Well, that didn’t take long, for a Director of Central Intelligence to totally lose his credibility in the servitude of the institution. What has it been? Three, four months?
I’ll have more to say about Panetta’s declaration in the ACLU FOIA case tomorrow. But for now, a little unsolicited advice for the spook-in-chief.
When you say,
I also want to emphasize that my determinations expressed above, and in my classified declaration, are in no way driven by a desire to prevent embarrassment for the U.S. Government or the CIA, or to suppress evidence of unlawful conduct,
Yet the entire world knows–and the CIA has itself acknowledged–that the materials in question do, in fact, show evidence of unlawful conduct, and when you sort of kind of pretend that no one else knows what they all know–that the materials show evidence of unlawful conduct…
Then you look like a fool.
A chump.
Like George Tenet, maybe, when he boasted of "slam dunk."
And then when you go on to say,
As the Court knows, some of the operational documents currently at issue contain descriptions of EITs being applied during specific overseas interrogations. These descriptions, however, are EITs as applied in actual operations, and are of qualitatively different nature than the EIT descriptions in the abstract contained in the OLC memoranda.
Then you’re just hoping we’re all bigger idiots than we really are.
Let me say this plainly. According to the CIA–the CIA itself–there’s a reason why the interrogations don’t resemble the "EIT descriptions in the abstract contained in the OLC memoranda." That’s because some cowboy probably named James Mitchell who was getting rich off of torture thought things would be more poignant–yes, the fucker actually said "poignant"–if he drowned Abu Zubaydah in gallons of water rather than sprinkling him like a daisy. There’s a reason why the descriptions of torture as it was applied is such a problem–and yes, is evidence of unlawful conduct. And that’s because we know–we all know!!!!–that the torture began before the memos authorized it, and the torture exceeded what few guidelines John Yoo placed on it.
So don’t give me this crap about not trying to avoid embarrassment–unless you start admitting how damning this shit is.
We know you’re trying to hide the evidence of criminal torture. Insisting, over and over, under oath, that that’s not what you’re doing isn’t convincing anyone.