Keeping Brennan as CIA Director = Triumph of Secret Government

[Octafish]

Democracy...Going, Going Gone

Keeping Brennan as CIA Director = Triumph of Secret Government

by DAVE LINDORFF
CounterPunch, August 05, 2014

EXCERPT...

The undermining of American democracy has a long history, but the process accelerated mightily after World War II, with the creation of the CIA, the National Security Agency and other three-letter intelligence organizations like the Defense Intelligence Agency and more recently the Department of Homeland Security.

During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, it became the accepted wisdom that to “defend” American freedom, it was necessary to create a secret government run by spooks and bureaucrats who answered only to the president and to a select few members of Congress, most notably the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Tossed aside was Ben Franklin’s warning: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,”

Rare indeed have been the occasions when that committee has actually exercised any real authority over the CIA or the other intelligence agencies, but as poor a job as the Congress has done in reining in secret government over the last 65 years, it has gotten worse since 9-11, when intelligence agencies were given essentially carte blanche to spy not just on suspected terrorists but ordinary American citizens, and not just those suspected of crimes, but all of us.

Now, we’ve reached this moment of truth, when the committee finally did do some actual investigating into the behavior of the CIA with regard to illegal rendition and torture of people suspected of terrorism or of plotting terrorist acts against the US. In response to the committee’s efforts to actually look into secret illegal CIA activities, Brennan’s spooks began spying on and monitoring the activities of those Senate investigators, who work directly for the people that the US public elects to act on their behalf. Even worse, the agency concocted fake evidence which it brought to the US Office of Attorney General, seeking to have criminal charges brought against those same staffers.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/05/keeping-brennan-as-cia-director-triumph-of-secret-government/

[questionseverything]

1. a list of the cia's war crimes

http://generalstrikeusa.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/30-kinds-of-approved-torture-used-by-the-c-i-a/

[Octafish]

2. Some of the folks we tortured were minors.

From your link:

Ali Khan, the father of detainee Majid Khan, “The Pakistani guards told my son that the boys were kept in a separate area upstairs and were denied food and water by other guards,” the statement read. “They were also mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding.” (A pdf transcript is available here)

To alleviate a bit of my shared shame, a bit on the Secret Government:

JFK Conference: Dan Hardway Detailed how CIA Obstructed HSCA Investigation

[questionseverything]

4. they raped the children in front of their parents to make them talk

19. Application of dogs, ants, snakes, spiders, maggots, rats, and other animals to induce fear and disgust. z_torture_iraq000

20. Near-death experiences; commonly asphyxiation by choking or drowning, with immediate resuscitation.

22. Forced to perform or witness abuse, torture of family.

//////////////////////////

i refuse to share this shame,,,bushco needs to be prosecuted and if that includes dems that signed off on it....so be it!!!

[bigtree]

3. not a counterpunch fan, but, recommended

. . . this is reminiscent of the Nixon-era political guard which blocked the path to prosecuting the President after it was clear he broke the law.

Only, this time it's as if it were the Democrats, themselves, staging that primary defense of Nixon.

Or, Obama as Ford.

[questionseverything]

5. what nixon did is nothing compared to this

eom

[blm]

26. There hasn't been a president in total control of the CIA since....ever.

Even Nixon played the puppet for Poppy and his cronies. Who was the first guy in China making deals with Chinese industrialists to move use manufacturing base to China?

Sorry to say, but, I find even many here at DU who are still naive when it comes to BFEE.

[Maedhros]

6. Firing Brennan would require political courage.

Something in short supply in the White House.

[hifiguy]

9. Well, when you remember what happened to

the last POTUS who seriously tried to control the CIA, etc., - fella named Kennedy, IIRC - it's not terribly surprising.

[99th_Monkey]

12. Ding Ding! Both JFK and RFK actually.

No one can tell me the timing of RFK's murder wasn't because Spooks Incorporated KNEW that if Bobby became POTUS, he would pick up where his dead brother left off, in dismantling the CIA.

[hifiguy]

13. After years of reading countless books

the only sensible conclusion to come to is that the Mafia and the CIA collaborated on getting JFK (and probably RFK too). Maybe with a tacit OK from one or two of the Joint Chiefs in Jack's case. Both the Mob and the CIA wanted JFK out of the way, as did Curtis LeMay and some of the crazier Joint Chiefs, especially after the Missile Crisis. The CIA-Mafia ties were strong and deep as a result of the anti-Castro plots. The CIA provided the operational support - see Douglass, James, JFK and the Unspeakable - and the Mob supplied the shooters.

