Stenographer Alert!

I have often embraced Bill Moyers' assessment of our corporate media as "stenographers to power". I think this is a more accurate description rather than labeling the media as inherently liberal or conservative.

Here is a perfect example from Pam Benson over at CNN. In the story that you can find at that link, she reports that the White House has authorized an expansion of the CIA Predator Drone program. Benson sources the information to an anonymous "U.S. Official" and then states:

The U.S. official took exception to reports that hundreds of civilians have been killed in the Predator attacks.

The official said the strikes are "extremely precise" against terrorist targets and that only a "small fraction" of those killed have been civilians.

Last May, CIA director Leon Panetta would not discuss the specifics of the air strikes, but he did say they were "very effective" and resulted in few civilian deaths.

The quote above is how the story ends. What public good is served to the reader of this story by simply repeating what an anonymous "U.S. Official" says? Are these statements true or is this Official just trumpeting this government program because it is part of his/her job? We will never know because the source remains anonymous (it is never mentioned why) and Benson just acts as a stenographer and writes down what she was told. This type of story is a prime example of how the corporate media often gets it wrong.

A better, more critical story, would have also mentioned some more details about the controversial use of these predator drones. Perhaps it would have been relevant to mention the report that came out of the Pakistani paper The News last April that found that 687 Pakistani civilians have been killed in these drone strikes since 2006.

This Foreign Policy study counters the reports in the Pakistani paper yet still finds that about one-third of those killed in drone strikes are likely civilians.

I would think that this information would be relevant to an article about the White House expanding this drone program and to shed greater truth on the topic.

Instead, what we get from CNN's Pam Benson is a quick story that cites one anonymous "U.S. Official" who (while offering no evidence) claims that these reports are not accurate. Perfect if your idea journalism is simply writing down what Government officials tell you without looking into the validity of their claims.

More that has yet to be Revealed on Torture

Scott Horton has a great post in which he discusses seven of his observations surrounding the recent release of the 2004 Inspector General report. His whole post is worth a full read and you can find it here, but in the meantime, here are a few of his observations:

1. The worst is yet to come. Yesterday the CIA released a fresh copy of the report with roughly half of the “case study” discussion now unmasked. But context and placement suggest that the material that remains concealed contains some of the worst discussion of abuse in the report. The heavy redactions start around page 25, and the redactions cover discussion of the origins of the program and the approval process, as well as the discussion of specific prisoners, notably Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammad. Although cases in which the guidelines provided by the Justice Department were exceeded have been discussed, it’s likely the case that the still blacked-out passages cover instances where Justice gave a green light but the conduct was so gruesome that CIA wants to keep it under wraps. That means we haven’t heard the last of the Helgerson report, and further disclosures are likely.

2. Opposition from within. For years the CIA has said that CIA personnel would be demoralized and the reputation of the agency would be damaged by disclosure of the contents of the report. But the report documents just the opposite. The Inspector General’s review was launched by complaints coming from valued senior employees who felt that the Bush Program (as John Yoo has dubbed it) was wrong. One of them actually expresses his worry that those involved will be hauled before the World Court at some point because of [and that’s redacted!] This makes clear that good employees of the agency opposed the Bush Program, were vocal in their opposition, and focused concern on the program’s illegality. The OLC memos were intended to silence these complaints, but they only accentuated the agency’s morale problems by enmeshing it in obviously illegal and immoral conduct. By contrast, the number of CIA personnel involved in pushing it through and supporting it is tiny—probably not many more than two dozen—though their voices are heard very loudly. It’s interesting that in a stream of appearances by CIA personnel on TV yesterday—Tyler Drumheller, Jack Rice, Bob Baer and others—all said that a criminal investigation was a good idea. The official spokesman of the CIA torture team remains, as for the last seven years, David Ignatius.

[...]

4. All trails lead to the Vice President’s office. At several points, redactions begin just when the discussion is headed toward the supervision or direction of the program and context suggests that some figure far up the Washington food chain is intervening. Moreover, as Jane Mayer recounts in Dark Side, Helgerson’s report was shut down when he was summoned, twice, to meet with Dick Cheney, who insisted that the report be stopped. Cheney had good reason to be concerned. This report shows that the vice president intervened directly in the process and ensured that the program was implemented. The OPR report likewise shows Cheney’s office commissioning the torture memos and carefully supervising the process. It is increasingly clear that torture was Dick Cheney’s special project and that he was personally and deeply involved in it. And the CIA report has some amazing nuggets that show Cheney’s hand. In 2003, after Jay Bybee departed OLC, Cheney struggled to have John Yoo installed as his successor, but ultimately John Ashcroft’s candidate, Jack Goldsmith, prevailed. Goldsmith quickly backtracked on the torture authorizations that Yoo and Bybee gave. The result? The CIA stopped taking its cue from OLC and instead turned to the White House for guidance. It is remarkably vague on the particulars, and blackouts emerge just as passages seem to be getting interesting. But there’s little doubt that Dick Cheney and his staff were pushing the process from behind the scenes.

