What's with Obama's determination to give torture and rendition supporter John Brennan a post?

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Fri Jan-09-09 01:41 PM
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What's with Obama's determination to give torture and rendition supporter John Brennan a post?

01/09/2009

John O. Brennan, a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, has been asked to serve as President-elect Barack Obama's top adviser on terrorism, a position not subject to Senate confirmation. Brennan was viewed as an early favorite to lead the CIA but withdrew over fears his past support of certain interrogation techniques would cripple his confirmation prospects.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010804108.html?hpid=topnews

from Glen Greenwald at Salon: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/16/brennan/

John Brennan and Bush's interrogation/detention policies

Sunday Nov. 16, 2008

. . . there is Brennan's December 5, 2005 appearance on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, in which he vehemently defended the Bush administration's use of rendition -- one of the key tools to subject detainees to torture:

JOHN BRENNAN: I think over the past decade it has picked up some speed because of the nature of the terrorist threat right now but essentially it's a practice the United States and other countries have used to transport suspected terrorists from a country, usually where they're captured to another country, either their country of origin or a country where they can be questioned, detained or brought to justice. . . .

MARGARET WARNER: So was Secretary Rice correct today when she called it a vital tool in combating terrorism?

JOHN BRENNAN: I think it's an absolutely vital tool. I have been intimately familiar now over the past decade with the cases of rendition that the U.S. Government has been involved in. And I can say without a doubt that it has been very successful as far as producing intelligence that has saved lives.

MARGARET WARNER: So is it -- are you saying both in two ways -- both in getting terrorists off the streets and also in the interrogation?

JOHN BRENNAN: Yes. The rendition is the practice or the process of rendering somebody from one place to another place. It is moving them and the U.S. Government will frequently facilitate that movement from one country to another. . . .

In November, 2007, Brennan -- in an interview with CBS News' Harry Smith -- issued a ringing endorsement for so-called "enhanced interrogation tactics" short of waterboarding:

SMITH: You know, this all becomes such a giant issue because the president has gone on record so many times saying the United States does not torture. If we acknowledge that this kind of activity goes on, you know, what does that mean, exactly, I guess?

Mr. BRENNAN: Well, the CIA has acknowledged that it has detained about 100 terrorists since 9/11, and about a third of them have been subjected to what the CIA refers to as enhanced interrogation tactics, and only a small proportion of those have in fact been subjected to the most serious types of enhanced procedures.

SMITH: Right. And you say some of this has born fruit.

Mr. BRENNAN: There have been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hard-core terrorists. It has saved lives. And let's not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the deaths of 3,000 innocents.

In the same interview, Brennan even defended -- or at least justified -- Michael Mukasey's refusal to say whether waterboarding was "torture," on the ground that by doing so, Mukasey would be admitting that the President broke the law (as though that is a valid reason for a prospective Attorney General to refuse to opine on a legal matter):

But I think Judge Mukasey is in a very difficult position right now as the attorney general nominee, to be asked whether or not this is torture. And if torture, then, is unconstitutional or illegal, they're asking whether or not waterboarding is illegal and whether or not the individuals, which includes the president and others--if it was used, who authorized and actually used this type of procedure may be subject to some type of judicial action.

And in July, 2008, NPR attributed Obama's reversal on FISA and telecom immunity to the fact that he was relying on the advice of Brennan, an emphatic supporter of those policies . . .

read Glen Greenwald's complete compilation: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/16/brennan/