Obama to Nominate John Brennan, 'Kill List' Architect, as New CIA Chief

[JReed]

Obama to Nominate John Brennan, 'Kill List' Architect, as New CIA Chief

John Brennan's career spans from the dark days of Bush's torture program to Obama's secretive 'kill list'
- Jon Queally, staff writer

The Associated Press is reporting Monday morning that Obama's top counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan—who has also been Obama's right hand man when it comes to governing the administration's program of extrajudicial assassinations known as the 'kill list'—will now be nominated to head the CIA.

According to AP, the "president will announce Brennan's nomination during an event Monday afternoon."

Brennan was previously considered for the top CIA position by Obama at the beginning of the his presidency in 2009, but that consideration was withdrawn after voices of opposition raised substantial concern about Brennan's involvement with the CIA's torture program which flourished during the presidency of George W. Bush.

...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/07

[graham4anything]

1. Good. Wish he would bring back Janet Reno to some job or other too.

[JReed]

4. Brennan supports torture

Open Letter to Obama: Reject John Brennan as Director of the CIA
- November 22 -

Dear President-Elect Obama,

We are writing to urge you not to select John Brennan as Director of the CIA. We are psychologists and allies who have long opposed the abuses of detainees under the Bush administration. We are just concluding a successful several-year struggle to remove psychologists from their roles in aiding or abetting these abuses. It has been a distressing fact that, while the Bush administration resorted to abuse and torture of those in our custody, often psychologists have been put in positions to use their psychological expertise to guide these unconscionable practices.

We look forward to your administration as an opportunity for genuine change - in this case for our country to take a new direction in its treatment of prisoners. We applaud your commitment to closing Guantanamo and are encouraged by your clear statement from your 60 Minutes interview last Sunday, "America doesn't torture, and I'm gonna make sure that we don't torture." This fuels our hope for a decisive repudiation of the "dark side" - the willingness to use or abet illegal and unethical coercive interrogation tactics that sometimes amount to torture and often constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

We are concerned, however, by reports that you may appoint John Brennan as Director of the CIA. Mr. Brennan served as a high official in George Tenet's CIA and supported Tenet's policies, including "enhanced interrogations" as well as "renditions" to torturing countries. According to his own statements, Mr. Brennan was a supporter of the "dark side" policies, wishing only to have some legal justification supplied in order to protect CIA operatives.

...

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/11/22

[think]

5. TY for posting this also. The list of psychologists signing the letter should

give one pause.....

[TheKentuckian]

16. You learn something new everyday!

I just figured out what Deadeye Dick Cheney's DU screen name is.

Seriously, torture=GOOD to you?

That is just unDemocratic, it is inhuman, unethical, and soulless.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I wonder why the drone program (kill list) thing has gone from a

meeting involving the Joint Chief chairman to basically just Brennan and some State Dept. people? Obama should want a broader range of voices in the mix to offer dissent or more info than what a tiny group can provide. He should change that.

[think]

3. A fucking Bush torture fuck. Well the Pugs will like him.......

[leftstreet]

6. Obama wants GOP approval

This should help

[Octafish]

7. Younger DUers may not be aware of this, but America once didn't torture people.

Hard to imagine.

[madfloridian]

8. Amen, Octafish.

And once Americans were proud of their public schools.

[No Compromise]

10. Amen madfloridian

And one wonders, are these things connected?

Could they be trying to destroy our schools so they can get away with even more international crimes?

[markpkessinger]

19. [phone] n/t

[Solly Mack]

9. ...

"Brennan was previously considered for the top CIA position by Obama at the beginning of the his presidency in 2009, but that consideration was withdrawn after voices of opposition raised substantial concern about Brennan's involvement with the CIA's torture program which flourished during the presidency of George W. Bush."


Were people supposed to forget this over time?

I know I didn't.

[KoKo]

13. +1....!

[No Compromise]

11. Do the Geneva Conventions have no meaning?

So the Nazis won WWII after all?

[Octafish]

24. CIA calls the shots.

Last time Congress or the Executive stood up to the Agency was Carter Administration. Look how shocked the world was to discover the Nazi-CIA torture connection back in 1979:

http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/langguthleaf.html

Poppy and Casey endured a brief, yet profitable, exile and returned, thanks to the Ayatollah and his moderate friends with Reagan as their front.

[white_wolf]

12. What's that you say? Obama's continuing Bush's horrible policies regarding torture?

Is anyone surprised at this point, because I'm not.

[whatchamacallit]

14. This is a disaster

I expect no less.