Holder Appoints Special Prosecutor to Invesigate Torture...Sort Of

Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that he is going to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether members of the CIA went too far while interrogating detainees in U.S. custody. Holder is going to name John Durham to lead this investigation, the scope of which will be quite narrow. From the Washington Post article that I linked to above (emphasis mine):

Durham's mandate, the sources added, will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees. Many of the harshest CIA interrogation techniques have not been employed against terrorism suspects for four years or more.

The attorney general selected Durham in part because the longtime prosecutor is familiar with the CIA and its past interrogation regime. For nearly two years, Durham has been probing whether laws against obstruction or false statements were violated in connection with the 2005 destruction of CIA videotapes. The tapes allegedly depicted brutal scenes including waterboarding of some of the agency's high value detainees. That inquiry is proceeding before a grand jury in Alexandria, although lawyers following the investigation have cast doubt on whether it will result in any criminal charges.

[...]

With Monday's looming public announcement, however, the attorney general and his national security team appear to be staking out a middle ground -- rejecting a broad inquiry that could result in possible prosecutions of Justice Department lawyers in the Bush years as well as cabinet officers who developed counterterrorism policy; but giving civil liberties advocates at least part of what they wanted without supporting a full, independent truth commission to examine a host of Bush national security practices.

In other words, this is a sham. Holder is opting to appoint a prosecutor (who is already involved in another investigation) to see if anyone in the CIA acted outside of the "legal" framework that was set up by the Bush Administration (and the OLC lawyers like John Yoo) but the investigation will not have a broad enough scope to examine the legality of the interrogation program itself. Remember when U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison were prosecuted and labeled a "few bad apples"? This may turn out similarly. The argument for prosecutions is not that officials went beyond what the Bush Administration claimed was legal, but that the Bush Administration's (in this case) interrogation policies need to be examined for criminal wrong-doing. The Attorney General apparently has no interest in doing the latter.

Also, take note of the final paragraph of the Washington Post piece that I quoted above. Notice the framing of the issue, that Eric Holder is "staking out a middle ground" on this issue as if the rule of law is some kind of political debate. While there very well could be potential political implications for appointing a special prosecutor with a broader mandate, this is not the same thing as taking a middle ground on whether to investigate potential violations of the law. After all, how does one take a centrist role and compromise on enforcing the rule of law?

ACLU Releases "Tortured Logic" Video

The ACLU has released a video of various entertainers reading one of the "torture memos" that was authored by Jay Bybee. (h/t Valtin) From the ACLU's YouTube page:

ACLU video shows prominent figures like Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone and a 9/11 family member reading from one of the infamous Bush administration legal memos used to justify the use of torture against detainees in U.S. custody. The video calls for accountability and the restoration of the rule of law.

The video includes appearances by Oliver Stone, 9/11 family member Patricia Perry, actors Rosie Perez, Noah Emmerich, John Doman and Reg E. Cathey, and musical composer Philip Glass, among others, reading directly from a memo authored by Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration. The memo was released in April as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU.

This video comes as Attorney General Eric Holder appears poised to launch an investigation into CIA interrogation abuses. Though this is being touted by some as a step forward in trying to hold torturers to account, the Chicago Tribune reports:

A senior Justice Department official said the probe Holder envisions would be "narrow" in scope, focusing on "whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized" in Bush administration memos known for their extreme interpretations of anti-torture laws.

This so-called "investigation" will likely accomplish little and may not even result in criminal prosecutions. These investigations will also do nothing in examining those who authorized the torture policies or the Bush Administration officials who pushed for such policies despite any legal ramifications. Holder, and the Obama Administration, continue to turn a blind eye to abuses of the law by members of the previous administration which leave this country open to repeating the same abuses due to the lack of consequences for law-breaking. The ACLU's video is below:

Panetta's Reaction to Finding Out About Cheney's Secret Program

Rachel Maddow had a good point last night regarding the revelation that former Vice President Dick Cheney apparently ordered that his "secret assassination program" be kept from Congress.

