CIA chief: "If I've done something wrong, I'll stand up and admit it"
Source: by Spencer Ackerman via The Guardian
John Brennan expresses frustration with Senate and media while decrying lack of trust in agency at intelligence conference
Read more: http://theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/18/john-brennan-cia-senate-frustration-conference
Here are a few things Brennan to chew on DU.
John Brennan's Heavy Baggage (Ray McGovern 3-11-13 Consortium News)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2013/03/11/john-brennans-heavy-baggage
John Brennan's extremism and dishonesty rewarded with CIA Director nomination (Glenn Greenwald 1-7-13 The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/07/john-brennan-dishonesty-cia-director-nomination
What are your thoughts about this, DU?
dballance
(5,756 posts)BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)"Rumsfelds skedaddle from Paris thus spared him the possible humiliation that befell Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who had been head of Chiles military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990. While on a trip to the United Kingdom in 1998, Pinochet was arrested on a Spanish judicial warrant and was held under house arrest until 2000. The Spanish judge cited the same principle of universal jurisdiction. Pinochet was freed only after the intervention of high-powered friends, including former President George H.W. Bush and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger."
Perhaps they were worried that Pinochet would 'Spill the Beans.'
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)Below is a 2-23-11 Rolling Stone article by Michael Hastings that seems very appropriate for this thread imho.
Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-ops on U.S. Senators
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/another-runaway-general-army-deploys-psy-ops-on-u-s-senators-20110223
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Past CIA Director Richard Helms to reporters asking about CIA-Mafia assassination plots and his efforts to pin the plan on JFK in his testimony before the Church Committee. The truth was Nixon "authorized" the CIA-Mafia plots in 1960 as vice president.
Brennan continues in that fine tradition of falling upward through failure that coincidentally benefits the 1-percent. While he may be willing to stand up and admit it, the People's representatives need to know what is going to hold him accountable. So far, not so good.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)by Spencer Ackerman & Noah Schachtman)
http://www.wired.com/2013/01/brennan-2
"We don't torture". BULLSHIT!
951-Riverside
(7,234 posts)and...
Video: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-arming-the-rebels/
REBEL COMMANDER: [through interpreter] They asked for a group of 80 or 90 fighters from our command, and we headed towards the Turkish border.
NARRATOR: Based on their accounts, we retraced their journey across the border into Turkey. After a 14-hour drive, they say they arrived in the Turkish capital of Ankara and were brought to a hotel. They were kept inside and questioned by Americans, who would only say they were from the military. But the rebels believed they were from the CIA.
REBEL COMMANDER: [through interpreter] We met them for six to seven hours a day. It was medical examinations, questions for each person individually, like, When did you join the uprising? And What was your profession or military rank?
They had tracked our work and asked us to verify information about attacks we carried out, such as who was present and how many men were martyred. Your responses have to match the entire groups.
NARRATOR: A week later, the rebels say they were surprised by what happened next.
REBEL COMMANDER: [through interpreter] We only found out where we were going to be trained on the last day in Ankara, when the Americans said goodbye and that, Tomorrow, well see you in Qatar.
NARRATOR: They were flown 1,500 miles away to Doha, the capital of Qatar, which is a key U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf.
REBEL COMMANDER: [through interpreter] We drove for about two, two-and-a-half hours to reach the training ground. It was close to the Saudi border. We didnt know where we were because it was desert all around.
NARRATOR: Over the course of three weeks, they say they were trained by Americans at a base in the desert guarded by Qatari soldiers. Like many of the rebels who were sent to Qatar, 21-year-old Hussein had never had any previous military training.
HUSSEIN: [through interpreter] They trained us to ambush regime or enemy vehicles and cut off the road. They also trained us on how to attack a vehicle, raid it, retrieve information or weapons and munitions, and how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.
NARRATOR: The rebels were outfitted with brand-new uniforms and boots.
MUHAMMAD ALI: [subtitles] Those trousers are from them, right?
HUSSEIN: [subtitles] Yeah. We got these boots in training.
MUHAMMAD ALI: The Americans were warning the fighters not to tell this story at all. And even at one point, they told them, If in any case this story will be published, we will stop funding you or arming you.
NARRATOR: The CIA and the State Department declined to comment on the fighters accounts of arming and training, though the Obama administration has said it plans to step up support to the rebels, and there have been other reports the CIA is running covert training out of Jordan.
...then there's programs like MKUltra, MKNaomi and MKDelta where the CIA conducted secret and still classified experiments on us citizens.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)Booz Allen, the World's Most Profitable Spy Organization (Drake Bennett & Michael Riley 6-20-13 Business Week)
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-20/booz-allen-the-worlds-most-profitable-spy-organization
Private Military and Private Security Companies
http://www.privatemilitary.org/home.html
TygrBright
(20,758 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)spying on members of Congress and their staffers! Everyone knows Congress runs their own intelligence agency that spies on the Executive branch.
