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| Senator Dianne Feinstein |
The So-called EIM was authorized by the US government, but the controversy surrounding their applications emerged after evidence of bad treatment of Iraqi prisoners in Iraq surfaced. The report, which came to be known as the 'Abu Graib scandal’ revealed startling interrogation methods deemed by the 'IL' as illegal and amount to crimes against humanity. The investigation led to the resignation of a number of prominent leaders, but also led to more discovery of CIA controversial methods used on detainees all over the world and at the off-shore maximum detention center in Guantanamo, Cuba, where terrorists are currently housed. These highly controversial methods became the center of Democrat senseless attack on the ‘Intel community’ and relentless investigation.
What many proponents of the EIM pointed to is that these lawmakers – who are now on the hunt to throw the Intel agents under the bus, were briefed constantly, including the, then, speaker of the Democrat led House of Representative, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. They were told frequently that the EIM were used to try and extract information from detainees who were brought to GITMO from the battle-fields across the world. It is obvious that the Democrat leadership back then didn't see anything controversial about the application of those interrogation techniques. Not only did these Democrats voted to approve the Bush's 'War against Terror' and went on to fund and support the Iraq invasion, they also knew that these methods were being applied to prisoners by the CIA operators. If it was such a scandal, why didn’t these Democrats launch an aggressively campaign to stop these EIM? Off course, they didn’t see anything wrong about them. The question becomes, why are they so anxious to release these reports now?
During yesterday's White House brief, CBS WH Correspondence, Major Garrett, asked White House Spokesman, Josh Earnest, if the Democrats are simply anxious to release the report before the Senate Committee is taken over by the Republicans next year, and that the Obama administration fears that the report might never see the light of day. Earnest didn't answer the question, but said that the Obama administration is consistent in its position on the EIM; implying that Obama himself pledged to get to the bottom of it from day one. If this is the case, it took them about six years to come up with the decision, all the more reason to believe that the release is to ensure the report don't get destroyed by the Republican.
Is this about transparency? Throughout the press conference, Earnest claimed repeatedly that releasing the reports is consistent with Obama's policy of transparency and accountability. Yet, the American people have yet to see reports of various scandals that the Obama administration created over the past six years, notably the 'Fast and Furious' (F&F). The F&F scandal involved the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) who authorized the sale of thousands of deadly firearms to Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to track them to these cartels. One of these guns showed up at a cross-border crime scene in which a Border Agent was killed by cartel thugs. Following explosive information about the F&F, the House Republicans summoned the Attorney General (AG) to testify, but he refused to turn over incriminating documents. To make matters worse, the president who pledged in 2008 to bring transparency to the US government, quickly claimed "Executive Privilege" over these records and essentially sealed it from congress. He failed to come clean on a number of scandals that rocked the country in the past few years. So to claim that releasing the CIA EIM documents is part of transparency is profoundly laughable.
A political pundit said this morning on radio that the Democrats is trying to force the country to rethink electing another Republican by dragging the country back to the past Republican government of President Bush, hoping to sway the opinions of the public about the Republican party. One can conclude that the release of this report has nothing to do with transparency but all to do with the Democrat’s attempt to curtail any chance of the Republican Party takeover of the White House in 2016. This is what you call "dirty politics" on the expense of those who fought day in and day out to keep Americans safe.
The irony of this is that President Obama had lambasted the Bush administration over many things, particularly some of the tactics used to carry out the "War against Terror", yet, in the past years, he had expanded some of Bush's programs including Drone attacks, GITMO prison operations, Patriot Act, NSA Spying etc. Jim Kuhnhenn of the Huffington Post, wrote:
Indeed, Obama ran for president in 2008 as the anti-Bush, critical of the war against Iraq and of the economic policies of the preceding eight years. But in his more than four years of governing, Obama has also adopted or let stand a series of Bush initiatives, illustrating how the policies of one administration can take hold and how the realities of governing often limit solutions. (huffingtonpost.com)
It would be wise in my opinion, as part of his transparency policy, for him to release documents of his handling of certain methods such as he had enhanced over the years. Furthermore, he should disclose all its documents ranging from the Border scandals to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi which killed CIA officers and the US ambassador himself – an incident his administration deliberately distorted to suit its political agenda and cover his tracks.
The Obama administration is dubbed the most secretive and the most divisive administration in the history of the US presidency and it would be wise for him to order full disclosures of documents that his administration had been keeping from the American public. This will insulate him from criticism of impartiality. Refusing to do so only demonstrate one thing – he is playing politics with so-called "transparency".
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