The head of the CIA, General Hayden, has announced that the CIA and the Justice Department will conduct a preliminary investigation into the destruction of CIA videotapes. The tapes are reported to contain images of torture performed on individuals during interrogation. The means of torture are said to include Water Boarding, a hotly contested form of torture.
Okay back up, the CIA is going to investigate itself into possible wrongdoing. This is the most absurd thing I have ever heard and the most blatant attack on the intelligence of the American public, which has ever been attempted. It has already been reported by members of the 911 commission that the CIA withheld key evidence in the 911 investigations, and Americans are supposed to believe that the CIA can be trusted to investigate itself.
Now, the average citizen would say that the Justice Department is the real investigatory entity in this situation. Not so fast, the Justice Department is actually controlled by the Bush administration and they have a stake in seeing that the CIA does not suffer from scandal. The Bush administration relies heavily on the CIA’s ability to torture and retrieve information, whether that information is good or not, the administration has proven that it is willing to use whatever it gets to its advantage, even if it is not accurate.
This is evidenced by administration officials trying actively to redefine torture and to interpret laws in order to convince the people that they have the right to torture terror suspects, and anyone else they want to. Recently when Mukasey, the new Attorney General was being questioned before his confirmation, he stated that he did not know if Water Boarding was torture. What a blatant lie and should have led to his immediate loss of consideration from the post of Attorney General.
What of the old Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, did he not have to step down in disgrace over the firing of the Justice Department lawyers? It is my belief that the lawyers were fired because they would not go along with the administration and actually might have hindered their quest for domination over the American people. I am convinced that the Justice Department’s staff was replaced by individuals, which are determined to work closely with the current administration. It is a department which is tainted in scandal and cannot be trusted any more to conduct this investigation than the CIA itself.
There is no way that the American public, nor should any member of the House and Senate sit back and let this happen. There is no justification for any agency to be able to investigate itself in possible wrongdoing. The fact that the act of destroying government documents would lead to prosecution and incarceration, is reason enough to not allow this agency to conduct its own investigation.
Sources
MSNBC News Online
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22160746/