{"id":57273,"date":"2015-05-04T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=57273"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:24:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:24:41","slug":"cias-torture-experts-now-use-their-skills-in-secret-drones-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/cias-torture-experts-now-use-their-skills-in-secret-drones-program\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA’s Torture Experts Now Use Their Skills in Secret Drones Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many similarities between CIA\u2019s use of drones and torture: Secrecy, lack of oversight and yes, even some of the people overseeing the programs.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"US<\/a>

US drones are so secret that the White House barely mentions them by name. Photograph: Massoud Hossaini\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

29 Apr 2015 – <\/em>The controversy over the CIA\u2019s secret drone program has gone from bad to worse this week. We now know that many of those running it are the same people<\/a> who headed the CIA\u2019s torture program, the spy agency can bomb people unilaterally<\/a> without the president\u2019s explicit approval and that the government is keeping the entire program classified<\/a> explicitly to prevent a federal court from ruling it illegal. And worst of all, Congress is perfectly fine with it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The New York Times reported on Sunday <\/a>that many of those in charge of the CIA\u2019s torture program \u2013 the same people whose names were explicitly redacted<\/a> from the Senate\u2019s torture report in order to avert accountability \u2013 \u201chave ascended to the agency\u2019s powerful senior ranks\u201d and now run the CIA drone program under the agency\u2019s Counterterrorism Center. Rather than being fired and prosecuted, they have been rewarded with promotions.<\/p>\n

The longtime Counterrorism Center chief who just stepped down, Michael D\u2019Andrea, was previously in charge of the notorious CIA prison known as the Salt Pit<\/a>, where prisoners were regularly tortured and some died. His replacement, Chris Wood, was also \u201ccentral to the interrogation program\u201d, according to the Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The only reason we know D\u2019Andrea and Wood\u2019s names<\/a> is because the New York Times\u2019 executive editor Dean Baquet commendably decided to publish<\/a> them \u2013 unlike the many newspapers who refused<\/a> to for virtually no other reason<\/a> except for the fact that the CIA asked them not to. As Baquet put it to the Huffington Post<\/a>: \u201cIt \/would have been weird to not name the guys who run it. They\u2019re not un*dercover. They\u2019re not unknown. They\u2019re sort of widely known.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding to the disturbing nature of the CIA\u2019s ability to kill people in complete secrecy, the agency apparently now has a carte blanche to conduct drone strikes on its own. According to the New York Times, President Obama doesn\u2019t individually approve them anymore<\/a> \u2013 he lets the CIA unilaterally decide to kill people if the strikes \u201cfit certain criteria.\u201d We have no idea what those conditions are since virtually everything about drone strikes at the CIA is secret.<\/p>\n

Prior to last week\u2019s controversial drone strike, the public at least had the general outlines of what the supposed rules constraining drone strikes were. After the last major drone controversy in 2013, the president announced the government would need to know with \u201cnear certainty\u201d that civilians would not get killed. Obama called it<\/a>: \u201cthe highest standard we can set\u201d in a highly publicized 2013 speech.<\/p>\n

Yet, up until the Wall Street Journal reported it on Sunday<\/a>, the public did not know that Obama secretly gave the CIA a \u201cwaiver\u201d<\/a> from those rules for drone strikes in Pakistan, the place where the vast majority of the CIA\u2019s strikes<\/a> over the last decade have occurred. The publicly-touted policy was made meaningless by a classified order the public had no idea about. (Sound familiar<\/a>?)<\/p>\n

The most absurd part of this whole debate is that the White House actually refused to admit that the two hostages killed in Pakistan died in a US drone strike. Despite an almost universal acknowledgement by media reports \u2013 and a multitude of leaks by anonymous US officials \u2013 that the hostages were killed by a CIA drone, the administration has attempted to argue that it was a \u201ccounterterrorism operation\u201d that resulted in the hostages\u2019 deaths. This led to an awkward exchange<\/a> between the press and the White House press secretary Josh Earnest, in which it was clear to everyone in the room what had happened, but the White House could not utter the word \u201cdrone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reason for this denial apparently has nothing to do with legitimate secrets; the administration just wants to avoid a court ruling their program illegal. The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday<\/a>: \u201cthe Attorney General\u2019s office warned Mr. Obama that publicly disclosing the CIA\u2019s role in this case would undermine the administration\u2019s standing in a series of pending lawsuits challenging its legality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Think about that for a second: The Obama administration has promised more transparency around drone strikes<\/a>, yet at the same time, won\u2019t even acknowledge that the controversial drone strike it\u2019s apologizing for even happened – just because such admission might force courts to hold the government accountable for its actions.<\/p>\n

The dismal state of affairs around drone strike transparency was perfectly summed up in an exchange in early 2013, when the Guardian\u2019s Spencer Ackerman, then writing for Wired, asked Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein why<\/a>, if the CIA repeatedly and brazenly lied to Congress about torture, she trusted the spy agency to tell the truth about drone strikes. Senator Feinstein\u2019s response still encapsulates the current debate: \u201cThat\u2019s a good question, actually. That\u2019s a good question.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than two years later, we still don\u2019t have an answer.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many similarities between CIA\u2019s use of drones and torture: Secrecy, lack of oversight and yes, even some of the people overseeing the programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}