[99th_Monkey]

19. +10 n/t

[TheKentuckian]

15. The official story doesn't support that and is said to be a baseless conspiracy theory as such

such a train of thought is silly excuse making or if the official story is bullshit and President Kennedy was wacked for making waves with the intelligence apparatus then our primary duty as citizens is to expose, defund, and make such agencies toxic.

If one wants to believe thusly then the most patriotic action possible is to burn the spooks with extreme prejudice, let's get this operatives on front street, let's get those methods and means out there, let's get those black revenue streams into the light.

If these people will take out a lawfully elected President to maintain their pecking order and budgets then they are treasonous by their very nature and an infinitely greater danger than any they supposedly protect us from.

[hifiguy]

16. They are and they did.

[TheKentuckian]

20. Then burn it if we can and oppose it until we do it is.

The people talking about protecting assets, personnel, and methods are batshit crazy because what should be happening is anything at all that can move the needle or compromise such rogues is a duty of citizenship, humanity, and sentience.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. The poor guy's patriotic and under a lot of pressure...or, something.

[QuestForSense]

8. Yeah, I think that message was subliminally communicated to me, too.

[Octafish]

32. Obama and the CIA—who runs Washington?

by Bill Van Auken
wsws.org, 11 July 2014

The arrests, raids, apartment searches and discussions about a wider spy ring taking place in Berlin recall the Cold War novels of John le Carré, chronicling the period in which the city was a covert battleground between the KGB, on the one hand, and the US, British and German intelligence services on the other.

SNIP...

The dilemma faced by Obama shares some essential features with that confronted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower 54 years ago, when a top secret U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union, creating a scandal that also cut across US foreign policy objectives.

With the May 1, 1960 downing of the U-2 coming on the eve of an East-West summit, the Eisenhower administration initially attempted—with humiliating results—to cover up the affair, claiming that the aircraft was a weather plane that had gone off course. The Soviets, however, had captured the pilot and were able to swiftly debunk the American alibi. At the same time, the Moscow bureaucracy, based on its policy of “peaceful coexistence” with US imperialism, took the position that the CIA and its politically powerful director, Allen Dulles, were solely to blame for the spy flight, and that Eisenhower himself was not responsible.

The silence of the White House on the affair led to criticism of Eisenhower on the floor of the Senate. Then-Democratic majority whip Mike Mansfield said that reports Eisenhower had no knowledge of the U-2 spying raised the question of “whether or not this administration has any real control over the federal bureaucracy.” The US press began sounding the same theme, criticizing the US president for failing to exercise control over the intelligence agency. Ten days after the downing of the plane, Eisenhower was compelled to make a public statement claiming responsibility for the spy program.

Several months later, Eisenhower was to deliver his farewell address, warning of the perils embodied in the growth of what he called the “military-industrial complex.” Its “acquisition of unwarranted influence,” he said, posed the danger of “the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”

Today, no one in Congress or the corporate media questions in regard to the German affair whether Obama exercises “any real control” over the US intelligence agencies, which, together with the military, have grown beyond anything that Eisenhower could have ever imagined. Eisenhower’s warning has been fully realized in the rise of a vast, secretive military-intelligence apparatus that wields the real power in Washington, while carrying out continuous and murderous violence, provocations and massive spying around the globe.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/07/11/pers-j11.html

[hifiguy]

35. The military-intelligence-industrial complex has been accountable

to no one since 11/22/63. It is the permanent government that can never be dislodged short of a revolution.

[JDPriestly]

10. K&R.

[Octafish]

29. Who is Watching the CIA?

Why Brennan Must Go and Obama Must Grow Up

by Melvin A. Goodman
CounterPunch, Weekend Edition August 8-10, 2014

Prior to the start of the Church Committee hearings in 1975, Senator Frank Church (D/ID) referred to the CIA as a “rogue elephant out of control.” I had a conversation with Senator Church in the late 1970s, and he agreed that his remarks were an overstatement and that there were no examples of the CIA conducting even unsavory operations that were not in response to instructions or guidance from the White House.

However, we now have an example of the CIA as a “rogue elephant out of control” in its efforts to block the investigation of the Senate intelligence committee into CIA torture and abuse. For the first time in my memory, the CIA has challenged the constitutional principle of separation of powers, and the oversight committee–the Senate intelligence committee–seems unable to respond effectively.

