Does the President fear the CIA?

[kentuck]

Is he fearful that something will happen to him or his family if he is thought to be anti-CIA or anti-intelligence gathering? Is that why he keeps Brennan on board? Or does he actually agree with the criminal?

Is this something that someone besides the President will have to lead on? He cannot do it.

Does anyone think the CIA has that type of control over politicians in Washington?

[Tatiana]

1. Of course he does. As we all should. No one controls or supervises that outfit.

The last president who tried to reign them in was Kennedy and we all know how that turned out.

[Cali_Democrat]

2. You think the CIA was ultimately responsible for JFK's assassination? nt

[larkrake]

4. no doubt in my mind Bobby too

[MinM]

109. Sandy Serrano

A great example in the RFK case was the interrogation of Sandy Serrano by CIA plant in the LAPD (Hank Hernandez) ..

Somewhat analogous to the CIA torture program in that far from fact-finding or legitimate attempts to get at the truth .. it was intended to support a given narrative.

[Tatiana]

7. Ultimately? I don't know for sure.

Could they have created an environment where it was likely to happen? Absolutely.

From their involvement in Central and South Americas, as well as the Middle East, the CIA has never had a problem deposing democratically elected leaders and propping up ruthless dictators.

If they've done it in foreign nations, what would prevent them from doing it here in the United States? They have lots of experience, after all.

[wildbilln864]

106. exactly! well said....n/t

[LiberalLoner]

34. +1

[2naSalit]

96. +1

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. No. But he fears the backlash if he tries to hold the thugs accountable for their crimes.

[hifiguy]

5. Every Democratic president after Truman has been scared

absolutely shitless of the CIA with the sole exception of John F. Kennedy.

[mountain grammy]

63. So yeah, there's that... and RFK too.

[whathehell]

78. Not refuting that idea at all, but I'm curious as to what you base it on..

Enquiring minds want to know.

[librechik]

88. there is this new field of history called Deep Politics.

after you study the history of the last century within the perspective of it's hidden relationships with criminals, dictators and the military you never look at a president standing at a podium and saying words with the same confidence.

Peter Dale Scott is a pioneer of Deep Politics. His books are very rewarding and exquisitely researched. You can also watch him on YouTube. I especially recommend his essays on the COG (Continuity of Government) plan cooked up by Cheney and Rumsfeld back in the 80s, which the pair finally implemented on September 12 2001, thanks to The New Pearl Harbor.

[whathehell]

92. I'll check it out. n/t

[spanone]

6. If i were him, i certainly would. Presidents come & go, the cia is here to stay.

if, as the report says, the cia lied to the white house & congress.....well. that's pretty much a rogue agency.

[grasswire]

8. yes nt

[6000eliot]

9. If they don't have shit on you, they can make it up and sound convincing.

[stevenleser]

10. No, he doesn't fear them. He doesn't fear the CIA or NSA and he doesn't fear the military.

He has the power to dismiss any members of those groups.

[kentuck]

13. Do you truly believe that, Steven??

How familiar are you with the history of the CIA?

[stevenleser]

15. 100% I do, and very familiar to your second question. nt

[Scuba]

66. So then he must be OK with the CIA lying to Congress, eh?

[KingCharlemagne]

69. And he must also be OK with the CIA spying on Congress, too. - nt

[Scuba]

70. Yep, that too.

[KingCharlemagne]

71. When the story broke about the CIA spying on Feinstein's select committee, Charlie Pierce

published a grand-slam of an essay that has stuck with me:

It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that, in one very important way, the president has lost control of his own government. The current constitutional crisis between the CIA and the Senate committee tasked with investigating its policies regarding torture during the previous administration has only one real solution that is consonant with the rule of law. Either CIA director John Brennan gets to the bottom of what his people were doing and publicly fires everyone involved, or John Brennan becomes the ex-director of the CIA. By the Constitution, this isn't even a hard call. The Senate has every legal right to investigate what was done in the name of the American people during the previous decade. It has every legal right to every scrap of information relating to its investigation, and the CIA has an affirmative legal obligation to cooperate. Period. The only way this is not true is if we come to accept the intelligence apparatus as an extra-legal, formal fourth branch of the government.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/obama-cia-john-brennan-031414 (Emphasis added)

President Obama is either complicit in this subversion of our democratic republic or he feels himself powerless to combat it (whether because of fear or some other emotion).

