Steve Aftergood: Diplomatic History of US with Iran Withheld — 61 Years Later — Due to Lasting Damage of CIA Covert Action
04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy
Department of State Delays Release of Iran History
The U.S. Department of State has blocked the publication of a long-awaited documentary history of U.S. covert action in Iran in the 1950s out of concern that its release could adversely affect ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. The controversial Iran history volume, part of the official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, had been slated for release last summer. (“History of 1953 CIA Covert Action in Iran to be Published,”
Yoda: New York Bans Fracking — 2 Aspects Everyone Has Missed from the NYT to Mother Jones
05 Energy, Civil Society, Commerce, Ethics, Government
Citing Health Risks, Cuomo Bans Fracking in New York State (NYT)
Health Department Report on Fracking in New York State (Report)
New York State Just Banned Fracking (Mother Jones)
Phi Beta Iota: The media coverage of this historic decision has been mediocre. Everyone has missed two really big deals. First, the NY ban stems from a single legal couple going village to village over the years, persuading each village to pass an ordnance against fracking. Although industry took the case to the Appeals Court, they lost. Second, fracking is recommended as an energy solution in Global Trends 2030, the flagship of the US secret world's grasp of intelligence with integrity — in other words, they don't have a clue. So this specific decision on fracking in NY represents both the triumph of informed localized citizens, and the pathetic collapse of any semblance of “national” intelligence.
See Especially:
SchwartzReport: Grass-Roots Anti-Fracking
See Also:
Intelligence with Integrity @ Phi Beta Iota
CounterPunch: Henry Giroux on US Moral Paralysis – Torture and the Violence of Organized Forgetting
07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call
A Form of Moral Paralysis
Torture and the Violence of Organized Forgetting
Henry Giroux
CounterPunch, Weekend Edition December 12-14, 2014
EXTRACT
SchwartzReport: 20 Key Findings on CIA Torture — Should President Fire DNI, USDI, and D/CIA?
07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call
20 key findings about CIA interrogations
Almost 13 years after the CIA established secret prisons to hold and interrogate detainees, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the CIA’s programs listing 20 key findings. Click a statement below for a summary of the findings:
1 “not an effective means of acquiring intelligence” 2 “rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness” 3 “brutal and far worse than the CIA represented” 4 “conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher” 5 “repeatedly provided inaccurate information” 6 “actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight” 7 “impeded effective White House oversight” 8 “complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions” 9 “impeded oversight by the CIA’s Office of Inspector General” 10 “coordinated the release of classified information to the media” 11 “unprepared as it began operating” 12 “deeply flawed throughout the program's duration” 13 “overwhelmingly outsourced operations” 14 “coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved” 15 “did not conduct a comprehensive or accurate accounting of the number of individuals it detained” 16 “failed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness” 17 “rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable” 18 “ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections” 19 “inherently unsustainable” 20 “damaged the United States' standing in the world”
Mel Goodman: CIA Directors’ High Crimes
07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War
A Spurious Challenge to the Senate Torture Report
CounterPunch, 10 December 2014
CIA director John Brennan, having failed to block the release of the Senate intelligence committee’s report on torture and abuse, is now abetting the efforts of former CIA directors and deputy directors to rebut the report’s conclusions that the interrogation techniques amounted to sadism and that senior CIA officials lied to the White House, the Congress, and the Department of Justice about the effectiveness of the enhanced interrogation program. Former CIA directors George Tenet and Michael Hayden and deputy directors John McLaughlin and Steve Kappes, who were guilty of past deceit on sensitive issues, have threatened to make documents available to undermine the findings of the Senate committee. The senior operations officer who ran the CIA’s torture and abuse program, Jose Rodriquez, has been permitted to write a book and a long essay in the Washington Post that argue the interrogation techniques were legal and effective. Their charges are completely spurious and their credibility is non-existent. Read more.
Steven Aftergood: CIA Torture Report – Oversight, But No Remedies Yet — With Strong PBI Comment
07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Officers CallCIA Torture Report: Oversight, But No Remedies Yet
The release of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation program is, among other things, an epic act of record preservation. Numerous CIA records that might not have been disclosed for decades, or ever, were rescued from oblivion by the Senate report and are now indelibly cited and quoted, even if many of them are not yet released in full. That’s not a small thing, since the history of the CIA interrogation program was not a story that the Agency was motivated or equipped to tell. Read more.
