Kiriakou writes: "The Russia hacking story distracts from real and important
issues surrounding the CIA and its future in U.S. policy."
CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. (photo: Guardian UK)
I Have Come to the Conclusion the Country Does Not Need a CIA
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
17 January 17
President-elect Donald Trump is accusing CIA Director John Brennan of being
the source of "fake news" about him, essentially calling our new supreme
leader a Russian stooge and accusing him of taking part in a sexual kink in
full view of Russian intelligence cameras in a Moscow hotel room several
years ago.
I have no idea whether or not Trump, during a visit to Moscow in 2010, hired
prostitutes to urinate on a Four Seasons Hotel Presidential Suite mattress
because the Obamas had once slept there. I don't care. I also have no idea
if the Russian government "hacked" the Democratic National Committee and
stole Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's emails. I have not seen any
CIA, FBI, or NSA evidence, so I have come to the personal conclusion that
the hacking story is overblown. All countries spy on each other. It's a fact
of life. The U.S. spies on just about everybody in the world. So I have a
problem with the righteous indignation that I'm seeing from so many of my
friends and former CIA colleagues about the Russians.
With that said, the Russia hacking story distracts from real and important
issues surrounding the CIA and its future in U.S. policy.
One of those real issues is that the CIA has consistently lied to the
American people for many, many years. Why would Trump conclude that Brennan
was spouting fake news? Well, in the past 15 years, the CIA said that it was
not torturing its prisoners. That was a lie. The CIA said that it had not
created an archipelago of secret prisons where it was holding hundreds of
people, including innocent civilians. That was a lie. The CIA said that it
had not created and used a dungeon torture center called the "Salt Pit" in
Afghanistan. That was a lie. The CIA said that it was not sending prisoners
to third world countries to undergo torture with a wink and a nod from the
CIA's leadership. That was a lie. The CIA said that it had not hacked into
computers belonging to investigators of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence while they were writing the definitive report on the CIA
torture program. That was a lie.
I won't even get into CIA protestations that it hasn't overthrown
governments, influenced elections, committed assassinations, or otherwise
mucked up U.S. foreign policy since the late 1940s.
I'm no fan of Donald Trump. At all. But he does have a good and important
point when he complains about the Intelligence Community. When Trump said
recently that the CIA was bloated and inefficient, he was right. When he
said that it needed to be pared down and restructured, he was right.
First, it's good for the country that in a few short days John Brennan will
be out of a job. Brennan has been a disaster for the CIA. His ill-advised
"restructuring" of the organization two years ago, which did away with
geographical "divisions" and created 10 new "fusion centers" that paired
operators and analysts, was ill-advised and typical of somebody with no
operational experience. It diluted expertise, forced the CIA to rely more on
electronic eavesdropping, and pushed human source intelligence collection to
the side.
Second, try as he might, Brennan was never able to, and indeed, should not
have been able to, deny his role in the Bush administration's torture
program. He was Bush's Deputy Executive Director of the CIA - the
organization's fourth-ranking officer - from 2001 to 2003 and director of
the Terrorist Threat Integration Center from 2003 to 2004. He was in the
center of the CIA action and up to his neck in counterterrorism in the
Agency's darkest days. To say that he had no idea there was a CIA torture
program at the time is utterly laughable.
Third, I have no idea what kind of CIA director Michael Pompeo will be. I'm
not optimistic. But with that said, if he does only one thing during his
tenure, I hope he would clean house by forcing out every CIA officer who
ever had anything to do with the torture program, every officer who had
anything to do with the Senate hacking scandal, and every officer who has
ever provided false information to the oversight committees. As my CIA
recruiter told me in 1989, "The CIA wants honest people, not perfect
people." Well, even all these years later, the dishonest people have to go.
Fourth, we can certainly have a discussion about whether or not the country
even needs a CIA. I have come to the conclusion that it does not. The
excellent civil servants in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence
and Research can do the analysis. The Pentagon's Defense Humint Services can
recruit and run human sources around the world. A myriad of DoD and other
civilian offices and bureaus can do the science and technology development.
In the meantime, however, the job of the CIA ought to remain simple: To
recruit spies to steal secrets. When it can't do that, when a majority of
CIA officers are sitting fat and happy in Langley, Virginia, there's a
problem. They are doing the American taxpayer a disservice. The top
leadership has to go. Employees who don't respect U.S. and international law
have to go. The purge should start on January 20.
