Tag: Panetta

Good Democratic operative Leon Panetta comes before us to say that the CIA and the Bush administration should be excused for all of their crimes because it was to be expected that they would behave like frightened children after the 9/11 attacks. This is the “reality of 9/11” to which Panetta refers. This is a bold attempt at normalizing incompetence and shoddy behavior in America’s leadership.

A stupid, ignorant thug, or a terrified young child, would lash out blindly and break the rules, so why should this standard not apply to the President of the United States and his underlings? This is the final argument of the head of the CIA to protect his agency from repercussions for torturing human beings to extract false confessions to serve the White House.

What is being attempted here is nothing less than the overthrow of our Constitution and laws in favor of the supposedly superior principle of impulsive decision making driven by fear and confusion. The American Founders would be horrified by claims like this. The main purpose of government is to subdue and control the wild impulses of humanity and curb the worst insticts of powerful leaders. But Panetta tells us that the highest principle is to trust the gut decsions of frightened men.

Is our nation truly so debased and dishonored that it will tolerate such offensive nonsense? How low have we sunk if we allow such sophistry to destroy our Constitution? What is to prevent the next rogue President from playing the fear card to inflict even greater outrages on our people? Don’t ask Leon Panetta. He is too busy protecting the frightened children who used to lead our government.

An amusing cone of silence has descended over the CIA and Congress. Like the comical cone of silence in the old TV spy comedy, its purpose is to preserve secrecy, but it actually prevents communication. Both Panetta and Pelosi are telling the public that there is no way to determine the truth of what occurs during a CIA briefing. Why, then, are these briefings conducted? Is it just to pretend that the CIA is not a rogue agency?

Our news media seem not to be troubled at all by the manifest absurdity of state secrets being discussed in informal and undocumented circumstances, leading to confusion and nasty allegations of deceit. We are supposed to believe that this is standard procedure for intelligence professionals and high ranking members of Congress.

This clown circus of finger pointing confirms that the CIA has been nothing more than an unaccountable political tool of the Executive branch. These are the people who do the dirty work of the USA, and their briefing “procedures” ensure that no dirt stains the fingers of our elected officials.

Barak Obama has zero credibility in making the CIA accountable. His choice of the weak and malleable Panetta to “head” the agency is as big a mistake as Bush’s choice of Porter Goss. At the CIA, the inmates are running the asylum, and their antics are growing increasingly absurd.