In March 2014, CIA director John Brennan emphatically denied that CIA officers had penetrated a computer network used by the Senate intelligence committee and had removed seminal documents relevant to the investigation. Brennan, who is known for having tight control over the departments and the decisions of the CIA, said the charge was “beyond the scope of reason.”

Five months later, Brennan apologized to the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee for the CIA’s surreptitious search of congressional computers as well as for the fact that CIA officers created a false online identity to access congressional computers and even to read the email of committee staffers. If Brennan knew in advance about this activity, he should have been immediately fired; if Brennan didn’t know, he should have been immediately fired because it testified to the fact that he has lost control of his Agency.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/08/who-is-watching-the-cia/

PS: For those who just fell off the turnip truck, Melvin Goodman is the real deal.

[Enthusiast]

11. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

Come on, people, wake the fuck up!

[Octafish]

30. Why this matters: ''Horticulture.''

During a drinking game among literati, Dorothy Parker was challenged to use the word in a sentence:

''You can drag a horticulture, but you can't make her think.”

The CIA spying scandal and the disintegration of American democracy

Tom Carter
wsws.org, 14 July 2014

Last Thursday, the US Department of Justice quietly announced that it would not launch a criminal investigation following the revelation in March that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had spied on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee. News of this decision—which concerns one of the most significant constitutional breaches in modern American history—was barely reported in the establishment media and prompted no significant response from any section of the political establishment.

The Obama administration’s decision and the acquiescence of the rest of Washington underscore the reality, behind the trappings of democracy, of de facto rule by an unelected and authoritarian military-intelligence apparatus. The military and intelligence agencies that preside over a vast global enterprise of violence and deceit operate in secret without any accountability or restraint, no matter which party controls Congress and the White House.

Obama himself—whose first job after graduating from college was as an analyst at Business International Corporation, an institution with well-documented CIA connections—functions in practice as a front man for the military and intelligence bureaucracy. Just last week he responded to the crisis in US-German relations triggered by the revelation that the CIA had recruited operatives to spy on the German Secret Service by declaring he had no knowledge of the CIA operation, raising the question of who runs the country. (See: Obama and the CIA—who runs Washington? )

Obama elevated John Brennan, who presided over the illegal spying on Congress, to head the CIA. As a high-level CIA official in the Bush administration, Brennan had defended the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (i.e., torture) against people accused of being terrorists.

Obama himself, from the moment he took office, worked to shield Bush-era criminals from investigation or prosecution.

The CIA’s spying on Congress is a flagrant violation of the US Constitution’s bedrock principle of separation of powers. As American high school students were once taught in civics classes, the basic theory of American constitutional government is that tyranny can be prevented only by dividing state power among three independent branches—the legislature, executive, and judiciary—each with its own limited powers regulated by a system of checks and balances.

The CIA spying scandal is particularly striking because the CIA’s target is not just any congressional committee—but the very Senate committee charged with oversight of the CIA.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/07/14/pers-j14.html

PS: WSWS is not mainstream. I think it's not well known because 1.) socialism sounds to capitalists just like communism and 2.) they tell don't dance around the truth.

[Enthusiast]

33. We have an unelected secret part of the government spying on an elected branch of government.

What part of that doesn't raise alarm bells to constitutional scholars?

It isn't like they still have the specter of communism as an excuse.

Duh.

[sadoldgirl]

14. He does not only keep Brennan,

but Clapper as well. I wonder whether he really had been given a choice. May be NSA/CIA/FBI are together the true, yet unelected,power here. That does not leave out the corporations, since I heard that 70% of the NSA budget goes to them.

[Octafish]

31. NSA...Booz Allen Hamilton...Carlyle Group...BFEE...our modern day slavemasters.

Behind the Curtain: Booz Allen Hamilton and its Owner, The Carlyle Group

Written by Bob Adelmann
The New American; June 13, 2013

According to writers Thomas Heath and Marjorie Censer at the Washington Post, The Carlyle Group and its errant child, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), have a public relations problem, thanks to NSA leaker and former BAH employee Edward Snowden. By the time top management at BAH learned that one of their top level agents had gone rogue, and terminated his employment, it was too late.

For years Carlyle had, according to the Post, “nurtured a reputation as a financially sophisticated asset manager that buys and sells everything from railroads to oil refineries”; but now the light from the Snowden revelations has revealed nothing more than two companies, parent and child, “bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits.”

