FBI says they got the same intel from suspects as CIA got, without waterboarding
In an Op-Ed piece today in the New York Times, a former supervisory Special FBI Agent makes 3 important points:
- The FBI got the same intel as the CIA, without the waterboarding and torture
- There was a ‘wall’ between CIA and FBI, so they could not work together or share information
- Private contractors, not the CIA, asked for waterboarding.
OMG.
I have HUGE problems with each of his 3 statements:
- Why isn’t CIA under same rules as FBI? Is this a case of ‘we follow the rules in the USofA but not outside her borders’? We can torture, as long as its in ‘black sites’ and we keep it hidden?
- Good intel was already available, to the FBI, without torture? But the two governmental arms couldn’t share their intel? Can we PLEASE have ONE PERSON as the ‘go-to’, ‘buck stops here’ person. Oh, yes. We do have that person. Its the Commander in Chief, Barack Obama.
- What have we NOT privatized? We’ve privatized, taken out of the hands of the American Government, decisions about torture? That means our military is a puppet, that our FBI and CIA actually aren’t the spooks we think they are. There is a shadow army, paid for by American taxpayer’s hard earned income taxes, who are leading us into despotic and cruel acts.
None of these 3 things is ‘OK.’
- Its not okay to use torture, ever.
- Its not okay to circumvent the President of the United States, even if it is George W. Bush and his minions acted for him (Cheney, Rice).
- Its not okay to ‘hire out’ for the dirty things we don’t want to do, or know about.
We need a Congressional investigation,
we need charges against all involved
and we need to step into the light of leadership.
Our moral integrity is on the line.
[...] “We could have gotten information in other ways that are consistent with our values.” [...]