I notice that none of the usual defenders will respond to your salient observation, suggesting you have touched a nerve.

[Scuba]

72. Neither Brooklynite nor Lesser has replied.

[KingCharlemagne]

73. I edited my post to delete my specific call-out, but yeah, the silence is deafening. They

really need to respond to what Charlie Pierce argued (and to your observations).

[Dont call me Shirley]

77. And there's rainbow colored unicorns and cotton candy clouds...

[Nuclear Unicorn]

101. I can't help but believe that the CTs make it that much harder to engage in actual reform.

How can genuine pressure to reform be brought to bear when those espousing it come-off like Ron Paul-esque cranks? All the defenders have to do is point to the chorus of CT singers and proclaim, "So, you're one of those, huh?"

If the CIA is so all-powerful how did such a competent administrator as David Patreaus get bounced for something every third congress-critter is doing?

[blm]

11. I doubt BHO's in PoppyBush's inner power circle. What president is?

BHO least of all, imo.

Circles within circles. I am never surprised when I hear that the President learned something done by 'the CIA' in the press.

Kinda not even mattering whether he 'fears' them - more like he isn't even close to being part of that LOOP and aware of everything they are doing.

[librechik]

89. Bill Clinton n/t

[Wellstone ruled]

12. Wonderful to see many DU ers

awakening to what the real story is. Yes,do think our President is fearful for his family and himself,and other leaders of Color. Read your History on or about the CIA,it was the old OSI of WW2 and latter reorganized along the lines of the SS of Germany. Many of the SS people from Germany were hired by what became the new CIA and the rest is History. Our hands are by no means clean.

[Octafish]

14. NSA spied on Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) in 1976.

Frank Church was a patriot, a hero and a statesman, truly a great American. The guy also led the last real investigation of CIA, NSA and FBI. When it came to NSA Tech circa 1975, he definitely knew what he was talking about:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. A brave man, the NSA was turned on him. Coincidentally, he narrowly lost re-election a few years later.

And what happened to Church, for his trouble to preserve Democracy:

In 1980, Church will lose re-election to the Senate in part because of accusations of his committee’s responsibility for Welch’s death by his Republican opponent, Jim McClure.

SOURCE: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_church_1

From GWU's National Security Archives:

"Disreputable if Not Outright Illegal": The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald, Frank Church, et al.

Newly Declassified History Divulges Names of Prominent Americans Targeted by NSA during Vietnam Era

Declassification Decision by Interagency Panel Releases New Information on the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Panama Canal Negotiations

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 441
Posted – September 25, 2013
Originally Posted - November 14, 2008
Edited by Matthew M. Aid and William Burr

Washington, D.C., September 25, 2013 – During the height of the Vietnam War protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of selected prominent Americans, most of whom were critics of the war, according to a recently declassified NSA history. For years those names on the NSA's watch list were secret, but thanks to the decision of an interagency panel, in response to an appeal by the National Security Archive, the NSA has released them for the first time. The names of the NSA's targets are eye-popping. Civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. Also startling is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Howard Baker (R-Tennessee).

SNIP...

Another NSA target was Senator Frank Church, who started out as a moderate Vietnam War critic. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Church worried about U.S. intervention in a "political war" that was militarily unwinnable. While Church voted for the Tonkin Gulf resolution, he later saw his vote as a grave error. In 1965, as Lyndon Johnson made decisions to escalate the war, Church argued that the United States was doing "too much," criticisms that one White House official said were "irresponsible." Church had been one of Johnson's Senate allies but the President was angry with Church and other Senate critics and later suggested that they were under Moscow's influence because of their meetings with Soviet diplomats. In the fall of 1967, Johnson declared that "the major threat we have is from the doves" and ordered FBI security checks on "individuals who wrote letters and telegrams critical of a speech he had recently delivered." In that political climate, it is not surprising that some government officials eventually nominated Church for the watch list.[10]

SOURCE: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/

I wonder if Sen. Richard Schweiker (R-CT) also got the treatment from NSA?

