Sunday, May 17, 2009

Pelosi and Torture

I've stayed away from the whole question of how much Nancy Pelosi knew about US torture practices and when did she know it. It is all a tempest in a teapot. What did the CIA tell Congress about how we torture? Hell, I know what the briefings sounded like without even attending.
  • Briefings such as this are filled with technobabble - call it spookspeak - designed to make it sound like English while conveying as little information as possible. Euphemisms abounded. Remember, "waterboarding" is just a euphemism for "water torture."
  • Everything was canted to make the CIA sound heroic and competent. Mistakes were glossed over and failures forgotten altogether.
  • No sentence began, "You will find this disturbing, but...." The "T" word was never used, neither was the "S" word (suffer) and definitely not the "D" word (death). Every effort was made to have the briefings sound innocent. It was made all kind of Sesame Streetish.
The final thing to remember is that Congressmen are constrained from revealing anything they glean from CIA briefings. The briefing could contain a sentence describing a CIA plan to shoot Nancy Pelosi and strangle Harry Reid and if any member of Congress publicly did anything about it like, say, introducing a bill making it illegal for the CIA to assassinate members of Congress, that congressman would be in a peck of trouble for revealing CIA methods and practices.

The CIA briefings could have read like an unexpunged NKVD report and there is not a damn thing any member of Congress could say or do about it.

1 comment:

jacksmith said...

STOP! The Attacks On Speaker Pelosi

Last time they tried to attack Speaker Pelosi ( second in line to the President of the United States) it was about her alleged abuse of military transportation. This attack as expected turned out to be bogus. It turned out that the previous Speaker (Hastert - a Republican) made far more use of military transportation. It turned out that Speaker Pelosi was possibly overly prudent and too self-restrained in her use of military transportation.

Now Republicans are trying to attack her about allegedly having been told by the Bush administration about things she was not told about, like water boarding. Republicans are attacking her because she is being so effective at getting the peoples work done in congress, like healthcare. And Republicans want to stop her. Don't put up with that. Every time they attack Speaker Pelosi they are attacking you and the rest of the American people. If they go after her, go after them even harder.

They are trying to con Speaker Pelosi and the American people. And here is how it works. Approximately 6 years ago CIA had a briefing with Pelosi and congress, but DID NOT tell congress and Pelosi that the Bush administration was using torture ( water boarding ) on detainees. Then the Bush administration sent in Porter Goss to head the CIA and to destroy, and doctor records in part to make it look like Pelosi, and the Democrats in congress were onboard with the illegal torture of detainees by the Bush administration.

See, apparently at these intelligence briefings members of congress are not allowed to take notes. And if they do, they are not allowed to keep them. Apparently the CIA makes notes, but the members of congress are not allowed to see those notes either. And they can't tell anybody about what was said at the briefings. But the CIA can come back six years later and claim they told members of congress something six years ago that they did not tell them at that time. And they can use falsified notes to substantiate their claim. Planting disinformation was the type of thing the CIA became very good at during the time Porter Goss was a young CIA agent. Just gotta love it. :-)

If you will remember, their was a mass exodus of senior CIA officials after Porter Goss took over. And the complaint at the time was that longtime, highly experienced agents were being replaced by other people based mostly on their political loyalties to the Bush administration and their extreme right-wing ideologies. Which is just exactly what you need if you want people who will be willing to break the law under orders. Sound familiar? I don't think you can trust any CIA records after Goss took over.

I have nothing but the utmost respect, and admiration for the dedicated and patriotic members of OUR! Central Intelligence Agency. When the Bush administration betrayed one of OUR! agents (Mrs. Wilson) it made me boiling MAD! I think our new Director Pennetta has got some internal investigation and agency house cleaning to do. If you backtrack on the individuals that have been making the false attacks on Speaker Pelosi, and trace who they have had contact and conversations with, you should be able to connect the dots and catch your conspirators.

The key that the CIA records are falsified is Sen. Bob Graham and his journal, and common sense. :-) By the way, I think Mr. Pennetta is an excellent choice to head the CIA and fix it.

They are trying to kill healthcare reform. And continue our healthcare crisis. Don't put up with that.

PASS THE WORD.

To The Congress Of The United States:

If it is true that you are not allowed to have or make any permanent records of your intelligence briefings for later clarifications, and protection, that is ridiculous. That leaves all of you vulnerable to just this type of scam that is being perpetrated on Speaker Pelosi. So here is what you can do about it to protect your-selves in the future.

Members should be able to make notes and other recordings of these briefings. Then these briefings and recordings can be reduced to a computer file that can then be encrypted and digitally signed with a detached digital signature using key encryption. Then each of you can encrypt, and sign each others copy of the record that can only be unlocked with the other parties key. And both parties copies can be verified with each others copy of the files detached digital signature.

Very easy. Very secure. No more exposure to falsified records down the road. :-)

You see, it almost doesn't really matter what CIA allegedly did or didn't tell Speaker Pelosi, and congress. Because the briefing format is so deficient of any checks, balances, or verification that all we know is that all external briefing accounts support Speaker Pelosi's version of events. Pelosi and congress should have been given every benefit of the doubt. And that should have been it.

There are many other booby traps out there set for you congress. Be careful.

God Bless You

jacksmith — WORKING CLASS

p.s. I still think the timing of Sen. Bob Graham's ruptured cerebral aneurism was suspicious. More so now, than before.