Thread: Hayden: 'Torture' Report Will Cripple CIA

Ex-CIA Chief Michael Hayden:
'Torture' Report Will Cripple Agency

Monday, 08 Dec 2014 11:59 AM
By Melissa Clyne

A small group of Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee are __-bent on releasing a graphic report that suggests the CIA misled President George W. Bush about torture techniques used on suspected al-Qaida detainees held in secret facilities in Europe and Asia following 9/11, former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden said Monday on "America's Forum."

The release will damage the United States' relationship with allies and risk the safety of overseas personnel, he told the Newsmax TV program.

"No good reason" exists to explain the partisan politics of the push for the report's release, said Hayden, who maintains the CIA did nothing illegal and always kept the administration in the loop.

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"The [Obama] administration is fighting tooth and nail in court to prevent the release of videos showing forced feedings of prisoners at Guantanamo, and that's actually a humanitarian action," he said.

"The current administration has gone to court to prevent the release of the photos of the dead body of Osama bin Laden, and yet we're going to put these very graphic descriptions of enhanced interrogation techniques out there and someone thinks that won't have an impact? That's really hard to imagine."

Fox News has reported that both a State Department and an intelligence official have confirmed that overseas U.S. personnel have been put on alert to "reassess security measures," and House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers told CNN that the report will incite "violence and deaths."

The Democrats' report, according to Hayden, "is probably the classic definition of political."

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The collateral damage will be U.S. allies and members of the CIA, he said.
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"Now, this report is going to come out and although it is not going to name the countries that were involved with us in this program, there are those people who think they know what countries were involved that will then use the data in this report you and I have already discussed is not accurate, but they will treat it as accurate, treat it as the historical record and cause great problems for countries who are friends of the U.S."
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"The final outcome of this report is going to be an American espionage service that is timid and friendless and that really is a danger to the U.S.," Hayden said.

He said he recommended in 2006 that the U.S. reduce the number of interrogation techniques in order to build political cohesion and to ensure continuity from one administration to the next.

According to officials who have read the report, it says the U.S. engaged in sleep deprivation, confining detainees in small spaces, humiliation, and waterboarding.

"Now, what I did in 2006, with a strong support I should add of President Bush, who was trying to get his emergency measures started after 9/11 on a more sound political footing — political, not legal, political footing — so that he could hand them off to his successor, whomever that might be," Hayden said.

"We were quite willing, in order to get political consensus, to pull back from some techniques that some people may have objected to, not in any way suggesting they were previously illegal, but simply to get the political buy-in so that we could have a program that wouldn't have an on/off switch with every off-year election."

A federal prosecutor investigated the agency's interaction with 101 detainees and declined to prosecute, Hayden said.

Reuters reported that on Friday Secretary of State John Kerry asked Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, to "consider the timing of the expected release of a report on the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques," but that the administration has not wavered in its support for the report's release.

Related Stories:

• Dianne Feinstein Pushes for Release of Senate CIA Torture Report
• Report: CIA Tortured Suspects 'Until the Point of Death'

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What constitutes an act of war against the U.S. by fifth column, anti-America U.S. citizens or legal residents?

Is it spelled out anywhere, or perhaps defined in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion? Also, what are the USSC cases that interpret "levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort," (Art. iii, § 3, ¶ 1)?

"Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.
"The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment." - Art. i, § 2, ¶ 5.

"The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." - Art. i, § 3, ¶ 6.

"The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office." - Art. iii, § 1, ¶ 1.

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
"The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted." - Art. iii, § 3, ¶ 1, 2.

As with all agents and agencies of the U.S., the CIA and its agents, operatives, and proxies must be held accountable for crimes committed during enhanced interrogation techniques and renditioning of prisoners.

But I know of no nation in history - or none which has lasted very long - which has punished war crimes and the crimes of their own warriors by turning over those criminals to the aggrieved enemy! How much more is it someone else's self-inflicted punishment (for their own guilt) to expose to enemy retaliation ALL of the nation's agencies and allies, agents and operatives, proxies and information sources, as an atonement sacrifice for the crimes of SOME or a FEW of their comrades in arms? That is not just self-punishment, but tr**s*n as well.
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An aside about self-punishment, from a Christian viewpoint:

Those who trust Christ for salvation recognize mentally or sense in their souls that God the Father laid the penalty for mankind's sin upon Jesus, God the Son, on the cross to satisfy (placate, extinguish) God's wrath against sin. They bear that burden of guilt no more.

However, assuming that the actual perpetrator of wrongdoing is too strong, too powerful, too protected, or unavailable to be brought to man's justice, one who is not a Christian sometimes unconsciously seeks to create a balance of justice in THIS realm, NOW, by executing the (otherwise unenforceable) punishment which man's wrath requires upon himself, upon those under his authority, upon his group or his country, or even upon the victim "for inciting or bringing such violence upon himself."