« “We don’t want your tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to trash the planet” The Federal Reserve, 2009ARMING TERRORIST ISRAEL »

Joe Finder Is CIA’s Keeper

August 31st, 2009

As several here have noted, there is a particularly odious op-ed spinning the CIA torture innocence position in today's New York Times by self professed novelist Joseph Finder:

Mr. Holder doesn’t seem concerned that each of these cases was exhaustively reviewed, beginning in 2005, by career prosecutors under the supervision of the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Those men had access to the complete, unredacted report of the agency’s inspector general, an expurgated version of which was released on Monday. Yet these prosecutors recommended against criminal charges in all but one case. (That exception involved a contractor named David Passaro, who had assaulted a prisoner with a flashlight and kicked him in the groin, shortly after which the prisoner died. Mr. Passaro was convicted of assault and sentenced to eight years in prison.)

Mr. Holder’s decision, then, implies that justice wasn’t done five years ago probably because high-level officials in the George W. Bush administration put their thumbs on the scale of justice. This seems unlikely. The prosecutors in Virginia were well experienced in dealing with classified intelligence matters, as most of the federal intelligence agencies are in their district. They have a reputation for being hardheaded and unforgiving of C.I.A. transgressions.

Lacking reliable witnesses or forensic evidence, they made the only call they could have made: not to prosecute. In our nation of laws, that’s exactly the way you want government prosecutors to behave. And there is no indication that any of them has complained about being pressured to decide against criminal charges. If any new information has come out about these cases, any complaints about undue influence or any new witnesses, Mr. Holder hasn’t mentioned it. The prosecutors in this case had to abide by the Justice Department’s ruling, in August 2002, that no agency interrogator would face prosecution for exceeding the guidelines as long as he acted in “good faith” and didn’t have “the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering.” Not an easy distinction to make, surely, when the work you’re told to do seems to be designed precisely to inflict pain and suffering.

Fiction worthy of a novel indeed. As you may recall, it was only ten days ago we last ran into Mr. Finder doing what he apparently does best, spinning for the CIA sub-culture and Bush Administration leaders (who Finder swears is not Addington, but rather "someone who's actually smart"). And here he is in a new and bigger forum, the august pages of the Times editorial pages, back at it.

The first 3/4 of Finder's NYT op-ed are a tour de force of spook spin. He makes assumptions out of the blue about the state of evidence and witnesses there is no way in the world he has the first clue about, thinks EDVA supersedes DOJ Main, misrepresents the state of known facts on exceeding of guidelines by interrogators, assumes the relevant detainees were directly related to 9/11 with no evidence whatsoever to support the assertion, and claims to omnisciently and definitively know what a jury would do if deliberating on the case. He also confuses the different criminal referrals made in 2003, in 2004 and 2005; which are significantly different issues given the arrival of AGAG as well as the departure of John Ashcroft as AG and Mike Chertoff from the Criminal division (we'll get back to Chertoff momentarily). Oh, and Finder doesn't understand squat about the legal concepts of collateral estoppel/issue preclusion and double jeopardy, but proceeds to state to the world that they are controlling (an absurd statement and not even competent speculation).

Perhaps it is appropriate that Joseph Finder considers himself a novelist, in light of the pro-torture fiction he has written in his side job as a national security "reporter". Clearly, reporter is a subjective term in light of Finder's background Jeff Kaye pointed out. Mr. Finder appears to be a card carrying member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), but says:

I was never on the CIA’s payroll. I was recruited by the CIA, but when I got to Langley, they showed me the cubicle where I’d be sitting and translating Soviet economic journals from Russian into English, and I said, “No thanks.” That wasn’t exactly Jason Bourne stuff…

Finder isn't an intelligence professional, but he pines to play one on the opinion pages of the New York Times. Booyah. I would have been tempted to ask where exactly Finder got his slanted views on all this, but Jason Leopold gave us a hint: finder has been on the rubber chicken merry go round with Mike Hayden and Mike Chertoff. Must have thought that was a good substitute for talking to actual trial lawyers about how complex things such as estoppel/preclusion would really apply here (they wouldn't; this is pure unadulterated bunk) or how fickle juries are and how only a fool would say with certainty (which is exactly what Finder did) how a jury would rule when he has no idea what the admissible evidence set would be. When you can do the rubber chicken with Mike & Mike, who needs accuracy I guess.

In fairness, Finder does get a little closer to reality toward the end of his piece with the discussion of the inequality of Holder not going after the higher ups and the way the investigation (that would actually be "preliminary review") is currently framed has the appearance of an abu-Ghraib/Lyndie England deal. So there is a minor bit of cogent discussion, assuming you can wade through the initial forrest. But that initial forrest is very dense.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Source: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/08/30/finder-is-cias-keeper-in-slanted-nyt-op-ed/

No feedback yet

Voices

Voices

  • Chris Spencer The political astroturf of the United States has been fractured by figures described as "saviors." The political careers of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris epitomize that trend in clay-feet "gods" and "goddesses." Both have cultivated…
  • Most of the world of Arabs for some four centuries consisted of provinces under the Ottoman Empire (Sultanate). by Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović  The world of Arabs (the WoA), as a distinctive part of the globe, is of extreme significance for both global…
  • by Tracy Turner The Looming Crisis: Oil Addiction and Agricultural Collapse Threaten Global Food Security By 2054: Expected global oil depletion. 2007-2017: Olive biodiesel could have mitigated crises caused by reliance on fossil fuels. Estimated…
  • 41,909 bodies counted, 10,000 missing, death count higher than 51,909 David Swanson, World BEYOND War We generally accept that if you do a census and only count the people who answer their doors you miss some people, and that you can calculate an…
  • Kamala Harris represents a militant, in-your-face feminism... Cathy Smith Kamala Harris is an intensely divisive figure in contemporary politics—an incandescent icon for some, an ongoing disappointment for many others. As the first-ever woman Vice…
  • A geopolitical issue of South-East Europe became of very importance for scholars, policymakers, and researchers with the question of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire as one of the most crucial features of the beginning of the 20th century in…
  • Paul Craig Roberts Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Democrat Law School Deans Say Free Speech Threatens Their Agendas. Democrats are no longer the party of John F. Kennedy. They and their media whores are the party of Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of…
  • by Chris Spencer "In a landscape where many are silenced, the growing discontent of white men reveals an urgent cultural injury—a plea for recognition that, if ignored, could set off a destructive wave of division." The one thing that most white men in…
  • How the Democrats and Their Media Will Start a Civil War In order to explain how this situation occurred in America I will talk a little about a personal experience I have with my neighbor. I don't have to worry about him ever seeing this article…
  • Paul Craig Roberts Except for the neoconservatives whose agenda it is, I sometimes wonder if I am the only other person who understands what the Ukraine conflict is about. While we await Washington’s decision about firing missiles into Russia, I will…
November 2024
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
 << <   > >>
          1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

  XML Feeds

multiblog engine
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted articles and information about environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. This news and information is displayed without profit for educational purposes, in accordance with, Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Thepeoplesvoice.org is a non-advocacy internet web site, edited by non-affiliated U.S. citizens. editor
ozlu Sozler GereksizGercek Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi E-okul Veli Firma Rehberi