White House photo
It's been a long while, but four years ago, John Brennan was considered by the Obama/Biden transition team for a leading intelligence agency post, before he withdrew his name from consideration. At the time, several prominent progressive writers noted Brennan's association with Bush/Cheney-era controversies, which would have made his nomination more problematic.
In the ensuing years, Brennan nevertheless joined President Obama's White House team, becoming the president chief advisor on counter-terrorism. Today, Obama introduced him as his choice to lead the CIA.
Brennan worked at the CIA for 25 years, including a stint as station chief in Saudi Arabia. He also served as chief of staff to then CIA Director George Tenet from 1999 to 2001, when he was named the agency's deputy executive director. [...]
As Brennan has been involved in major national security issues since 9/11, he should be able "to hit the ground running" at the CIA, one official told NBC News.
If confirmed, Brennan will succeed retired general David Petraeus, who resigned amid a scandal over an extramarital affair with his biographer.
The White House is circulating talking points on Brennan's qualifications, but the questions for many skeptics on the left are no less important now than they were in 2008 -- either he supported the Bush/Cheney team's most offensive intelligence-gathering policies, including "enhanced interrogation techniques," a euphemism for torture, or he didn't.
I suspect -- or more accurately, I hope -- this will be explored in more detail as the confirmation process unfolds, but I should note that Brennan said in 2008 that he always opposed torture and communicated his concerns privately during the Bush era to his CIA colleagues, while also questioning the legality of several CIA interrogation methods.
In his 2008 letter to Obama, Brennan argued at the time, "It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration such as the pre-emptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include waterboarding." Brennan also emphasized he was "not involved in the decision-making process" during the previous administration.
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Well, someone just came out and said it, from the CIA even. This is going to be interesting.
The nomination is yet another "Hobson's Choice". We need a horse to ride into battle with 'teh baddies', but Mr. Hobson's stable has few mounts available, and all been rode hard, and put up wet.
Short of becoming Isolationists again, we still need to engage the world- with diplomacy if possible, or with a big stick if not.
But there is no doubt we are engaging the world.
The point is that our main weapon is extra judicial killing being carried out by the CIA and US military. Our actions could be legal within the definition of war, but we have not taken that explicit course. Otherwise our actions are illegal under international law and we must perform them in a way hidden from international scrutiny. Every state has done this, and we are no exception.
The question is whether our warriors are free not only from the constraints of international law, but free from US law.
We must have intrusive and detailed oversight of the drone war by not just Congress but he Judiciary. This can be done without violating secrecy, as history has also demonstrated repeatedly.
By denying even rudimentary oversight, the Obama administration is setting a precedent that whoever sits in the White House may kill people we are not at war anywhere in the world without judicial or congressional review. So called liberals maintain a willful ignorance about this policy only because this despotic power is being wielded by a Democratic president.
How will we feel about this when a 21st century Dick Nixon uses it to murder leftist revolutionaries in South America fighting against US backed autocratic governments? He will be able to do this with impunity, and out of detection by any other branch of government due to systems and procedures that Barack Obama institutionalized in his presidency.
Introducing strong oversight and detection mechanisms of executive over reach must be a primary focus of this administration.
In reporting about Brennan's advocacy of the drone war free of oversight, I would hope that MSNBC does not fall for another Semantic Cliff use of terminology. Official sources now refer not to the CIA's "Kill list" database, but the "Disposition Matrix". John Hudson of the Atlantic Wire noted that CIA and US military technocrats have cleverly begun to shift their semantics. Their preferred term attempts to sanitize what the list does, and lend it an aura of high tech (the Matrix) efficiency.
MSNBC commentators might need some alternate synonyms for "Kill List" so perhaps we should start a contest. I like:
This lends the proper sense of what the technology is doing, in terms of
I guess with a few more drones run by Can't Investigate Anything, we should be able to "engage the world successfully" - sending bombing missions to you-name-it . "We had to destroy the freedom in order to save it," to change a famous quote from the Vietnam war.
So why not nominate a war criminal to head up the office of war criminality?
TC,
You are such the genius!!....NOT!
Brennan is a good example of a career intelligence officer who has taken flak from right wingers for working with Obama. It's as if the right expects all those in the CIA to immediately resign if a Democrat gets elected. The program remains the same, the CIA does weird and freaky crap regardless of who is in the White House. They overplayed the freak card during the Bush Administration...
They get to play the "freak card" even moreso under Obama than they did under Bush-Cheney, and if one of them should have the temerity to tell the truth, he'll be prosecuted and sent to prison for 10 years, as is happening this week.
TC,
Who's the freak? You or Obama?
I'm not familiar with this guy, but he is protesting his "innocence" a bit, which isn't a good sign by any measure. Oh and Mr. President can you stop picking Bush/Chaney, Clinton people - let's start out with a whole new bunch of fresh faces...Thank you...
Zora, see my post, above.
ALL the 'good people' have been long at work at CIA, DOD, et al, for decades, under Dem and Rep administrations.
Or would you a prefer a bright eyed and bushy tailed neophyte with all the 'qualifications' of a Teahadist?
Why would the president who has codified automated killing on levels only dreamed of by Darth Cheney have any problem whatsoever nominating a torture-supporter as head of Can't Investigate Anything???
I watched Ms. Maddow's show tonight and I have to admit I was a bit impressed that she appeared to venture a few feet off the liberal reservation. She seemed to be a bit concerned that drone assassinations by the Obama administration might not be compatible with liberal views on due process of law as envisioned by the Constitution. She may in fact be wrestling with the paradox that non lethal water boarding is morally and legally wrong but the vaporization of an individual and everyone standing near them when hit by a drone is apparently become normal and accepted in the present White House. I may watch again to see if she keeps going down this road.
Oh, sh*t!
I watched the Monday program and Rachal said several things that are simply untrue or at least misleading. Jeremy Scahill has said that Obama has created at least one secret prison in East Africa staffed with guards from Kenya. I have noticed he is no longer interviewed. Also Obama claims that the torture has ended when it is clear it has continued and been made more open and notorious. Obamas role in the torture of Bradley Manning is ambiguous at best and at the worst an open display that ending torture is a promise honoured in the breach