Oregon's Ron Wyden explains his Brennan vote

Remember a post from a couple of weeks ago when I noted that for the first time I contacted my Congress-member expressing my concerns?  It was about President Obama and his administration operating with their own twisted interpretations of the Constitution and war powers, and over the extensive use of drones--even to kill American citizens abroad.

I was delighted that Ron Wyden spoke up about these issues while joining Rand Paul's filibuster over the CIA Director nominee.

Well, today I got an email from Senator Wyden.  I assume it is a form letter/statement to people like me who had contacted him on these issues.  Though his vote to confirm the nominee doesn't please me, I suppose politics is always winning some and losing some.  Plus, our state's other senator--Jeff Merkley--voted against the nominee :)

Here's the text of Wyden's email:

Dear Dr. Khe:

Thank you for contacting me about the nomination of John O. Brennan to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

As you know, in January 2013 President Obama nominated Mr. Brennan to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  The Senate confirmed Mr. Brennan in March by a vote of 63 to 34.  My decision to ultimately vote to confirm him came after a hard-fought battle to shine more light on actions that the executive branch has taken in the course of national security operations.

Soon after the president nominated Mr. Brennan to be Director of the CIA, I sent him a letter asking that he provide Congress with the secret legal opinions outlining the government’s ability to deliberately kill Americans when conducting counterterrorism operations.  Despite many previous requests, the Administration had not been adequately forthcoming to Congress about the legal justifications for targeting and potentially killing U.S. citizens believed to be involved in terrorism.  I sent this letter because it is critically important for Congress and the American people to have full knowledge of how the executive branch understands the limits and boundaries of this authority. I also spoke on the Senate floor during Senator Paul’s filibuster of Mr. Brennan’s nomination because I believed it was important for the Administration to clarify that these authorities cannot be used inside the United States.  

In my view, if American citizens choose to join al-Qa’ida and take up arms against the United States, there are absolutely some circumstances in which the President has the authority to use lethal force against those Americans, just as President Lincoln had the authority to take military action against Confederate forces during the Civil War. It’s important for the president to have the authority to deal with this threat. However, it’s also important for the American people to be able to understand the limits of the president’s authority. And it’s especially important for the American people to know when the president can kill an American citizen and when he can’t.

After seven separate requests over the last two years, I was finally able to obtain access to these secret memos in the course of the Brennan confirmation process.  I am closely reading through these memos and I will be working to get a significant portion declassified.  And I am pleased that the Attorney General has now acknowledged that these authorities cannot be used inside the United States.  It is vitally important for every American to know when their government believes it is allowed to kill them.  Congress has a responsibility to conduct oversight, especially on issues of life and death.  That’s the job that you and other constituents hired me to do.  Please know that I will continue to fight for transparency so long as I have the honor to serve as your Senator.

Thank you for keeping me apprised on the issues of importance to you.  If I may be of assistance to you in the future, please do not hesitate to contact me.

                        Sincerely, 
                             
                        Ron Wyden
                        United States Senator 

CIA accidentally overthrows Costa Rica's government. WikiLeaks not!

It is from America's Finest News Source, of course:


O-SPAN Classic: CIA Accidentally Overthrows Costa Rica

Damn Right! we are all waterboarders now

Dahlia Lithwick's piece, commenting on President Bush's candid admission that he okayed waterboarding, is a depressing read.  She points out why some of us are troubled by this:

The persistent failure to hold anyone accountable at any level for years of state-sanctioned abuse speaks louder than their words. It has taken this issue from a legal question to a matter of personal taste. What we choose to define as torture is now just another policy disagreement, like extending the Bush tax cuts or picking a caterer. This is precisely the kind of sliding-scale ethical guesswork the rule of law should preclude.

Lithwick articulates well the point that we fail to grasp: Waterboarding is not a policy option like tax cuts.  She writes:

Indeed, as Andrew Cohen notes, when the men ordering the destruction of those tapes are celebrated as "heroes," who's to say otherwise? Check, please.

All these mean then that we are all waterboarders:

All this was done in the name of moving us forward, turning down the temperature, painting over the rot that had overtaken the rule of law. Yet having denied any kind of reckoning for every actor up and down the chain of command, we are now farther along the road toward normalizing and accepting torture than we were back in November 2005, when President Bush could announce unequivocally (if falsely) that "The United States of America does not torture. And that's important for people around the world to understand." If people around the world didn't understand what we were doing then, they surely do now. And if Americans didn't accept what we were doing then, evidently they do now. Doing nothing about torture is, at this point, pretty much the same as voting for it. We are all water-boarders now.