840high
(17,196 posts)Todays_Illusion
(1,209 posts)DesertDiamond
(1,616 posts)bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)surface. Elevator shafts, stairwells, unscreened windows and bridges will serve... (in some cases), it will usually be necessary
to stun or drug the subject before dropping him." Excepted from the "training manual" known as KUBARK
KUBARK Manual (Scribd)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/487663/ciakubarktorture-manual
Nothing new there, is there? Happened on someone else's watch, right?
How about owning up to the "research and development" of all those systems used to "stun" or "drug the subject"? How about the so-called "non-lethal" systems? The experts in that field include several of your colleagues, Mr. Director, right?
on edit: changed to working link
Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (US Department of Defense)
http://jnlwp.defense.gov/Home.aspx
How about owning up to a few simple things, some of which can be found in the Federation of American Scientists Secrecy blog?
Secrecy News (FAS)
http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy
What does the recent article below really mean about the targeting of terrorists, which is one of your areas of expertise, Mr. Director?
Pentagon Funds New Data-Mining Tools to Track and Kill Activists (by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed via 9-8-14 Truth-Out)
http://truth-out.org/news/item/26049-pentagon-funds-new-data-mining-tools-to-track-and-kill-activists
Anyone else have some questions for Mr. Director???? This is a good thread to ask them DUers.
Psephos
(8,032 posts)Ash_F
(5,861 posts)Mr_Jefferson_24
(8,559 posts)Aw c'mon, who doesn't trust those fun loving pranksters over at the CIA. A rogue agency apparently accountable to no one historically known for murder, drug running, spying, false flag ops etc, etc. And all cloaked in secrecy.
I know I trust them.
librechik
(30,674 posts)One part of the CIA breaks its ass trying to get accurate information, while Management and Omertà are busy lying and covering up what they found. What could possibly go wrong?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)BY Dan Froomkin
The Intercept, Sept. 18, 2014
CIA Director John Brennan today petulantly denied that he lied in March when he publicly insisted that the CIA had not improperly accessed the computers of Senate staffers investigating the agencys role in torturing detainees.
Since then, an internal investigation found the CIA had done just that, and Brennan was forced to apologize to Senate intelligence committee members.
In March, Brennan told Andrea Mitchell at a Council on Foreign Relations event: As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth We wouldnt do that. I mean, thats just beyond the, you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we do.
But on Thursday, facing questions at an industry trade conference, Brennan carefully parsed his earlier statement, insisting that he had only been denying the parts of Mitchells question that involved accusations of hacking with the intent to thwart the investigation.
Thwart the investigation? Hacking in? We did not, Brennan said.
CONTINUED w links etc...
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/18/lying-apologize-brennan-qualifies/
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)I really am tired of Mrs. Greenspan's (Andrea Mitchell) "exclusives" for the media networks owned by the biggest DoD contractor (GE) that is on public record for not paying ANY income taxes, etc., etc.
A free press is a requirement of democracy in the context of informed citizens-not whatever forms of domestic full spectrum dominance we currently are experiencing. Of course this can't happen in The United States of America
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Todays_Illusion
(1,209 posts)And I want to ask here in DU, do you know how much influence the libertarians are exercising in this election, in the news in websites, did you know that Nate Silver is having problems because he now works for a libertarian, by problems I don't think he is allowed to show what he is finding.
Edit: remove word fragment, add word influence.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)The Intercept Staff
http://firstlook.org/theintercept/staff
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)The Pike Committee (DU 3-11-08)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2990965
kick for post-Holder DU participation
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)Add to this thread ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)then there are all those crimes, including murder-hidden by "national security" (a crime in itself, on paper)
these are all pdf's takes awhile to load
From some of The Pike Committee docs from the fall of 1975 (Mary Ferrell Foundation)
U.S. Intelligence Agencies and Activities: Domestic Intelligence Programs-Hearings Before the Select Committee on Intelligence, Part 3
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=145086
Can't We All Just Get Along?
Improving the Law Enforcement-Intelligence Community Relationship
National Defense Intelligence College
June 2007 (via Cryptome)
http://cryptome.org/2014/04/spy-cop-coop.pdf
Statement for the Record
Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
by James R. Clapper Director National Intelligence
January 29, 2014
http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/140129/clapper.pdf
This is certainly still LBN as well as history DU.
Add to it.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)Last edited Wed Oct 1, 2014, 04:29 PM - Edit history (1)
There's a wonderful Intelligence collection in his Law Library maintained by The University of Minnesota for those of US that are what democracy looks like yet find ourselves on various "lists"-Mr. Brennan.
Walter F. Mondale Law Library:
Intelligence (including Church Committee)
http://mondale.law.umn.edu/intelligence.php
on edit: corrected date of Mondale's proposal for Intell. Committees to 1966.