“I think that the report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards, and I think the people who read it in the long run future will see that. I frankly believe that we have shown that the [investigation of the] John F. Kennedy assassination was snuffed out before it even began, and that the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was not to use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up.” — Senator Richard Schweiker on “Face the Nation” in 1976.

Lost to History NOT

Imagine what the can do with today's computers? Drones, too.

[jwirr]

102. Frank Church was one of the great liberals. He was also one of the group of Senators who were

swept out of office by some type of scandal or the like by the rethugs. From the time of the death of JFK this bunch of liberals were systematically targeted until they were no more. Don't know if it can be proved but I watched it while it happened and have always thought it happened.

Thank you for the memories.

[MinM]

110. Jimmy Hoffa and the Church Committee

PBS of all places called out the CIA for their attempts to obstruct the Church Committee ..

From this oldie but goodie...

A little off topic here but it was interesting last night that PBS' History Detectives investigation concluded that Hoffa was killed to prevent him from testifying to the Church Committee.

Ostensibly to keep him from spilling the beans any further about Russell Bufalino's (Philly/NY mob boss) ties to the CIA. Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli were silenced in the Summer of 75 too (apparently for the same reason).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025277060#post33

Just for good measure the FBI got political payback in subsequent years..

[brooklynite]

16. TOS: "Don't go overboard with the crazy talk."

Democratic Underground is not intended to be a platform for kooks and crackpots peddling paranoid fantasies with little or no basis in fact. To accommodate our more imaginative members we tolerate some limited discussion of so-called "conspiracy theories" under the following circumstances: First, those discussions are not permitted in our heavily-trafficked Main forums; and second, those discussions cannot stray too far into Crazyland (eg: chemtrails, black helicopters, 9/11 death rays or holograms, the "New World Order," the Bilderbergers, the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, alien abduction, Bigfoot, and the like). In addition, please be aware that many conspiracy theories have roots in racism and anti-semitism, and Democratic Underground has zero tolerance for bigoted hate speech. In short, you take your chances.

[kentuck]

17. Well, you are a big help.

Naive, maybe, but a big help...

[brooklynite]

18. All you have to do is provide evidence, and I'll stop being naive

Of course, having MET the President, and the Vice President, and someo of the people who advise them, as well as most of the Senate and House leadership, maybe my perspective is different.

Or, as a 1%er, maybe I'm actually part of the evil conspiracy...

[kentuck]

21. You will need to take some responsibility for educating yourself.

I don't have time today.

[Rex]

27. See he met these folks! SO that should mean you can't talk about it anymore.

I swear some of the crazy shit people make up here makes me for days. I bet you didn't know this kentuck, but I met Elvis...okay maybe just an impersonator...but hey don't you DARE say anything about Elvis! I met him! Series!

[SammyWinstonJack]

35. ...

[brooklynite]

57. I'M not saying you can't say anything...

...you and I both signed up for Skinner's rules.

[hifiguy]

22. Google Octafish's exqusitely researched and documented posts

on this and many related subjects. The Good Ol' DU Google is your friend.

[brooklynite]

23. Or, another JFK conspiracy page

[Octafish]

79. You wrote you haven't read anything to change your mind.

Have you read James Douglass' "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters"? He lays out what's been learned over the last 50 years in a scholarly way.

You may also enjoy "Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why" by Gerald D. McKnight, another scholarly work.

These, and the works of many honest researchers, will be cited in the future, provided we are still free to learn.

The good people in Pittsburgh at Heinz History Center co-hosted with Dr. Cyril Wecht, MD, some of the important events at the the "Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" conference at Duquesne University. Thanks to DU and the people in Pittsburgh who grok the importance of history on our culture and society and future, I can share what I learned through them:

Octafish to attend JFK assassination conference. Do you think JFK still matters?

JFK Conference: Amazing Day of Information and Connecting with Good People

After JFK Conference, when I got home, I felt like RFK.