And have they ever. When The Carlyle Group bought BAH back in 2008, it was totally dependent upon government contracts in the fields of information technology (IT) and systems engineering for its bread and butter. But there wasn't much butter: After two years the company’s gross revenues were $5.1 billion but net profits were a minuscule $25 million, close to a rounding error on the company’s financial statement. In 2012, however, BAH grossed $5.8 billion and showed earnings of $219 million, nearly a nine-fold increase in net revenues and a nice gain in value for Carlyle.

Unwittingly, the Post authors exposed the real reason for the jump in profitability: close ties and interconnected relationships between top people at Carlyle and BAH, and the agencies with which they are working. The authors quoted George Price, an equity analyst at BB&T Capital: "[Booz Allen has] got a great brand, they've focused over time on hiring top people, including bringing on people who have a lot of senior government experience." (Emphasis added.)

For instance, James Clapper had a stint at BAH before becoming the current Director of National Intelligence; George Little consulted with BAH before taking a position at the Central Intelligence Agency; John McConnell, now vice chairman at BAH, was director of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the ‘90s before moving up to director of national intelligence in 2007; Todd Park began his career with BAH and now serves as the country's chief technology officer; James Woolsey, currently a senior vice president at BAH, served in the past as director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and so on.

BAH has had more than a little problem with self-dealing and conflicts of interest over the years. For instance in 2006 the European Commission asked the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Privacy International (PI) to investigate BAH’s involvement with President George Bush’s SWIFT surveillance program, which was viewed by that administration as “just another tool” in its so-called “War on Terror.” The only problem is that it was illegal, as it violated U.S., Belgian, and European privacy laws. BAH was right in the middle of it. According to the ACLU/PI report,

Though Booz Allen’s role is to verify that the access to the SWIFT data is not abused, its relationship with the U.S. Government calls its objectivity significantly into question. (Emphasis added.)

Among Booz Allen’s senior consulting staff are several former members of the intelligence community, including a former Director of the CIA and a former director of the NSA.

As noted by Barry Steinhardt, an ACLU director, “It’s bad enough that the [Bush] administration is trying to hold out a private company as a substitute for genuine checks and balances on its surveillance activities. But of all companies to perform audits on a secret surveillance program, it would be difficult to find one less objective and more intertwined with the U.S. government security establishment.” (Emphasis added.)

CONTINUED w Links n Privatized INTEL...

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15696-behind-the-curtain-booz-allen-hamilton-and-its-owner-the-carlyle-group

PS: Inside trading armed with information to make a buck and to keep, eh, ahead of the competition.

[Ichingcarpenter]

17. Why are both men smiling?

And what are they smiling about?
Watch the press conference and turn off the sound.

Actually the head of the CIA is a figurehead, the CIA is so compromised and compartmentalized that only long term folk controlling their own department talk to another compartment power head and then only unless they get the OK from those running the show. They outsource their shit anyway. The Black Budget needs to have oversight and if you think Congress can do this and knows where the money goes think again. Control the money.

And its not the guy appointed by the president who knows shit unless they tell him what shit he should know.

[tblue37]

18. I do believe that the "deep government" has a great deal of power and

Last edited Tue Aug 5, 2014, 05:45 PM - Edit history (1)

is not answerable to the people or to our elected representatives. I suspect that there are other "actors" within the deep government, but I have no doubt that elements within the intelligence agencies are its major component.

I believe that the president has little control over the operatives in the "deep government," and that in fact those people and agencies are a potential threat to the president and to others in the visible government. I also suspect that those politicians and appointed officials are made to understand the limits of their control (and perhaps even of their safety, whether the threats are made in terms of physical harm or of destroying reputations). J. Edgar Hoover used the FBI and its intelligence-gathering capabilities to control politicians in powerful offices, including presidents and members of the House and Senate.

Politicians like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other such power-mad war criminals may or may not themselves be driving powers within the deep government, but since they actually approve of the power of the deep government agencies and eagerly pursue the same goals by the same means, there is no conflict between them and such agencies.

But other elected and appointed politicians have only limited (and probably largely cosmetic) control or influence over the goals and behavior of the intelligence community and other actors (which would consist not only of the agencies and actors that we can see, but also of those that are hidden from public awareness).

I have always suspected that Obama is a "stealth" progressive, doing enough sucking up and mollifying on the surface to keep the real Powers That Be from taking more drastic action to block his initiatives. Meanwhile, he moves policy incrementally, until it starts to add up to real progress.

