Obama on Brennan:
Brennan on tranparency:
Brennan lies to American people in flagrant disregard for his above position:
Brennan claims he never said the above, but admits that he is simply one of the most uninformed people in the national security racket:
Let’s not forget that Brennan is at best a torture apologist. Does Obama still expect people to take his transparency and anti-torture rhetoric seriously?
I don’t particularly want to defend Brennan on torture, but quotes 2 and 3 don’t contradict each other and Obama banned the use of torture techniques when he took office. Do you have any particular reason to believe he’s allowing those tactics or will reverse himself?
Anyone who participated in torture, or publicly supported it, should be at the very least banned from public service. Preferably they should be jailed.
Quote 2 has him playing up the necessity of the American public being in the know. Quote 3 has him deliberately misinforming the American public so that they are not in the know.
One particular reason to believe he isn’t serious about disallowing torture is the appointment of John Brennan.
The ship on prison sailed years ago, unfortunately. Brennan had spoken up in defense of the torture tactics, but more recently he’s disavowed them. He’s also said he wasn’t involved in that program himself. (I was going to overlook the irony of you’re suggesting people be jailed for advocating something you oppose, but I can’t. Did you mean to imply that?)
Or speaking imprecisely.
He has already disallowed the tactics, and you’re not answering the question.
(Didn’t realize that the statute of limitations for torture had expired) The ship you are referring to was christened by Obama himself. This is another hint that he’s unserious about torture.
It doesn’t matter if he didn’t participate, even if you believe that. He defended the practice to the public, thereby strengthening the political prospects of the policy.
Something I oppose? How about something that’s illegal. He was a public official advocating illegal practices.
He denied he had said what he did and Stefanopolous let it slide because he’s a hack. Then he goes on to say that he just didn’t have info on the innocent victims. If the CIA doesn’t investigate who dies in its attacks, they should admit this much.
In fact there were several civilian deaths during the time frame he stated.
Seriously what the hell are you talking about? I answered your question in express language. The appointment of a torture supporter to lead an agency with a history of torturing makes me think he is not serious about disallowing torture.
Yes, that’s true. And I didn’t agree with it even though I understood the reasons. But like I said, that’s not going to change now.
A couple of problems here: I doubt that’s illegal, the administration’s hack lawyers said what they were doing was legal, and ‘defend’ would probably be more accurate than ‘advocate.’ He didn’t say they should torture anyone, he said torture works (which it doesn’t).
What does it mean to non-seriously ban something that you’ve already banned years ago? Do you think Obama is going to reverse that ban? Do you think it’s still happening? Or is this just a way to backhandedly call Obama a torturer even though he’s banned the practice?
Typical Obama move. He is not only not a progressive, he’s not REALLY a Democrat. It will be interesting to see how the Democratic supporters on this board deal with all the betrayals that Obama will lay on them in the next four years. Brennan. NDAA warrantless wiretapping. Drone strikes. Civil liberties … Obama could give a shit. There are a lot of center left things Obama could give a shit about.
This kind of comment means little or nothing when you’re discussing someone in a non-partisan position. He’s a career CIA agent, which means he’s worked for Republicans and Democrats.
My mistake, unclear antecedent. I was talking about Obama.
Considering how many people supported him mainly or only because the alternative was even worse, I doubt you’ll see many people all that surprised or disappointed.
Well, as someone who myself is not a progressive, nor even REALLY a Democrat (in the long-term state, certainly I am in the modern party alignment), I’ll probably be OK with it.
Although on the areas of civil liberties it was very much a lesser of two evils situation. Consider Attorney General John Yoo and Secretary of State John Bolton.
Of course he’s a Democrat. It’s the Republicans who have the RINO and purity test issues; the Democrats are pretty much willing to accept anyone who wants to join them and work for the good of the country. They don’t all have to measure up to some “liberalness” standard.
Yes, many of us would like to see an actual progressive/liberal President. But the current political climate makes that unlikely, and certainly Obama’s a lot more progressive than the alternative we were offered in the last election.
Ok then at the very least he should never be appointed to public office. Lets face it. He’s a company man. He made a choice to be immoral. This is something that he should be held accountable for, not rewarded for.
I don’t see him publicly reversing the ban. But, like nearly every politician, he’s a ends-justify-means guy. If it comes down to it and Brennan thinks torture will work, Obama might play ball because he lacks principle. This is why someone like Brennan should be kept far away from any kind of power. There are two possibilities, 1) Obama doesn’t know Brennan is an immoral opportunist 2) Obama isn’t concerned with the morality of the people he gives power to.
A better argument.
Brennan will be working for Obama and both are opposed to torture - Obama since his first campaign, Brennan since he started working for Obama. That suggests that at worst, Brennan reversed himself to suit Obama. It’s not easy for me to envision him changing his own mind again and then convincing Obama to do the same.
You win the thread.
I do so love these “librul hypocrisy” threads. They always end well.
But I’m already on the record as saying that there are many things that Obama has done or is doing that I don’t like, but these are generally things that the Republicans would be doing to a far greater degree so voting for Obama as the lesser evil was a pretty easy choice.
Agreed. The left is more apt to forgive not toeing the party line. On the right, you’re not even allowed to praise a Dem for fear of being primaried or censured by your party.
I’m not saying you should have voted for Romney because Obama is a bad guy. I’m saying Obama has appointed an immoral person to lead a particularly secretive agency in a particularly secretive government during a particularly secretive administration.
How is this administration any more secretive than any other post-Truman administration? Also, the CIA has been conducting immoral and secretive ops since they were called the OSS. Making dark references to them being secretive is just silly, since that’s what they do.
Ohhhhhhh, I forgot we shouldn’t criticize anything that’s been going on for a long time. I guess I’m “silly”.