Forty years of op-ed at the NY Times

I grew up with opinions (op-eds) as the norm in newspapers.  But, it wasn't always so.  The NY Times is celebrating 40 years of op-eds:

On Sept. 21, 1970, readers who turned to the last inside page of The Times's main section found something new. The obituaries that normally appeared in that space had been moved, replaced by something called Op-Ed. The vision of John Oakes, the editorial page editor, and Harrison Salisbury, the eminent foreign correspondent, Op-Ed was meant to open the paper to outside voices. It was to be a venue for writers with no institutional affiliation with the paper, people from all walks of life whose views and perspectives would often be at odds with the opinions expressed on the editorial page across the way. (Hence, Op-Ed - Opposite Editorial.)

The multimedia the paper has put together for this occasion is pretty good.  The following is one of those--more here.

For Op-Ed's 40th anniversary, Ali Soufan, a F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005, recounted the events that triggered his Op-Ed in April 2009.

In the op-ed, Soufan wrote:

It is surprising, as the eighth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, that none of Al Qaeda’s top leadership is in our custody. One damaging consequence of the harsh interrogation program was that the expert interrogators whose skills were deemed unnecessary to the new methods were forced out.
Mr. Mohammed knew the location of most, if not all, of the members of Al Qaeda’s leadership council, and possibly of every covert cell around the world. One can only imagine who else we could have captured, or what attacks we might have disrupted, if Mr. Mohammed had been questioned by the experts who knew the most about him.
A lack of knowledge perhaps explains why so many false claims have been made about the program’s alleged successes.

 It is a new administration, but I am not sure how much things have changed.  Here is an exhibit on the continuation of some of those practices:

President Barack Obama's administration has invoked the state secret privilege to avoid a lawsuit on behalf of Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, whose father charges the US government of targeting him for assassination.
Nasser al-Awlaki last month asked two civil rights groups to sue the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency for placing his son on a list of people targeted for killing.
The younger Awlaki is considered a dangerous terrorist by the US government and is currently believed to be hiding in Yemen.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the court action seeking to force the US government to say how it decides to target US citizens for murder far from any armed conflict without due process.

Am waiting for that "change" ....

The Ghost Writer ...

I delayed watching the movie because I was conflicted about its director--Roman Polanski.  He is, after all, guilty of having raped a 13-year old.  And has been dodging the legal complications for 33 years.
But, dammit, he makes good movies .... an artist he is .... Now, of course, it does not mean that everybody else in the entertainment industry is a Gandhi either ...
Well, finally, I did end up watching it ... and, yes, it is a well-made movie, and well acted too.  I had no idea that Pierce Brosnan can be this good an actor.  Ewan McGregor was, as always, good.  Kim Catrall's performance was even more of a surprise--in a good way :)
Half way through the movie, I started thinking that this is a re-telling of The Manchurian Candidate.  So, to some extent, I was playing a guessing game of who the hidden spy was: the ex prime minister's wife or his erstwhile foreign secretary.  They both were good candidates ... There were a few illogical aspects in the storytelling .. but, then, come on, this was no Hitchcock movie, eh...

The latest on torture by the CIA

Following the launch of a Justice Department criminal probe into the CIA's alleged abuse of detainees, the intelligence agency was forced last week to complete months of previously scheduled torture over the course of one frenzied weekend. "We were already way behind on false executions as it was," said CIA director Leon Panetta, who was overseeing the consolidation of several human pyramids into one large one so that relentless tauntings and other dehumanizing practices could be accomplished more efficiently. "Only three of the car batteries have any juice left, and these poor dogs are almost too tired to strike. If we weren't keeping these guys awake 24-7, there's no way we'd be able to wrap this up by Sunday." Panetta said that if the CIA didn't finish in time, he will order a covert operative to assassinate Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to take some of the pressure off.

Source? The Onion. Which means, well, you know what it means :)

Can the CIA kill American citizens?

Apparently the answer to that question is ... "yes, we can"

The global war on terror, which led us to torture, Blackwater, drones, ..... now takes us to wondering about the legality of the CIA targeting an American citizen, not for capturing so that we might try the American in our courts but, instead, for assassination.  During Barack Obama's presidency?

I first came across this in Greenwald's post at Salon. Boy, that Greenwald is an excellent writer, with a clear logic.  Anyway, Greenwald writes:

The Washington Post's Dana Priest today reports 

that "U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people."   ...

But buried in Priest's article is her revelation that American citizens are now being placed on a secret "hit list" of people whom the President has personally authorized to be killed
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military,authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. . . .

The Obama administration has adopted the same stance. If a U.S. citizen joins al-Qaeda, "it doesn't really change anything from the standpoint of whether we can target them," a senior administration official said. "They are then part of the enemy."

I wonder if this is the change for which Obama won the presidency.
Greenwald further writes:

Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests."  They're entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations.  Amazingly, the Bush administration's policy of merely imprisoning foreign nationals (along with a couple of American citizens) without charges -- based solely on the President's claim that they were Terrorists -- produced intense controversy for years.  That, one will recall, was a grave assault on the Constitution.  Shouldn't Obama's policy of ordering American citizens assassinated without any due process or checks of any kind -- not imprisoned, but killed -- produce at least as much controversy?