________________________________________
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage
Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a
result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. (photo: Guardian UK)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
I Have Come to the Conclusion the Country Does Not Need a CIA
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
17 January 17
resident-elect Donald Trump is accusing CIA Director John Brennan of being
the source of "fake news" about him, essentially calling our new supreme
leader a Russian stooge and accusing him of taking part in a sexual kink in
full view of Russian intelligence cameras in a Moscow hotel room several
years ago.
I have no idea whether or not Trump, during a visit to Moscow in 2010, hired
prostitutes to urinate on a Four Seasons Hotel Presidential Suite mattress
because the Obamas had once slept there. I don't care. I also have no idea
if the Russian government "hacked" the Democratic National Committee and
stole Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's emails. I have not seen any
CIA, FBI, or NSA evidence, so I have come to the personal conclusion that
the hacking story is overblown. All countries spy on each other. It's a fact
of life. The U.S. spies on just about everybody in the world. So I have a
problem with the righteous indignation that I'm seeing from so many of my
friends and former CIA colleagues about the Russians.
With that said, the Russia hacking story distracts from real and important
issues surrounding the CIA and its future in U.S. policy.
One of those real issues is that the CIA has consistently lied to the
American people for many, many years. Why would Trump conclude that Brennan
was spouting fake news? Well, in the past 15 years, the CIA said that it was
not torturing its prisoners. That was a lie. The CIA said that it had not
created an archipelago of secret prisons where it was holding hundreds of
people, including innocent civilians. That was a lie. The CIA said that it
had not created and used a dungeon torture center called the "Salt Pit" in
Afghanistan. That was a lie. The CIA said that it was not sending prisoners
to third world countries to undergo torture with a wink and a nod from the
CIA's leadership. That was a lie. The CIA said that it had not hacked into
computers belonging to investigators of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence while they were writing the definitive report on the CIA
torture program. That was a lie.
I won't even get into CIA protestations that it hasn't overthrown
governments, influenced elections, committed assassinations, or otherwise
mucked up U.S. foreign policy since the late 1940s.
I'm no fan of Donald Trump. At all. But he does have a good and important
point when he complains about the Intelligence Community. When Trump said
recently that the CIA was bloated and inefficient, he was right. When he
said that it needed to be pared down and restructured, he was right.
First, it's good for the country that in a few short days John Brennan will
be out of a job. Brennan has been a disaster for the CIA. His ill-advised
"restructuring" of the organization two years ago, which did away with
geographical "divisions" and created 10 new "fusion centers" that paired
operators and analysts, was ill-advised and typical of somebody with no
operational experience. It diluted expertise, forced the CIA to rely more on
electronic eavesdropping, and pushed human source intelligence collection to
the side.
Second, try as he might, Brennan was never able to, and indeed, should not
have been able to, deny his role in the Bush administration's torture
program. He was Bush's Deputy Executive Director of the CIA - the
organization's fourth-ranking officer - from 2001 to 2003 and director of
the Terrorist Threat Integration Center from 2003 to 2004. He was in the
center of the CIA action and up to his neck in counterterrorism in the
Agency's darkest days. To say that he had no idea there was a CIA torture
program at the time is utterly laughable.
Third, I have no idea what kind of CIA director Michael Pompeo will be. I'm
not optimistic. But with that said, if he does only one thing during his
tenure, I hope he would clean house by forcing out every CIA officer who
ever had anything to do with the torture program, every officer who had
anything to do with the Senate hacking scandal, and every officer who has
ever provided false information to the oversight committees. As my CIA
recruiter told me in 1989, "The CIA wants honest people, not perfect
people." Well, even all these years later, the dishonest people have to go.
Fourth, we can certainly have a discussion about whether or not the country
even needs a CIA. I have come to the conclusion that it does not. The
excellent civil servants in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence
and Research can do the analysis. The Pentagon's Defense Humint Services can
recruit and run human sources around the world. A myriad of DoD and other
civilian offices and bureaus can do the science and technology development.
In the meantime, however, the job of the CIA ought to remain simple: To
recruit spies to steal secrets. When it can't do that, when a majority of
CIA officers are sitting fat and happy in Langley, Virginia, there's a
problem. They are doing the American taxpayer a disservice. The top
leadership has to go. Employees who don't respect U.S. and international law
have to go. The purge should start on January 20.
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage
Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a
result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