JFK Conference: Bill Kelly introduced new evidence - adding Air Force One tape recordings

JFK Conference: Rex Bradford detailed the historic importance of the Church Committee

JFK Conference: Lisa Pease Discussed the Real Harm of Corrupt Soft Power

JFK Conference: James DiEugenio made clear how Foreign Policy changed after November 22, 1963

JFK Conference: Mark Lane Addressed the Secret Government’s Role in the Assassination

JFK Conference: David Talbot named Allen Dulles as 'the Chairman of the Board of the Assassination'

JFK Conference: Dan Hardway Detailed how CIA Obstructed HSCA Investigation

Noah's Ark - Nov. 22, 1963 (at Oakland Community College in Michigan)

JFK Remembered: Dan Rather and James Swanson talk at The Henry Ford (like Heinz History Center, a Smithsonian Affiliated Institution.)

Seven Days in May -- tonight on TCM

Machine Gun Mouth

PS: You imply, brooklynite, that I am a conspiracist. Not exactly, as I am interested in learning the truth. What I've learned so far says "Conspiracy." If you really are interested our nation and its future, I recommend you learn more about what happened to President Kennedy, a man who worked every day in office to keep the peace and make ours a better nation for ALL.

[librechik]

91. Thank you Octafish. Funny how some people's reading list can be missing large pieces of truth. n/t

[Octafish]

103. You are most welcome, librechik! Here's something from Nixon to know...

President Richard Milhous Nixon OK'd assigning a murderous Secret Service agent to protect Ted Kennedy. The moment was caught on the White House tapes: Nixon approved hiring a Secret Service man who said he'd "kill anybody on command" to guard Ted Kennedy. You can hear Nixon and Haldeman discuss it, about 40 minutes into the HBO documentary "Nixon by Nixon." While I had read the part of the transcript available years ago, and wrote about it on DU, almost no one I know has heard anything about it.

Ted Kennedy survived Richard Nixon's Plots

By Don Fulsom

In September 1972, Nixon’s continued political fear, personal loathing, and jealously of Kennedy led him to plant a spy in Kennedy’s Secret Service detail.

The mole Nixon selected for the Kennedy camp was already being groomed. He was a former agent from his Nixon’s vice presidential detail, Robert Newbrand—a man so loyal he once pledged he would do anything—even kill—for Nixon.

The President was most interested in learning about the Sen. Kennedy’s sex life. He wanted, more than anything, stated Haldeman in The Ends of Power, to “catch (Kennedy) in the sack with one of his babes.”

In a recently transcribed tape of a September 8, 1972 talk among the President and aides Bob Haldeman and Alexander Butterfield, Nixon asks whether Secret Service chief James Rowley would appoint Newbrand to head Kennedy’s detail:

Haldeman: He's to assign Newbrand.

President Nixon: Does he understand that he's to do that?

Butterfield: He's effectively already done it. And we have a full force assigned, 40 men.

Haldeman: I told them to put a big detail on him (unclear).

President Nixon: A big detail is correct. One that can cover him around the clock, every place he goes. (Laughter obscures mixed voices.)

President Nixon: Right. No, that's really true. He has got to have the same coverage that we give the others, because we're concerned about security and we will not assume the responsibility unless we're with him all the time.

Haldeman: And Amanda Burden (one of Kennedy’s alleged girlfriends) can't be trusted. (Unclear.) You never know what she might do. (Unclear.)

[font color="red"]Haldeman then assures the President that Newbrand “will do anything that I tell him to … He really will. And he has come to me twice and absolutely, sincerely said, "With what you've done for me and what the President's done for me, I just want you to know, if you want someone killed, if you want anything else done, any way, any direction …"[/font color="red"]

President Nixon: The thing that I (unclear) is this: We just might get lucky and catch this son-of-a-bitch and ruin him for '76.

Haldeman: That's right.

President Nixon: He doesn't know what he's really getting into. We're going to cover him, and we are not going to take "no" for an answer. He can't say "no." The Kennedys are arrogant as hell with these Secret Service. He says, "Fine," and (Newbrand) should pick the detail, too.

