Ray McGovern: What's Hayden Hidin'?

[babylonsister]

What's Hayden Hidin'?
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2009-01-16 00:38.

By Ray McGovern


Outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden is going around town telling folks he has warned President-elect Barack Obama "personally and forcefully" that if Obama authorizes an investigation into controversial activities like water boarding, "no one in Langley will ever take a risk again."

Upon learning this from what we former intelligence officers used to call an "A-1 source" (completely reliable with excellent access to the information), the thought that came to me in the face of such chutzpah was from Cicero's livid oration against the Roman usurper Cataline: "Quousque, tandem, abutere, Catalina, patientia nostra!" — or "How long, at last, O Cataline, will you abuse our patience!"

Cicero had had enough. And so, apparently, has Obama, who has been confirmed once again of the wisdom of his vote against Hayden's becoming CIA director. It was striking that Obama did not even mention Hayden on Jan. 9, when the president-elect formally named Leon Panetta as his choice to run the CIA and Dennis Blair to be director of national intelligence.

Obama did announce that Mike McConnell, whom Blair will replace after he is confirmed, has been given a sinecure/consolation prize—a seat on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Hayden, a former Air Force general, should be given a seat in the military prison in Leavenworth (see below).

It is not only a bit cheeky, but more than a little disingenuous that Hayden should think to advise Obama "personally and forcefully" against investigating illegal activities authorized by president George W. Bush, since Hayden himself can already be described as an unindicted co-conspirator based on publicly available information. He has bragged loudly about the crimes in which he was directly involved, and has defended others, like what he has called "high-end" interrogation techniques—water boarding, for example.

Could it be clearer? "Water boarding is torture," said President-elect Obama last Sunday to George Stephanopoulos. Torture is a crime. Obama added, twice, that no one is "above the law," although also citing his "belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backward."

Despite the President-elect's equivocations, it seems that President Bush and the current CIA director have a problem. And apparently Hayden's palms are sweaty enough to warrant, in his view, a thinly veiled threat.

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/39028

[democracy1st]

1. thanks for posting sis good info

[MercutioATC]

2. This is one of those situations when they're BOTH right.

Interrogation techniques such as waterboarding cannot be continued.

However, to retroactively prosecute interrogators for using what was a sanctioned method at the time would certainly diminish their future effectiveness.


Once again, Obama gets it.

[Usrename]

11. Torture has NEVER been sanctioned in this country.

These are not "interrogation techniques." Waterboarding is torture. Obama gets it. Now what is he going to do about it?

[eridani]

3. Fuck "risk taking"

The job of the CIA ought to be to gather reliable information so that our leaders can make smart decisions.

[azul]

5. Amen. The agency is above the law because the president gives it orders?

The presidency stands trashed by one who pardons his own crimes, and justifies the crimes as not crimes because what he orders is above the laws of congress -in a perpetual state of pseudo-war where the powers and laws are confused and malleable.

The presidency is ready to spin out of control at the slightest crisis unless some rules of law are re-established and enforced. The public needs an open trial of these pretenders to monarchy to get its sense of law and order back.

[hvn_nbr_2]

4. I want every criminal defense lawyer in the country to start saying "Let's look forward...

not backward."

[struggle4progress]

6. Inquiry Into Interrogations Unlikely :: Hayden: Obama Does Not Wish to Investigate Waterboarding

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 16, 2009; Page A17

President-elect Barack Obama has privately signaled to top U.S. intelligence officials that he has no plans to launch a legal inquiry into the CIA's past use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, agency director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday.

Obama learned key details of the CIA's interrogation practices in a closed-door meeting last month, and afterward made clear that he was more interested in protecting the country from terrorist attacks than investigating the past, the outgoing CIA director said.

"He's looking forward," Hayden said, "and that's very appropriate" ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011504009.html

Hayden's lining up his rubber duckies, it seems

[Joanne98]

7. Hayden committed crimes at thew NSA too. Illegal wiretapping ..

He's a double criminal.

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. What's he talking about? It's because nobody was prepared to take the risk.

of losing their job and career, that they went along with it! For crying out loud. If that's not confused thinking..... Were he and Bush twins, separated at birth. You can see how they'd have got along well.

[katty]

9. Hayden is a bush/cheney cheerleader

[bemildred]

10. Oh heck yeah, prudence and obedience to the law are much to be feared.

While toady-like prostitution is much to be desired.
:sarcasm: