Admissions and fears
Fucking hell.
One officer expressed concern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some "wanted list" to appear before the World Court for war crimes stemming from activities [redacted]. Another said, "Ten years from now we're going to be sorry we're doing this... [but] it has to be done. He expressed concern that the CTC program will be exposed in the news media and cited particular concern about the possibility of being named in a leak.
There is a moral obligation to disobey an unconscionable order, including an order to commit a human rights violation. And I don't see how the men or women quoted above were unaware they were obeying orders to violate Federal or international law.
That said, it's not enough to prosecute them; prosecuting them without prosecuting their superiors is immoral and unconscionable. The people who issued their orders are, at a minimum, co-conspirators subject to the same punishments (except, as said previously, in a case in which death resulted from torture).
I'm reading the excerpts in Salon; I'm frankly not sure I have the stomach for the full report. This is damning, shameful material.
That said, it's not enough to prosecute them; prosecuting them without prosecuting their superiors is immoral and unconscionable. The people who issued their orders are, at a minimum, co-conspirators subject to the same punishments (except, as said previously, in a case in which death resulted from torture).
I'm reading the excerpts in Salon; I'm frankly not sure I have the stomach for the full report. This is damning, shameful material.
Comments
Won't happen, no more than it happened at Abu Garrib.
On the other hand, these men absolutely knew that what they were doing was wrong (trust me on this, they knew. I damned near got court martialed for bouncing one off a bulkhead one night. They knew. They knew all along that what they were doing was immoral, dishonorable, beyond the pale, and a violation of every fucking thing we in the service stand for). Fuck them, really, fuck them. I hope they burn for this. These CIA assholes are the ones who orchestrated Abu Garrib and Gitmo and then left us in uniform holding the bag when the lights came up. These son of bitches sit in Langey fondling their joysticks like video game heroes and every time their intel is off, read every fucking time, and they shoot a wedding or funeral from their air conditioned combat suite - the grunts on patrol in the mud are the ones who pay for it.
Fuck them, it's about Goddamned time these fucking CIA spooks got what they deserved. They are nothing but cowardly cock sucking rats, every last one of them. Fuck, we wouldn't even be in Iraq if it wasn't for these incompetent fuckers. If they had stood up and did their job when it mattered we wouldn't be in this mess now. After 911 they were ordered to fix their problems, they were ordered to share with other agencies - and the fuckers just flat out refused. The CIA is an organization unto itself. They are a giant festering money pit.
These slimy bastards take the easy way out, every time. They haven't done a damned thing right since before the bay of pigs. The entire organization needs to be shitcanned.
And now? Now they're bitching about their COMMANDER IN CHIEF in public? These fuckers wouldn't know honor or duty if it bit them on their lily white asses. The oath they swore mean fuck all to them.
Again, fuck 'em. Let 'em burn. They deserve nothing but contempt.
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Sorry, but the CIA is a very sore subject with me. It's personal. The fuckers nearly got me killed, and the arrogant pricks did get some of my friends killed. I purely HATE these motherfuckers.
Even back in the Vietnam era we had squad leader in the sky, officers, often not military, usually of field grade or higher (or equivalent) in a chopper directing ground troops.
I wasn't in Vietnam, the closest I got was the Paris Peace talks, but I was in the information flow there. I now know that the information going through me to my General wasn't what was going on.
But if you change Jim's wording to match late 60s Army, it is pretty much what I think.