Toward the end of this conversation, Nixon exclaims that Newbrand’s spying “(is) going to be fun,” and Haldeman responds: “Newbrand will just love it.”

Nixon also had a surveillance tip for Haldeman for his spy-to-be: “I want you to tell Newbrand if you will that (unclear) because he's a Catholic, sort of play it, he was for Jack Kennedy all the time. Play up to Kennedy, that "I'm a great admirer of Jack Kennedy." He's a member of the Holy Name Society. He wears a St. Christopher (unclear).” Haldeman laughs heartily at the President’s curious advice.

Despite the enthusiasm of Nixon and Haldeman, Newbrand apparently never produced anything of great value. When this particular round of Nixon’s spying on Kennedy was uncovered in 1997, The Washington Post quoted Butterfield as saying periodic reports on Kennedy's activities were delivered to Haldeman, but that Butterfield did not think any potentially damaging information was ever dug up.

SOURCE:

http://surftofind.com/tedkennedy

The compassion of Richard Nixon, regarding Ted Kennedy: "If he gets shot, it's too damn bad."

Nixon Dug Deep For Dirt On Ted Kennedy

CALVIN WOODWARD | 08/28/09 03:20 PM | AP

EXCERPT...

Nixon pressed for more wiretaps and a combing of tax records, not only on Kennedy but other leading Democrats. "I could only hope that we are, frankly, doing a little persecuting," he said.

SNIP...

But Nixon's motives for the offer were not pure. He worried that if a third Kennedy were shot, and while not having Secret Service protection, he'd be blamed.

Plus, he wanted dirt. And the best way to get it was to have a Secret Service agent rat on the senator. There is no evidence an agent turned into such an informer.

"You understand what the problem is," Nixon told Haldeman and Ehrlichman on Sept. 7, 1972. "If the (SOB) gets shot they'll say we didn't furnish it (protection). So you just buy his insurance.

"After the election, he doesn't get a ... thing. If he gets shot, it's too damn bad. Do it under the basis, though, that we pick the Secret Service men.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/28/nixon-dug-deep-for-dirt-o_n_271012.html

The Warren Commission, and the nation's mass media, never heard about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro until the Church Committee in 1975. You'd think that would be a matter of concern to all Americans, especially considering how then-vice president Nixon was head of the "White House Action Team" that hired the Mafia to murder Fidel Castro.

[brooklynite]

98. I have read your material..and I retain my position

...there is no hard evidence here about the CIA or other secret minions killing JFK, and there is no hard evidence (or for that matter, soft evidence) that the CIA is threatening President Obama. If thinking of me as "naive" makes you feel better, go for it.

[Octafish]

100. You must be mixed up. I didn't call you naive.

I do appreciate that you read my posts.

[zappaman]

97. You may want to read Bugliosi's Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

It lays out the case for little shit Lee Harvey Oswald killing the President alone.
You will find that conspiracy theorists have been omitting evidence and just plain making shit up for years.
A lot of those conspiracy theorists are too scared to read it since it messes with their conspiratorial view of the world.

[truebluegreen]

54. I remember in college I knew a girl whose family

was friendly with Spiro Agnew's. She insisted that her perspective was different and No Way was he guilty of anything.

OK, I made that first part up.

But you never did answer just what evidence would convince you re the weak or complicit or none-of-the-above question.

[brooklynite]

58. Answer: the kind of evidence that would convince me...

...which I haven't seen.

[Scuba]

67. He's either afraid, or he's OK with them lying to Congress. You apparently believe it's the latter.

[librechik]

93. Do you believe in atoms and molecules? Those are invisible, too.

yet, with the right equipment and an openminded attitude, poof, there they are!

Just because the perpetrators managed to destroy a lot of the evidence of their acts doesn't mean they didn't happen.

Read Octafish's list. But you won't. You are afraid there may be a good reason to not believe in the integrity of our current institutions, which you benefit so lavishly from. So you don't want to see the evidence.

[brooklynite]

99. I DID read them...and it didn't change my mind

Any more than I suspect it would change the minds of most people here.

Ever wonder why, if this evidence is abundant and freely available, it's only convinced a handful of the public?

