Perhaps this will be considered a bit ideologically confrontational, but this probe has angered me from the beginning. The reasons why it was wrong were very well laid out in the link. In short, Holder was determined to try and force reality to conform to his liberal fantasy about what he wanted to be true about the CIA.
After two years, countless dollars and untold personnel damage at the CIA, Holder is faced with the reality that his May Day present is an empty box. Perhaps if he didn’t ascribe to the liberal cartoon version of the CIA as reality, he wouldn’t have been so quick to make himself look like a frustrated idealogue instead of the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.
Not sure I want to base my judgement on an opinion piece written by a former speech writer for GW Bush-- someone on record defending the “enhanced interrogation” techniques used by that administration. Got an actual news article where we can get some unbiased reporting on the subject?
Wait. “News 24” might be based in the United States. A quick Google search also indicates the Canadian music channel “Fuse” is also paying more attention to the development than ABC, NBC, CBS et al.
So, just to be clear here…you are offering the proposition that this cessation of investigation is a certain and unambiguous signal of perfect innocence on the part of our intelligence agencies and their various “contractors”? There is nothing to see here, so we might best be advised to move along?
Is it the CIA’s history that gives you such confidence? Its unblemished record in Viet Nam and Central/South America, a shining example of humanism and respect for democracy? Would that it be it, or have you some other evidence to offer?
There isn’t really a reason to squabble about opinions. The Justice Department investigated over 100 incidents and found cause to open a criminal investigation in one new incident previously unknown to the public, and a second incident at Abu Ghraib that was already widely reported on.
The Justice Department has officially stated no criminal investigations are warranted in any of the other cases, so by and large yes, the bulk of the CIA has been 100% exonerated.
Honestly, Luci, my reaction is that the 60’s are over. The CIA has had to deal with it’s cartoon image for so long that I’m sure they are loath to do much of anything to step over the line. Even if they thought they could get away with it, political appointees such as Holder who would stop at nothing to hang them would give them pause.
So all they were looking for are examples of unauthorized torture. That’s not “exoneration”. On the contrary, it just underlines how it wasn’t “just a few bad apples” but a deliberate, agency wide campaign of brutality. They were torturing people in a network of secret prisons, according to your own article.