DISQUS

AMERICAblog: CIA "misled" and "affirmatively lied to" Congress

  • Bostonian_Queer_in_Dallas · 4 months ago
    Quelle Surprise! Lying in our government? Who'd a thunk it?
  • unclemike · 4 months ago
    I eagerly look forward to all the apologies from right-wing pundits who had accused all of our representatives and senators who made this very claim of being anti-American, treasonous, etc.

    But I won't hold my breath.
  • ShirleyGoodnessanMercy · 4 months ago
    Nancy Pelosi needs to write a nice letter to Rush Limbaugh:

    Dear Rush,

    I will accept my apology in written or oral form. Your choice. But don't delay.

    Signed, Nancy Pelosi
  • The Tim Channel · 4 months ago
    It's all moot in my opinion unless we see some action taken against the perps. War crimes trials for war criminals. The longer Obama stalls, the more complicit he becomes. We've killed enough Arabs. How about killing DADT and ending the war on weed?

    Enjoy.
  • faeriedust · 4 months ago
    Now how about that, the CIA lied? Does the Republican congress need to apologize to her. Hearing them saying that Speaker Nancy Pelosi should resign her seat. Rep. Michele Bachmann who I call a whackjob, complaining.

    We are talking about the CIA, by the way, the most secreative organization we have. Now we have an honest Director? Well maybe.
  • HelenRainier · 4 months ago
    Anyone who really thinks the CIA wouldn't "lie" is very naive or was just born.

    It's a spy agency -- what they do is built on "lies."
  • faeriedust · 4 months ago
    Helen, I do know they are a spy agency! Actually I was sarcastic about it... I also said it is one of the most secreative organization around, one you don't know of their successes, but you will hear of their failures. I also made a comment that we might have a honest Director, he did not have to admit that there was not any honesty between the CIA and Congress. That was my opinion, nothing more.
  • HelenRainier · 4 months ago
    I apologize for misunderstanding how you meant this. It is also entirely possible, by political standards we DO have an "honest" Director.
  • cereal · 4 months ago
    I thought that according to Rush & Co., claiming the CIA wasn't being straight with Congress was, like, un-American or treason or something.

    I guess that means Panetta is gonna get hung in effigy at some teabagging parties?
  • joeinhell · 4 months ago
    You got some idea that the ci lying a doesn't have blackmail material on every politician or "reporter" or big shot. Wake up and read 1984, we passed that in 2001.

    I'll bet the pedophiles get together with some beer at the headquarters periodically and run tapes of Rush in the Dominican Republic while they have a circle jerk.

    Hey, how's that trial of the ci lying a's rapist from Algeria going? Put him in charge of the women at one of their "black prisons" probably.

    Had a gang of thugs in the barracks next to mine in the Nam. Only thing I envied them for were the Swedish K's they carried "for denialability." Hated the poor whores screaming over there as they celebrated another bunch of murders.
  • leliorisen · 4 months ago
    There is one footnote to this story which will anger fellow Progressives. Check this out from Bloomberg.com's report:

    "The release of the lawmakers’ letter came on the eve of a scheduled House debate today on an intelligence spending measure. The bill would expand the number of lawmakers who must be notified of covert intelligence operations from eight congressional leaders to more than 35 members of House and Senate intelligence panels.

    "The White House opposes the expansion and yesterday threatened a veto if the final version of the bill contains the provision."

    Why is it that now that Obama is president, all his actions are serving to eliminate transparency??? What, our enemies win if we keep our leaders in Congress fully briefed? How does the Obama administration, in light of past abuses, defend not fully briefing the members of the House and Senate intelligence committees?

    What sort of insanity is at play in the White House these days?
  • caphillprof · 4 months ago
    The CIA has been lying since before John Kennedy was murdered in Dallas.
  • joeinhell · 4 months ago
    The Naval Institute Press, not a left wing publisher, published a book about 20 years ago bragging about "black operations" in the Korean War and bragging about how the ci lying a started the war. The book on black ops in Vietnam, also, shows how they provoked the North Vietnamese.

    Be warned that if you read these books, you will find that they spent money and lives like candy and their only successful operations were starting the war. NOT ONE other successful op.
  • BooksAlive · 4 months ago
    Rep Eshoo's letter is short, sweet and to the point! I support this exposure and agree that we need to get the arguments pro and con into the sunlight. I'm glad to see that Jan Schakowsky signed; she defends and defers to Obama when she feels that his position is justified. I can't use her website to contact her as I don't live in her district, but I approve of making the letter public. My daughter and son-in-law live in Eshoo's district, so I feel doubly thankful to yet another forceful public servant.
  • Rufus · 4 months ago
    When the CIA briefs Congress, the rule is tell them a little, but don't tell them a lot. They listen very carefully to their questions and answer narrowly -- simply, if they don't know to correctly ask the question, then they deserve the answer they get.
  • HelenRainier · 4 months ago
    Rufus, This is very true. That was how Clinton weaseled by with "It depends what the meaning of "is" is" and how people interpret words.

    It was one of the "tenets" I learned as an interrogator. When you are asked a question you answer ONLY the question. No more, no less. You address only the question as it is asked and offer no additional information.
  • BeccaMorn · 4 months ago
    And how does the MSNBC.com story put this, titling their article?
    "Ahead of debate, House Democrats say CIA lied"
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31808054/ns/politic...

    It's pathetic, what passes for 'reporting' these days. As I said back during the election, John McCain could be caught barbecuing kittens and the resulting stories would read, "Democrats accuse patriot statesman McCain of cruelty; GOP spokesmen demand apology."
  • HelenRainier · 4 months ago
    Becca you've hit on a very important point. This is, I think, one of the reasons why the MSM keeps losing readers. They perpetually misinterpret or mislead people with the wording they use. It's either that or they don't KNOW what the proper usage is for the words they use.