[wildbilln864]

107. that handfull...

are the only ones paying close attention and aren't dishonest!
IMHOOC!

[merrily]

86. ...

[mfcorey1]

19. Yes! And I don't blame him! We all know the theories.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

20. The President fears another 9-11 on his watch

Unlike the last guy, he'll get blamed.

The CIA can do (or fail to do) all sorts of things that could bring such an attack about.

[fadedrose]

24. Yes, yes and yes.

but I doubt he agrees with the criminal, because if he did, he wouldn't have to be afraid being one of them.

[mylye2222]

25. I'd say Yes.

CIA is a state in the state.

[Lurks Often]

26. Doubtful

President Obama, like every president that preceded him, is privy to highly classified reports that they were not aware before assuming office. Upon assuming office every President realizes that doing what is best for the United States will require making tough, often unpleasant decisions that are sometimes of questionable legality.

Why people fail to understand that and try to come up with bizarre conspiracy theories instead is beyond me

[kentuck]

29. Sometimes I think the "unpleasant decisions" may cause them...

...to not be able to see the reality of the big picture and they surrender to emotion or false analogies.

[Lurks Often]

31. Or they recognize reality isn't as simple as a discussion board wants it to be

and realize sometimes there are only bad choices and really bad choices.

[kentuck]

33. Bad choices brought about by bad choices?

Like invading another country and killing hundreds of thousands of their people? Is that the reality?

[Lurks Often]

38. Or bad choices and worse choices forced upon them by others

such as allies and enemies and other major powers.

The President didn't really want to intervene in Libya, but British and the French essentially said "We supported you in both Afghanistan and Iraq, now we expect you to support us in Libya".

Here's a hypothetical: Do you wreck the US economy by imposing sanctions on oil producing allies that you don't agree with completely or do you compromise on certain things to keep the oil flowing and the economy from going down the toilet?

[Rex]

28. I wouldn't call it fear, more like worry that they have way too much

power and are getting more and more control over the country with every passing day. He watched them get away with all kinds of things and not have to worry about any responsibility on their part as an organization.

They sure do seem to answer to nobody but themselves.

[intheozone]

30. I think he does, probably justifiably so. nt

[daredtowork]

32. My Housemate thinks Obama feas Assassination

That's why he hasn't been as assertive as he could have been over his Presidency, and that's why he won't do anything about the CIA now.

But, to be fair, I think all Presidents have been quivering in fear since Kennedy.

[fadedrose]

44. Along with the CIA, he has another fear

He loves his wife and kids and I think he doesn't want to disappoint them in whatever decisions he makes. Keeps him in the straight and narrow pretty much. Or he has a damned good reason to give them when he does something "not noble."

[daredtowork]

46. He also wants to keep them alive. nt.

[Art_from_Ark]

47. I don't think bu$h Sr. "quivered in fear" of the CIA

After all, he was head of the organization at one time.

[daredtowork]

52. Just because he was the head...

doesn't mean he had nothing to fear. There are pockets everywhere...

[marlakay]

59. My husband has thought since day one

He has been threatened with his family...do certain things or else.

[alarimer]

36. The CIA needs to be dissolved.

It is out of control, an agency with no legal foundation at this point. Technically, it's part of the executive branch but apparently is above the law.

[hifiguy]

50. It has been for 60 years.

Truman later considered the creation of the CIA to be the biggest mistake he made as president. IT is accountable to no one except, perhaps, the tenth-percenters, whose goals they promote around the world.

[truebluegreen]

55. + a zillion

They have caused nothing but trouble since the beginning.

[northoftheborder]

62. I agree. It is rotten to the core, has always been, but probably too powerful to dismantle.

[Scuba]

68. + another

[Dreamer Tatum]

37. This would absolve both Bushes and Reagan, of course.

Except wait - I bet it doesn't, for some arcane reason.

[merrily]

82. It would absolve all of them. And, if true, we may as pack it in and take up knitting.

If true, we are wasting a lot of fucking time, energy and money on elections and worrying about politics and sane people would stop.

However, I don't believe it's so.

