence clumsily ending up as the one who has to take responsibility for circumstances he never wanted to arise.
[…] some people regard the ruling class, its figureheads and creatures as being completely aware of the consequences of everything that they do. […]
Presidents, chancellors, prime ministers get briefings from their numerous teams of so called experts tasked with playing through various scenarios. Only apologists for their criminal actions would argue that no one could have foreseen that decisions taken would cause events to unfold as they did.
Besides, any preschool kid can figure out that when a president gives orders to bomb villages or allows his quislings to plan violent coups there will be death and mayhem.
I seem to remember a Canadian diplomat once said he came to the conclusion that it is not as he first thought that politicians have good intentions but act on bad information. Its the other way round, he found that most politicians have bad intentions and good information. From my understanding and observation, he may well be right.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Mar 14 2014 5:33 utc | 63
bevin (58)
There isn’t much difference between J Sorrentine’s analysis and any other form of anti-intellectualism.
Which means not opposition to intellectuals as a caste but, opposition to thought as a guide to action.
Oh well, just count me in there, right next to JSorrentine.
There’s a reason I chose the “Pragma” in my nickname. Not that I’m in any way opposed to “intellectual” in the original meaning of that term. But I’m
massively annoyed by “intellectuals” arguing over detail issues they themselves created in the first place, while millions and millions of real (physical)
people see their life earnings burning away or simply stolen, if they are lucky, that is; if they are less lucky they’re part of the millions and millions
of people who get shot, bombed, missiled, shred, and pissed on when they’re dead.
And all that while some “intellectuals” argue over the details of something being slighty less bourgeois or slighty more ideologically right or whether Nietzsche influenced some politician or ideology more than lenin.
And, in fact, I got reprimanded for being a human being. I really and seriously got reprimanded by you and other “intellectuals” here for being a human being, venting my perfectly justified anger over all the suffering, pain, and damage that was – and is right now – created by *ultracriminal piles of bio-waste* – to call them human I refuse.
The funny thing being that the “intellectuals” are an actively co-operative wheel in the machinery that so easily takes millions of lifes, that so easily
makes billions of life unpleasant, that create so much damage, that destroy places of millenia old high culture to make room for a football field or a mc donalds for the bio-waste tools of the criminal bio-waste.
The “intellectuals” are actively co-operating wheels of the machinery because they *talk* about “human values” and “acting humanely” and they theoretically
refuse evil deeds, but then they ponder fucking irrelevant micro-details of this or that “school of thought”, or worse, this or that political concept … while bio-waste like nuland, obama, merkel, hollande, mc cain’t prepare end enact their moves.
There are billions of human voting, working, consuming bots out there who unfortunately lack the brains and/or the opportunity to understand the cruel
system and its luring games like democracy in which they, the 99.999% are meant to never ever achieve any not insignificant level of participation, of a good life, of wealth, of education or, satan beware, of power.
They are in urgent need of real intellectuals, i.e. of bright people, capable to understand what’s going on, to stand aside the 99.999%, of explaining, of educating and, most importantly, to fight for some freedom for the masses.
But alas, no, the “intellectuals” prefer to wank over minutiae and microdetails, over issues like “is rice bigger an influence (on whomever) than krauthammer?”.
And you reprimand me? Seriously? So, we finally achieved the point where “intellectual” but co-operative theoretical minutiae pondering bots feel free to judge people like me?
Pardon me, but I sometimes can’t but worry whether the “good intellectuals” who are, oh soooo opposed to any and all negative concepts, and who are, oh soooo much on the side of good and right … aren’t more dangerous than the obamas and merkels who, after all, act quite openly rassistic, inhuman, and despicable.
Let me let you in on a secret: No amount of intellectual pondering will stop the criminal murderers and traitors and nazis in kyiv. Bullets, however will. And reliably so.
Similarly no amount of intellectual pondering will stop the ultra-criminal satanist gang in washington. Sunken war ships, missiles into their bases (thousands of miles away from zusa), and finally, bullets right into their heads *will* stop them.
No doubt, you have the right to think and to opine and say whatever you please. And so do I.
Don’t you ever again dare to reprimand me, intellectual! But feel absolute free to consider me anti-intellectual. I couldn’t care less.
Ceterum censeo israel americanamque vehementer delenda esse.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Mar 14 2014 11:39 utc | 69
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