    This is something I've noticed a lot when I do listen to general TV news. They also don't seem to check out facts before they "publish" or report their stories. I studied journalism in both high school and college and that was one of the very first basic rules I was taught -- check the facts and present a balanced story.

    Also, the grammar, punctuation and spelling are simply abysmal nowadays. I'm continually amazed that most of the media people are allegedly college educated. It seems as though they didn't English grammar and composition.
  • BeccaMorn · 4 months ago
    Amen, Helen. I'm a professional writer myself, and over the years I've found MSM writing to be becoming increasingly sloppy. However, the part that really goads me is where there is a lack of honest journlism, with willfully misleading stories and the old 'he-said/they-said' lazy casting of what ought to be simple facts.
  • HelenRainier · 4 months ago
    The "he-said/she-said" stuff reminds me of the "gossip column" that used to be in my old monthly high school newspaper.

    The other day I was listening to an English teacher on a radio show. She was bemoaning the fact that teenagers now have far more deficient vocabularies than they did years ago. She attributes it to the form of English that is being "promoted" nowadays to facilitate electronic communications -- for example R U gng shpg? She says they are not learning spelling and proper English usage.

    I'm not explaining it very well, but it did make a lot of sense as I listened to her. As I thought about, I realized she was very correct.

    Two others that really bug me are the use of should've, could've, would've. Not too long ago I actually checked a dictionary thinking perhaps they were now considered proper and acceptable forms of usage. They are not yet I see them "all" the time.
  • BeccaMorn · 4 months ago
    I agree, there seems not to be much in the way of 'pride in language' anymore. To be sure, some may be due to texting, but on the other hand, everyone from a very early age now is writing far more than was the case a generation ago, and much of that is due to the prevalence of social networking sites and email.

    By the by, my nomination for most annoying grammarian peeve is "try and (verb)". As in, "I'll try and go" or "We will try and help" or "You should try and rest." I see it everywhere, including in popular literature, and when I do it's all I can do to keep from shouting, "It's 'try to', you idiot!" *lol*
  • HelenRainier · 4 months ago
    Your peeve is one I am guilty of. Yikes!
  • BeccaMorn · 4 months ago
    *grins* Lots of people are...and alas, it's become so common, the construct appears to be accepted usage these days.

    Hope you have a great evening.
  • Asterix · 4 months ago
    "Affirmatively lied?" It's a lie and usually called perjury when it's made under oath. Why are these people not doing time in Leavenworth?
  • SCLiberal · 4 months ago
    Because they have money.
  • HelenRainier · 4 months ago
    Asterix -- You beat me to it. I was going to question the phrase "affirmatively lied" also. I'm trying to figure out just exactly WHAT that is supposed to mean. Does it mean that the CIA didn't "misspeak" but they deliberately knew they were lying?

    Joe, is this your wording or the wording that came from Panetta?
  • Oh yes, I know · 4 months ago
    A lot of people inside CIA do not like the way Bush administration handled the war and blamed them for most of the failures. About two years ago a group of high ranked officers from CIA and NSA started using famous "blue, red and white" folders to take revenge for destroying reputation of their organizations. They punished Republicans by exposing dirty secrets of certain politicians and other influential figures like Ted Haggard and ruining the credibility of Republican party. The clean-up continues: they just took down Palin and Sanford. Who will be next?
  • offspring · 4 months ago
    funny that there is no apology for pelosi, she deserves that
  • joeinhell · 4 months ago
    Bumped up against the ci lying a twice. The first time the little thug tried to intimidate me into withdrawing federal charges against a government employee. When I pulled up my pant's leg and showed that I carried concealed, he evaporated.

    I think his buddy wound up doing a year in a state prison. I reported him to everyone. Also, the little pissant didn't know that I had been doing chores for the NY mob for the past year and the ci lying a had nothing on them.
  • anas · 4 months ago
    What about the tapes, documents and other evidence destroyed by the CIA last year?
  • George_the_independent · 4 months ago
    You clowns at CNN will beleive anything the Democrats tell you... Why do you think he backed up Pelosi now, he was told to do it or loose his job...... Remember he is a hold over from the last administration....
  • Daniel Maxson · 4 months ago
    Those who are saying this clears Pelosi aren't following closely enough. Pelosi directly said she was lied to about waterboarding. This announcement is about an undisclosed matter (though some sources say that it was confirmed to -not- be waterboarding).

    So that's not to say Pelosi was lying. That's just to say that this specific newsbit doesn't confirm her accusation.

    However, "...it’s an important battle about transparency..." (http://www.newsy.com/videos/congress_dems_take_...). It's an issue of whether or not we can really trust the organization that supposedly gathers our foreign intelligence for us. And if we can't, what does that mean for us as a nation?
  • ReaganiteRepublican · 4 months ago
    Pelosi was every bit as informed on the decision to us EITs as were the GOP... but is now lying about it in an attempt to appease the antiwar left and fulfill specious campaign posturing.

    And apparently Pelosi and Obama forgot something: the CIA KILLS people... it's in their job description. Did these two really think that these killers were going to just meekly take-one-for-the-team... when the team captain is a lying, incompetent, arrogant nebbish who has basically told them they need to kiss his ring? -please

    Obama really kicked an ant hill with his ill-advised and politically motivated release of Bush Administration memos regarding EITs.

    Let's have a hearing and get it all out there, shall we? Then watch the rats scatter who attacked Bush for protecting the country from terrorist attack... but who clearly knew what was going on five years before we heard a peep out of them.

    http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/