[99Forever]

39. Obviously, the CIA has him under their thumb.

Unless of course, they are actually doing his bidding.

Wonderful thing, either way.

[Autumn]

40. Do you think if he was being threatened and came out and said so he would be ignored?

I don't believe for one second that the CIA has that type of control over politicians in Washington. He has Brennan on board because he chose to put Brennan on board. It's not chess.

[Rex]

43. Then why do they get away with so much illegal activity?

Why does the CIA get away with breaking laws and starting wars? I guess they fall under the same unwritten immunity as the MIC. IOW, just way above the laws of the land and too important to fail.

[Autumn]

49. Because no President bothers to control them. When a President who is a Democrat

appoints a fucking douche nozzle wrapper like Brennan from a disastrous administration like Bush's that's how they get away with it. When that same President has access to the information that he has and still appoints a fucking douche nozzle wrapper like Brennan that just shows how out of touch they are and even worse it shows what their priorities are.

[Rex]

51. Yeah that is a good point.

That could be said for a lot of the people he has appointed - basically wolves watching the hen house.

[truebluegreen]

56. Which kinda brings us back to the original quesiton:

wtf was he thinking? Weak or complicit seem to be the choices, kinda like Reagan re Iran-contra: if he knew he was a criminal and if he didn't he wasn't actually in charge.

[kentuck]

61. Also, Obama was a member of the elite Senate club...

...but he would do nothing if the CIA eavesdropped and stole documents from a Senate Committee that was investigating the same CIA??

[wildbilln864]

108. do you think that...

if they have threatened his family that he would say anything and jeopardize their safety? No!

[Derek V]

41. I doubt it

very much.

[zappaman]

42. No, I don't think our President is a coward. n/t

[KingCharlemagne]

80. Fear of something or someone need not make one a 'coward'. Fear can be

a healthy expression of a desire for self-preservation.

When I protest and go up against LA's riot police, I'm scared shitless but I don't think of myself as a 'coward' because of it.

Am I making sense here?

[bigwillq]

45. I say no (nt)

[JI7]

48. not at all

[madokie]

53. I'm sure he is

I damn sure am and I'm a simple old man minding my own business trying my best to not break any laws ever.

We don't need the CIA, period. Something to gather information and try to put it together but not covertly and damn sure not like what I've read over the years what our cia has and continue I'm sure did and do.

I worry for him, theres a lot of hate directed towards him in our everyday press, some covertly some overtly too.

[Hekate]

60. I would if I were he. But if you listen to a lot of DUers, BHO approves of torture and probably ...

...dismembers baby kittehs before breakfast for kicks. And invites DiFi in to write a CYA report in approval.

I'm so pissed off at DU right now.

[merrily]

84. I saw DUers say he said some of the torturers are patriots and I saw DUers say Amnesty

International says torture did not end when Bush left office. Both those things are accurate.

Sorry if those comments pissed you off, despite their accuracy, but facts are facts.

Didn't see DUers say anything like what you're claiming, though.

[Tom Ripley]

64. Well, he has a family...

[mountain grammy]

65. Hell, we should all fear the CIA and should demand it's demise.

[H2O Man]

74. Yes and no.

The Agency can knee-cap a domestic leader, without posing any physical threat to him or his family. The best recent example was Dick Cheney's fall from power in 2003-04. Although he remained in office, his "juice" was dehydrated after he crossed the line per Wilson-Plame.

On the ride for Senator Obama to be sworn in as President Obama, he rode with George W. Bush. On the ride, almost all of the discussion was monopolized by Bush's complaining that Cheney was still -- even that day -- insisting Bush grant Scooter Libby a full pardon. The divide between Bush and Cheney was thus complete, and soon rather public. Bush, for reasons beyond his father's connection with CI, had come to hold Cheney in contempt. (Thus, Cheney's rather desperate, though inaccurate, attempts to portray Bush as fully informed on torture.)

President Obama took Glenn Carle's word that John Brennan had actually voiced opposition to torture. While this may be true (more likely, half-true), Brennan was obligated by oath to resign in protest. Any claim today that old John was "troubled" is best understood in light of his knowing that the torture could not be kept secret for long. He knew very well it was highly illegal, regardless of the "lawyer shopping" that gave the green light.