That is what I think has happened in his administration with gay rights, the ACA, the resistance to pressure to get into further military entanglements abroad, etc.

Even the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is an example of this pattern. He wanted that bureau, and he wanted Warren to run it. But although she was able to set it up, and although she (and he) wanted her to head the agency, when Obama realized that there was no way to get her appointment past the Republican obstruction in Congress, he acceded to reality and did not appoint her. But they did get that agency set up, and although the Republican House refuses to fund it in a way that will allow it to do its job properly, I think that Obama believes/hopes that getting the structure established will lay a foundation for its improved functioning down the line.

That is how the ACA has worked, too. It enabled a number of significant improvements right away, but even more important, like Social Security in its early years, the ACA created a benefit that will be difficult for Republicans to snatch away from those who now have it, and it also established a framework for further improvement. SS was also limited in its effective benefits at first, but it was gradually improved over time.

Re: health care: At the time there was no plausible way to get a real single-payer solution—or even a public option—past congressional intransigence, but certain ACA features create opportunities for real improvements, while also making it difficult for Republicans to completely undo the good that has already been done by the law.

ON EDIT: My hyperactive autocorrect changed "deep government" in my subject line to "eel government." I just fixed it.

[Ichingcarpenter]

21. Great Post

I have always suspected that Obama is a "stealth" progressive, doing enough sucking up and mollifying on the surface to keep the real Powers That Be from taking more drastic action to block his initiatives. Meanwhile, he moves policy incrementally, until it starts to add up to real progress.



He's just surfing the wave, but the ocean
he's swimming in will take him as she wishes if he doesn't play with her according to her rules and knows what might drown him which is
seeking real justice.

He's just a player

[TheKentuckian]

25. Or he could be doing what he is doing because it is his agenda

and you are so deep in your rationalizations that you are constructing a conspiracy theory that will allow you to see anything and everything in an artificially good light and by doing so make any recovery of accountability even more difficult which means to stave off cognitive dissonance you are actually contributing to the real life and observable problems with highly speculative and unprovable theories rather than dealing with a much more simple reality.

Perhaps sometimes when one is required to theorize the unprovable to put observation into an acceptable context all they are doing is lying to themselves.

There is a high cost for being wrong on the speculation here in that it allows conditions to be set up that make the speculation actually the case when it isn't and we simply need to hold officials accountable instead of creatively wiping their ass while they ship on us all.

[blm]

27. An agenda written by Poppy Bush and his cronies when Obama was in grade school?

NO president breaks that inner circle at CIA

[TheKentuckian]

36. As evidenced by what? If so then all the other stuff has to wait because we are talking existential

threat.

Clue - it is hard for a concern to be credible when the people making it are on business as usual. Why would folks that believe our entire government has been usurped also be upset when the people behind the coup are compromised? Why are they not raising hell to get at that budget, legally constrain them at every opportunity, and cheer every piece of dirt exposed no matter how trivial until they are either put in check or exposed?

Now, I don't believe you are far off but the way I see it no one that isn't down ever gets a sniff, they are neutralized or get their wings snipped and don't move up if they aren't broadly down with the agenda.

[hifiguy]

22. Could not agree more with every word.

[KoKo]

23. Here's a bit of "Creative Speculation"

Remember the extramarital affair with the female military officer scandal that forced Gen. Patraeus to resign?

My Creative Speculation is: Petraeus's affair was outed by the discovery of the e-mails exchanged between him and the Military Officer. At the time that seemed like someone was spying on him. And, then he resigns opening the door for Brennan to step in. If Brennan or Clapper had anything to do with Petraeus affair outing...then that would be another one of his "dirty deeds" which needs investigating. I wasn't a fan of Petraeus and think he should have resigned (given what was revealed and his past history)...but, if it was due to Brennan & Clapper spying on Petraeus then it needs to come out that they might have spied on him for their own gain/agenda and not to save the CIA from the scandal of a Director who was having an extramarital affair who could make him a blackmail candidate.

From the article:

When Brennan’s predecessor, Gen. David Petraeus, resigned as head of the CIA, it was for having a secret extramarital lover whose very existence made him a potential subject of blackmail — a clear no-no for head of an intelligence agency.

[woo me with science]

24. K&R

[bobthedrummer]

28. We are getting close to totalitarian showdown time imo. The full spectrum dominance GESTAPO lives.

The Continuity of Government program is worthy of a public scoff today from all the world's citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_of_government

[kentuck]

34. He's a slick one....

...that Brennan!