Tag: Church Committee

“I Got Hit by a Swinging Pendulum” (Updated)

(crossposted at orange)

I’ve been reading some of the arguments over whether or not we should, as citizens, pressure the Obama Administration and, specifically, Attorney General Eric Holder, to appoint a Special Prosecutor over torture, with the aim of holding the most powerful accountable for their actions.

I have been dissapointed in reading comments suggesting that applying this pressure, as is our right as citizens, would somehow be insulting, disrespectful, or destructive to the Obama Administration.

What the naysayers seem to ignore is that the Obama Administration is already being pressured — and heavily — by the powers that be.

One example.  First we hear Mark Lowenthal saying:

“If Panetta starts trying to feed people to that commission (ed. a congressional commission), his tenure at C.I.A. will be over,” said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former senior C.I.A. official and an adjunct professor at Columbia University.

“If it happens, C.I.A. people are not going to start plotting against the president, but they are going to withdraw from taking risks, and then the C.I.A. becomes useless to the president,” Mr. Lowenthal said.

Then shortly thereafter Obama responds to George Stephanopoulos on This Week about Bob Fertik’s question on whether or not there will be a special prosecutor:

And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering.

I am not trying to read Obama’s mind here.  I have no idea what decisions he will make when it comes to our intelligence agencies and how we investigate them.  But it shows he is listening to what the CIA says, their objections.

Who is going to counter that?  Who, if not us, We the People?