Does that make sense? I think that could be mistaken for "making excuses" for some in power today. It's not. If you take an oath, live it.

[tblue37]

75. I have always assumed that to be the case. nt

[Dont call me Shirley]

76. I have no doubt. CIA is another beyond control criminal organization.

[merrily]

81. I doubt it.

Under the above subject line, I posted this December 9 on hifi guy's thread about Roosevelt.

If the CIA is controlling our government, it's because politicians want it that way.

Regardless of who did or did not kill JFK, I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that things like every President since Kennedy has been shown the film, etc. and not a single one of them left that info about that in a vault to be opened in 50 years after his death or whatever. And no member of their family knew or told either. For that matter, I find it difficult to believe that no member of the CIA did it on his or her deathbed in a fit of wanting to get into heaven or whatever or a burst of belated conscience.

How many people in the White House and in the intelligence community would have had to have kept that secret since the 1960s? What are the odds of that many doing it?

I think at some point, we just have to face that our politicians are doing what they they want to do and what their biggest campaign donors want them to do--and we're not holding them accountable, even on message boards, let alone at the polling booth. We just keep electing them and reelecting them and paying for them, their staffs, their consultants, their junkets, etc. I think that simple truth is so hard for us to accept, especially when we fall in love with candidates, that we have to come up with other theories.

The response to me was about Howard Hunt's confession, but that overlooked what the above quoted post actually said, included the bolded language. Howard Hunt never said, and could not have said, that the CIA has controlled all Presidents since the assassination.

[RedCappedBandit]

83. You have to be really dumb or really naive

not to think the intelligence agency of the most powerful nation in the world isn't something to fear.

[hootinholler]

85. Personally my speculation lately is that retribution would be in the form of a mushroom cloud

Which really was prompted by the use of that phrase by the prior administration. I doubt it's an individual threat, but whispered to anyone who is encroaching on that which TPTB would prefer not be released: Do you like Miami? Chicago? L.A.? etc.

I would not put it past these sadistic fucks to threaten that, nor would I put it beyond their capability.

[librechik]

87. Absolutely.

I don't know what they say to him when they are behind closed doors, but given history, I think fear is the correct reaction.

Also, they seem sort of unpredictable and insane. Michael Hayden insists the notion of probable cause doesn't exist in the 4th amendment, and scolded a reporter for suggesting the facts were otherwise. Brennan is just a lying kook. Rogue actions get the blood oath treatment.

We all should be afraid. No one can control them.

[grahamhgreen]

90. He has no fear of sending others to war.

[librechik]

94. I think he is given 3 choices. a) send troops. or b) send MORE troops.

or c) the ice bullet.

An Emperor, I mean a President is ruled by his armies, not the other way around.

[bigtree]

95. I find the concept of a kept president almost treasonous behavior, if true

I don't think this president can excuse his own initiatives perpetuating torture practices through loopholes and interpretations of what constitutes torture outside of his executive order banning some practices- renditions, off-site detentions and interrogations in Afghanistan and other torture lenient countries, on vessels in international waters, and the like - by declaring the CIA is participating in objectionable or illegal acts without consent or through some sort of coercion.

If he has knowledge of these, he has an obligation to act. Portraying him as some sort of weakling isn't much of an excuse. If he is complicit - through coercion or intimidation, or any other persuasion - he's complicit, plain and simple, and needs to be held accountable by the full force of our laws and legislature. He either upholds our constitution and laws through the exercise of his office or he's risking removal.

That said, I don't believe that line that he 'fears' the CIA or military. He's a full partner in their actions; often taking a clear lead in objectionable policies.

[Nevernose]

104. It's worse: he's in The Bubble

And now all he hears is Washington opinions, and is exposed to nothing of reality or public opinion or genuinely alternative viewpoints.

Having met him and conversed with him BEFORE he was president, I believe that Obama is genuinely a good man. I just think his paradigm is skewed brown because he's surrounded himself with assholes.

[wildbilln864]

105. very likely. n/t