If this was a program that was designed to secretly use the CIA to go around the world in an attempt to target, capture, or kill terrorists - then explains the reaction of CIA Director Leon Panetta? After all, the United States has a long history of targeting "terrorists" around the world with the goal of "capturing" or "killing" them, so it seems a little odd that Panetta acted the way that he did once he found out about this program. Panetta ordered that the program be stopped on the very day that he found out about it and he also went to Congress to disclose that this program had been hidden from them. Something tells me that we haven't learned all that there is to know about the nature of Cheney's secret program. Rachel Maddow explains:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

TIME magazine floats another possible idea:

CIA officials tell TIME there's another, somewhat less dramatic, possibility: a plan to conduct domestic surveillance. Spying on Americans is outside the CIA's purview and would be highly controversial — good enough reason for Cheney to want it kept under wraps.

but then the article quotes officials who claim that Panetta wasn't informed because the program wasn't "operational" and so it was "no big deal". If this program was "no big deal" and was a program designed to do what is essentially done every day in the so-called "War on Terror", then it makes no sense that Panetta would have such a severe reaction when finding out about this program. More details are almost certainly yet to be revealed.

Obama To Release Torture Memos

It is now being reported that President Obama has made the decision to release the Bush Administration's infamous "torture memos" with minimal redaction. This is very encouraging news considering the considerable pressure that Obama faced from former CIA Director Michael Hayden and other CIA officials.

While these CIA officials (including Obama's terrorism advisor, John Brennan) argued that releasing these memos would hurt national security and burden CIA officers with inquiries, Glenn Greenwald is right to point out:

I want to underscore one vital point about this controversy that is continuously overlooked and will be undoubtedly distorted today in the event of non-disclosure: these documents are not intelligence documents. They are legal documents and, more specifically, they constitute what can only be described as secret law under which the U.S. was governed during the Bush era. Thus, the question posed by the release of these OLC memos is not whether Obama will release to the public classified intelligence programs. The question is whether he will release to the public the legal doctrines under which the U.S. Government conducted itself regarding interrogation techniques he claims are no longer being used.

It is also being reported that Obama agreed to release these memos while promising that no CIA officials would be prosecuted for the torture of detainees in U.S. custody. In fact, it is believed that the CIA agent's names are going to be the only portion of these memos that will be redacted. We will have to wait and see if this is the case, but it indicates that President Obama has attempted to issue a kind of compromise in the release of these memos, but did not extend this same promise to Bush Administration officials.

In the same breath Obama, once again, used "look to the future, not the past" type of language when making this announcement:

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.

This should mark the beginning in taking the necessary action to make sure that this type of behavior never happens again. Simply releasing these memos will not allow us to "move forward with confidence". We should make this the first step in recommitting this country to a land where political leaders are not above the law.

With that being said, Obama certainly deserves credit for making a decision that was a true test of his commitment to move away from some of the secrecy of the last eight years. Here is a clip of Former CIA Director Hayden on MSNBC to underscore the pressure that Obama was up against in making such a decision:



UPDATE: This story is breaking and the memos are slowly becoming available. Here is the August 1, 2002 memo.

May 10, 2005 Number One

May 10, 2005 Number Two

May 30, 2005

I have just glanced at these so far, but they are quite disturbing and worth your time. I will be reviewing them over the next few days and will have more analysis.

The CIA Destroyed 92 Tapes of Interrogations

It just came down not too long ago that the CIA has admitted to destroying 92 tapes of interrogations that contain torture. From the AP story:

New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror interrogations, far more than has previously been acknowledged. The revelation Monday comes as a criminal prosecutor is wrapping up his investigation in the matter. The acknowledgment of dozens of destroyed tapes came in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York, where the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking more details of terror interrogation programs. "The CIA can now identify the number of videotapes that were destroyed," said the letter by Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin. "Ninety two videotapes were destroyed." The tapes became a contentious issue in the trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, after prosecutors initially claimed no such recordings existed, then acknowledged two videotapes and one audiotape had been made. The letter, dated March 2 to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, says the CIA is now gathering more details for the lawsuit,
including a list of the destroyed records, any secondary accounts that describe
the destroyed contents, and the identities of those who may have viewed or
possessed the recordings before they were destroyed.

Harper's Scott Horton writes:

This news makes the case for an independent commission of inquiry still more compelling. It also builds the case for a special prosecutor to look into matters surrounding torture. The new prosecutor must be a person of stature and gravity on a par with the attorney general himself, must be seen as above the political fray, and must be given the resources and manpower to fully investigate the affair–including the increasingly obvious role played by the Justice Department. There is one inescapable conclusion to draw from the destruction of evidence here: those who destroyed it fully appreciated it could be offered up as evidence of crimes in which they were implicated in a future prosecution.

The tension continues to build surround the central issue of the Bush Administration's interrogation program. Something has to give eventually.