The point is not to condone terrorism; but the fact that the President can simply order "off  with your head" as much as a king could do back in the 15th century--even though we are not a monarchy, and the Constitution establishes a due process .... Hmmm....
The LA Times adds:

Decisions to add names to the CIA target list are "all reviewed carefully, not just by policy people but by attorneys," said the second U.S. official. "Principles like necessity, proportionality, and the minimization of collateral damage -- to persons and property -- always apply."
The U.S. military, which has expanded its presence in Yemen, keeps a separate list of individuals to capture or kill. Awlaki is already on the military's list, which is maintained by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command. Awlaki apparently survived a Dec. 24 airstrike conducted jointly by U.S. and Yemeni forces.
The CIA has also deployed more operatives and analysts to Yemen. CIA Deputy Director Stephen Kappes was in the country last month, just weeks before a Nigerian accused of training with Al Qaeda in Yemen boarded a jetliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day.
From beginning to end, the CIA's process for carrying out Predator strikes is remarkably self-contained. Almost every key step takes place within the Langley, Va., campus, from proposing targets to piloting the remotely controlled planes. 

Iran, the 1953 CIA plot, Obama, and the Cairo speech

I have no idea how President Obama's speech in Cairo will play out in the next few days and months. I am tired of the pundits on TV and in the blogs commenting as if they can see the future. Hogwash! I say this because I distinctly recall how Western pundits predicted the collapse of India after Indira Gandhi was assassinated. It did not happen. Later when the Tamil Tigers assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, Western pundits predicted chaos in India. Didn't happen. In this case, it is not as if the entire Muslim population is one country--yes, there is a concept of "umma". But, hello, ethnic, tribal, nationalistic sentiments mean that what is good for Indonesia might not be good for Iran.

Speaking of Iran, the Iranian media seem to be taking particular interest in this one paragraph in the President's speech:

For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is in fact a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I've made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question now is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.

The big headline at one Iranian site:

Barack admits US role in 1953 Iran coup

I suppose Mahmoud and Barack are chums now for the President to be referred to by his first name :-)
But, seriously, I wonder how this will play out when Ahmedinajad's political future is to be decided at the polls only a week from now. Could it be interpreted by voters as that the President is truly apologetic for some zany actions during the Cold War, and that only by throwing out Ahmedinajad can they begin to start working with the US? Or, could they think that this apology came about only because of a potential nuclear bomb and, therefore, to become a real player Iran needs that nuke after all? In which case they will swing in favor of Ahmedinajad?

Obama is shrewd, and he has lots of talented people helping him out. I am sure they thought through such scenarios as they parsed every sentence of his speech. I can't quite make up my mind on what the impact will be. But, here is the thing: it was also a special day in Iran--the 20th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's death. And note what his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei said:

He said the US remained "deeply hated" in the region and "beautiful and sweet" words would not change that.
He told the huge crowd at the mausoleum of his predecessor, Ayatollah Khomenei, that action was needed not words.

That speech was a few hours before Obama's speech in Cairo.

Another aspect of the timing of the speech that worries me: why did they choose Thursday? Fridays are important prayer days for Muslims, and many imams routinely use their pulpit to talk about the political issues--particularly in the highly volatile Middle Eastern countries. At least the impression from the outside is that these imams are highly Islamist, and support militancy. Won't this Thursday speech then make it convenient for those imams to make a big deal out of small issues?

I suppose I am a very, very cautious optimist.

I prefer to be "base"less in Pakistan.

Fridays are when imams all across the tension-filled Islamic countries use the prayer services to engage their people on political issues too.  The congregation of people at such religious places are, sadly, opportunities for suicide bombers also.

I am sure that it did not help then for the following news item to get across just in time for the Friday gathering:

At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Islamic extremist targets along Pakistan's northwestern border. 

"As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said.

The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad, the capital, and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.

Hmmm ... let us recap.  The US has routinely flown pilotless drones in order to go after militants in Pakistan.  Every time such an incident happens, the people in Pakistan get upset--at the US, and at their government for letting this happen. Typically then the Pakistani government would file an official protest with the US, and .... 

Now the story takes on a different dimension altogether: a senator, who serves on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, publicly states that these are flown out of a Pakistani base!  Let us see how the shaky Pakistani government can explain this to its people, and how much the people will then tolerate their government.  Of course, this will only add to the anti-American feeling in Pakistan.

This is yet another instance where it is clear that we simply do not have a game plan when it comes to Pakistan.  We have no idea how much we are fooling around with a country that has nukes, an extremely unstable government, groups of people who want nothing but chaos for various reasons .....

I have more reasons to worry about Pakistan now .... awful.

Be afraid! Be very, very afraid!!!

Here is an excerpt from Seymour Hersh's piece in the New Yorker:

L ate last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.