[forestpath]

15. WHO won the election again?

[JReed]

17. Bump

n/t

[JReed]

18. John Brennan's Extremism and Dishonesty Rewarded with CIA Director Nomination

John Brennan's Extremism and Dishonesty Rewarded with CIA Director Nomination
Obama's top terrorism adviser goes from unconfirmable in 2008 to uncontroversial in 2013, reflecting the Obama legacy
by Glenn Greenwald

Prior to President Obama's first inauguration in 2009, a controversy erupted over reports that he intended to appoint John Brennan as CIA director. That controversy, in which I participated, centered around the fact that Brennan, as a Bush-era CIA official, had expressly endorsed Bush's programs of torture (other than waterboarding) and rendition and also was a vocal advocate of immunizing lawbreaking telecoms for their role in the illegal Bush NSA eavesdropping program. As a result, Brennan withdrew his name from consideration, issuing a bitter letter blaming "strong criticism in some quarters prompted by [his] previous service with the" CIA.

This "victory" of forcing Brennan's withdrawal proved somewhat Pyrrhic, as Obama then appointed him as his top counter-terrorism adviser, where he exerted at least as much influence as he would have had as CIA Director, if not more. In that position, Brennan last year got caught outright lying when he claimed Obama's drone program caused no civilian deaths in Pakistan over the prior year. He also spouted complete though highly influential falsehoods to the world in the immediate aftermath of the Osama bin Laden killing, including claiming that bin Laden "engaged in a firefight" with Navy SEALS and had "used his wife as a human shield". Brennan has also been in charge of many of Obama's most controversial and radical policies, including "signature strikes" in Yemen - targeting people without even knowing who they are - and generally seizing the power to determine who will be marked for execution without any due process, oversight or transparency.

As it typically does in the US National Security State, all of that deceit and radicalism is resulting not in recrimination or loss of credibility for Brennan, but in reward and promotion. At 1 pm EST today, Obama will announce that he has selected Brennan to replace Gen. David Petraeus as CIA chief: the same position for which, four short years ago, Brennan's pro-torture-and-rendition past rendered him unfit and unconfirmable.

Although I actively opposed Brennan's CIA nomination in 2008, I can't quite muster the energy or commitment to do so now. Indeed, the very idea that someone should be disqualified from service in the Obama administration because of involvement in and support for extremist Bush terrorism polices seems quaint and obsolete, given the great continuity between Bush and Obama on these issues. Whereas in 2008 it seemed uncertain in which direction Obama would go, making it important who wielded influence, that issue is now settled: Brennan is merely a symptom of Obama's own extremism in these areas, not a cause. This continuity will continue with or without Brennan because they are, rather obviously, Obama's preferred policies.

...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/07-8

[Octafish]

22. Thank you for the heads up, JReed.

The guy shows, in Washington, money still trumps peace.

[markpkessinger]

20. If Bush had nominated someone like this . . .

. . . Everybody on DU would be up in arms. But a Democratic President does it, and he gets a pass.

[Autumn]

21. Well there's a maggot sandwich

[Bonobo]

23. When does the "He'll be more liberal in his 2nd term" thing start? nt

[JReed]

25. Obama Appoints Dr. Drone to Head CIA

Obama Appoints Dr. Drone to Head CIA
by Matthew Rothschild

Pres. Obama just made a hideous appointment.

He replaced the disgraced David Petraeus at the CIA with John Brennan, Dr. Drone.

This is a hideous appointment.

Brennan, as Obama’s counterterrorism czar, has overseen the massive proliferation of our drone warfare.

...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/08-1

[JReed]

26. New Questions over CIA Nominee Brennan’s Denial of Civilian Drone Deaths

New Questions over CIA Nominee Brennan’s Denial of Civilian Drone Deaths
by Chris Woods

Claims by the Central Intelligence Agency’s new director-designate that the US intelligence services received ‘no information’ about any civilians killed by US drones in the year prior to June 2011 do not appear to bear scrutiny.

John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to take over the CIA, had claimed in a major speech in summer 2011 that there had not been ‘a single collateral death’ in a covert US strike in the past year due to the precision of drones. He later qualified his statement, saying that at the time of his comments he had ‘no information’ to the contrary.

Yet just three months beforehand, a major US drone strike had killed 42 Pakistanis, most of them civilians. As well as being widely reported by the media at the time, Islamabad’s concerns regarding those deaths were also directly conveyed to the ‘highest levels of the Administration’ by Washington’s then-ambassador to Pakistan, it has been confirmed to the Bureau.

This confirmation suggests that senior US officials were aware of dozens of civilian deaths just weeks before Brennan’s claims to the contrary.

...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/09

[jsr]

27. We have a Nobel Peace Prize winner with a kill list

Nobel must be turning in his grave.