The CIA Says Good Riddance

Many in the Agency say it was their lack of experience in interrogation and detention that led to the use of outside contractors -- who brought with them the now-infamous techniques like waterboarding.
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It's nice to be able to rewrite history. May I suggest that the White House itself may have had a role in selecting contractors and methods. We, of course all remember that the FBI guys were all pretty consistently appalled by what they saw and we're all fully aware of the role of the OLC.
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Total BS.

The CIA has been and should be the lead agency for international security including interrogation, and the FBI for domestic chores.

This mess reeks of FBI vs CIA crap, and not much more.

Some change.

Lockerbie last week, witch hunt this week, gay troops next week?

That's My Boma!

http://twitter.com/HULAgate

From the Stars and Stripes:

"As more journalists seek permission to accompany U.S. forces engaged in escalating military operations in Afghanistan, many of them could be screened by a controversial Washington-based public relations firm contracted by the Pentagon to determine whether their past coverage has portrayed the U.S. military in a positive light."

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=64348

MS:

How does Time manage to get the possessive pronoun "its" wrong in the first paragraph ("it's role will greatly shrink") when the correct usage is in the quote from the CIA in the fourth? Are all the downsized copy editors working for the government now?

Has the role of broadcast media become so predominant that any old homonym is now acceptable in print? Jeez – this is the stuff of "Fun with Grammar," not "The Elements of Style."

Many in the Agency say it was their lack of experience in interrogation and detention that led to the use of outside contractors -- who brought with them the now-infamous techniques like waterboarding

Well that's pure unmitigated crap.

So the lying, torturing, murderers, who eagerly implemented President Cheney's plan to extract false confessions from innocent people to try to cover up the lies that took the country into an illegal war, got their wittle feelings hurt because they were exposed for what they are. Gosh, now I'm getting all verklempt myself...

Digby:

"As average folks without a lot of institutional juice, we citizens don't have a whole lot of options. So we do what we can. But there is one thing we should all probably recognize and deal with: the president, the congress and the media of both parties are all in agreement about one thing: they do not like the rabble at both ends of the spectrum making demands. Remember, it's their town.

And I include the president in that for a reason. It's not a matter of him "miscalculating" or failing to understand the nature of the opposition. He, like all establishment politicians, has an interest in maintaining the status quo, and I would imagine that the fear among all establishment politicians is that this phenomenon might actually bring about real change (as opposed to the fluffy, Madison Avenue version they like to sell.) After all, the president has large majorities and a huge amount of power. It's hard to believe that if he wanted to get real health care reform passed that he couldn't do it. It's not 1994 and the Republicans aren't in ascendance and dominating the discourse. It's not outrageous to make the obvious assumption that he's not doing it for the simple reason that he doesn't want to. And it's not ridiculous to think that one of the reasons for that is that it would empower the base of the Democratic Party and inflame the base of the GOP. At this moment that particular problem appears to be the biggest threat to the permanent political establishment of both parties there is.

Let's face it, the most potentially destabilizing political battles right now are within the parties --- between the leaders and their most ardent adherents. That's actually somewhat encouraging to me. I'm not sure how you could ever break through the ossified structures of the village without something like that. Whether anything actually happens remains to be seen. But it's interesting to think about.

Update: As Greenwald once again thoroughly documents, the media establishment frames all politics as being the Real Americans vs the hippies --- and I'm sure the Democratic establishment couldn't be happier. The Republican establishment actually has a harder task, which may or may not be fortunate for us."

[...] consider them excesses.  With all the backbiting and possible prosecution, no wonder the CIA is happy to have interrogation responsibilities removed.  Whether it serves the interest of our national [...]