The CIA is become the Stasi of the States, or a state unto itself. Why would Australia work with an agency that its own Congress and people can’t trust?
CIAlia…where lies rule, torture prevails
The CIA is a ‘nation’ separate from the USA.
CIAlia is a state where lies rule, torture prevails: the constitution is founded on public relations spin.
It is a type of CIAlice in Wonderland, where words mean what the CIAliens say they mean. Colours are reversed: black is white. Day is night in the CIA-manufactured climate of unreality. There is a fundamental equation: e = mc2…or truth equates to getting rooted when Evading and Misleading Congress.
US Democrat Senator Mark Udall (right) ripped open the black velvet curtain surrounding the CIA this week. He was commenting on the 6000-page report to the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC) into CIA torture after the 11 Sept 2001 aircraft attacks on America. The SIC Report took seven years to compile and release. Its executive summary occupies more than 500 pages.
Udall is about to leave the Senate, having recently lost an election. He perceives himself as freer to speak, therefore. Of course, in a proper democracy, all Senators would speak the truth always.
Here is what Udall said in the Senate in December 2014:
- Director John Brennan and the CIA are continuing to wilfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture – in other words the CIA is lying,
- …key findings and conclusions (of the SIC report) fly directly in the face of claims made by CIA officials past and present.
- the Panetta Review (1) directly refutes the Brennan response.
- the Panetta Review identifies dozens of documents that include inaccurate information used to justify the use of torture.
- the CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to Congress, the president and the public on the efficacy of its coercive techniques.
- torture was used on detainees before other approaches were attempted, or even if “less coercive methods” were yielding intelligence.
- the CIA used coercive techniques when it had no basis for determining whether a detainee had critical intelligence at all. In other words CIA personnel tortured detainees to confirm they didn’t have intelligence, not because they thought they did.
- The CIA’s unauthorised search of the SIC-dedicated computer was conducted out of concern that committee staff was provided with the Panetta Review – it demonstrates how far the CIA will go to keep its secrets safe.
- the Panetta Review is a smoking gun…it should be released.
- the CIA searched without authorisation or notification… computers the CIA had agreed were off limits.
- the CIA may have violated multiple parts of the constitution as well as federal criminal statutes and Executive Order 12333.
- Despite admitting behind closed doors to the committee that the CIA conducted the search, Director Brennan publicly referred to spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts.
- The CIA then made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice against SIC staff working on the [investigation]. I strongly agree (it was) an attempt to intimidate the committee staff…the very staff charged with CIA oversight.
- The CIA’s inspector general subsequently opened an investigation into the CIA’s unauthorised search and found, contrary to Director Brennan’s public protestations, that a number of CIA employees did improperly access the SIC’s dedicated computers.
Senator Udall said: “There are right now people serving in high levels at the CIA who approved, directed or committed acts related to the CIA’s (program). It’s bad enough not to prosecute these officials, but to reward or promote them and risk the integrity of the US government to protect them is incomprehensible.” He called on President Barack Obama to put into law what his executive action already declares – a ban on torture.
Senator Udall called for Mr Brennan to resign, to correct the record and begin reforms to restore the agency’s reputation for integrity and analytical rigour.
The first question for Australia is why we would work with the CIA ever again? We must assume that the CIA would lie to Australia to suit its own ends. We know the CIA lies to its own Congress and people to suit its own ends, so it would have no qualms lying to us.
The second question for Australia is whether our security agencies -– ASIS, ASIO and others – similarly lied to Australian Ministers, Parliamentary Committees and the Australian people over “9/11” and its aftermath? As most of our agents have at some stage trained with the CIA, or have trained using CIA methodology and psychological tools, we must assume Australian spooks are imbued with at least partly the same philosophy and attitude as the rogue US ‘state’.
How much were Australian security, police, intelligence and military agencies involved in the kidnapping, detention, torture and interrogation, including in Egypt and Guantanamo Bay, of Australia Mamdouh Habid? Did Australia’s spy agencies know about torturing of David Hicks? How much did the Howard government, and John Howard and Philip Ruddock in particular, know about torturing of Australians…and did they do anything to stop it?
Like most reports, the SIC report generates as many questions as it answers. While American is navel-gazing as a result of the report, Australia needs to take a close, cold, hard look at its own behaviour during and since the 9/11 aircraft attacks on America.
If you can’t believe the CIA – and you can’t – why would you believe ASIS or ASIO, or anything the Australian government says that the security agencies tell them?
(1) Ex-CIA director Leon Panetta previewed CIAlia’s interrogation and detention program. His review has never been formally released, not even to the Senate Intelligence Committee which allegedly oversees CIAlia.