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As you may have realized from some of my posts, I'm not a fan of Speaker Pelosi. I think she has that same blank 'the lights are on, but no one's home' look that Kerry Collins (qb for the Titans) always has.

So, now she's claiming that the CIA lied to her. To me, this is a bit like saying that a Contractor lied to me - I kinda expect it. But, if the CIA really lied to Congress, then Congress needs to take action.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_pelosi_torture

On Thursday, Pelosi accused the CIA of having lied during that session by explicitly telling her that waterboarding was not used.

Of course, if she thought that the CIA lied to her in 2002, why hasn't she done anything about it? Oh, here's her answer

But Pelosi defended her own lack of action on the issue, saying her focus at the time was on wresting congressional control from Republicans so her party could change course.

"No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job — the Congress part," Pelosi said.

That's right, the Democrats couldn't do anything about it. Because, all the Republicans in Congress were toadies of the bad, bad, Leroy Brown - er, Bush - administration. I have a hard time believing that Republicans wouldn't have taken action if they felt the CIA was lying to them. In fact, I think that is ridiculous. Further, the Democrats didn't have to get anything to pass in Congress. They could have easily brought up bill after bill and let all the naughty, mindless Republicans voted it down again and again. And waited for the headlines, "Republicans allow torture!"

No, the truth of the matter is, that Pelosi, just like most of her fellow Congress-people, don't care until they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Now that someone is pushing back at her saying that she knew 7 years ago about waterboarding, she's doing something about it - trying to deflect blame.

And, if she really did nothing about it - I hope her District doesn't re-elect her (but I know they will). Our Representatives and Senators are supposed to represent the people, not figure out how to wrest political control of Congress.

As if Pelosi would have objected if she knew the truth. The Democrats always approved of Bush's policies--even the most egregious ones such as the Iraq invasion and the warrentless wiretaps. She doth protest too much...

I heard part of her interview regarding the "advanced interrogation methods". She claims that they informed her that waterboarding was a "possible" option. By possible she inferred that even though possible it was neither effective or a popular method, basically filing it away as a gimmick.

This is ridiculous, and here is my ridiculous scenario.

Soldier A: Ok we have some prisoners and we are going to get information out of them
Politician B: Ok well what options do you have at your disposal?
Soldier A: Well we are going to keep them awake for extended amounts of time, play Linkin Park and Enya at high levels, make empty promises, and our other standard methods.
Politician B: Well anything else in case you can't get them to spill the beans?
Soldier A: We do have a chainsaw.
Politcian B: You have a chainsaw?
Soldier A: Yes a chainsaw. A chainsaw is scary thing even without the chain on it. Fire the puppy up, fake a couple of jabs, and it will just scare the piss out of them. But it uses gas and in an enclosed space it would smell bad. We don't want any terrorists getting a fume high.
Politician B: Will it kill them?
Soldier A: Nope. We do keep the chain right next to it and our guys are very proficient about quickly putting the chain on. You do know that if a chainsaw has a chain on it, it can be extremely dangerous.
Politician B: Ok what's for lunch? *turns and walks away*

In this scenario if Pelosi were the politician she would say that they lied about their ability to put the chain on, or even the existance of a chain. It's not that she didn't know, she just didn't want to claim that she heard the truth.

Pelosi is an idiot. She's one of the worst politicians ever.

If she did get lied to it would serve her right, how many times has she lied to us?

i know its from the daily show but its true
she said in an interview that she wasnt informed of torture but documents said she was.
but she is a democrat what can you expect. they hate america
you will all learn when you pay 500$ in taxes each paycheack in order to pay for someone elses health care

"but she is a democrat what can you expect. they hate america
you will all learn when you pay 500$ in taxes each paycheack in order to pay for someone elses health care."
Don't start that Gak, if Democrats hated America we'd be talking about leaving the union...oh wait.

She is stuck in a hard spot. Republicans say it wasn't even torture in the first place, so they have little room to talk. She couldn't do anything thing about it then. It was top secret and had she spilled the beans they would have hung her out to dry. Hell they don't want the torture pics to come out now. She kept the knowlege and worked to win without spilling sensitive infomation. Now she just has to take one for the team. Sometimes there is nothing you can do about injustice till later on when you are firmly in power.

they do hate america
they want to take money away from defense to leave us vuarable to attack. the defend the the first amendment want to take away the second

they do hate america
they want to take money away from defense to leave us vuarable to attack. the defend the the first amendment want to take away the second.

The Defence budget grew 3% under Obama. The money shifted from one thing to another. 2nd, they want to limit arms not take them all away. While both of these points can and have been argued, being on either side of the isse doen't mean you hate America, it means you have a different point of view.

If you think the US is vulnerable now, garret, you haven't seen your own military.

And before anybody pulls the 9/11 card out of their arse, let me point out that it was something the US (or anybody) was expecting. Nobody thought the terrorists had the sheer nerve to try that. The US has a lot more security measures in place nowadays.

Your right
im just felt like getting in an argument since these headaches are bad

You know some smooth music and Ice cream will fix that right up

i just had ice cream so maybe
but im plagued by bad headaches all the time so thats why my spellinng is always bad

Back on topic, if the CIA lied then they are doing their job (just not to the right people) if she lied she is doing her job (politician, hello). All in all I'm not going to lose much sleep over it, there are worse things on the political horizon. Besides have you seen what other countries do to their prisoners, I got worse than most of these "torture techniques" in basic training.

garret wrote:i just had ice cream so maybe
but im plagued by bad headaches all the time so thats why my spellinng is always bad

No offense, but I find that very hard to believe. If you had chronic headaches that bad, you'd be on very effective medication.

i am but it doesnt always work

I don't believe that the CIA lied to Congress. I can't believe they would be that arrogant and/or stupid. If they're caught lying to Congress, the top brass knew that they're all gone and the Agency is in for some serious problems. Now, if the CIA maybe didn't make things as crystal-clear as they should have - well I could believe that. There's a difference between being totally honest "We waterboarded that guy 83 times last month," and being understating the truth, "We have used some waterboarding, but we're not convinced it's the best technique, so we're still evaluating it," which implies you did it a handful of times, and might later stop doing it, but isn't lying either.

A government agency lie!? I am shocked, shocked at that concept!

/sarcasm

If you believe that any of the government was truthful under the prior administration, I have this great piece of real-estate in Brooklyn that I'd like to sell you...

I believe the word that she used was misled. You don't have to lie to mislead, you just don't have to tell the truth.

Yes, but I believe that when asked if she was lied to she said yes, then said that the CIA misled congress.

She's trying to have it both ways, as usual. She wants to use the non-aggressive 'misled' which is much harder to defend and easier to weasel around, as in 'they said they were using waterboard, but misled us when they said it was used infrequently'. But, when pushed, she says, 'they lied to us and said it wasn't done'. When she accuses the CIA of lying, it becomes easier for the CIA - they just have to show that they did tell her about it. If she says that they misled her, it's a lot harder to show they put enough emphasis on the practice.

Part of what I don't get in all this discussion. If they did discuss it in briefings in 2003 to 2006, and she wasn't there, why is she making an issue of this? Was she supposed to be in these briefings and skipped them for a 'fact finding' trip to the Caribbean? This all relates to a briefing in 2002 - either the CIA informed the panel of what was happening, or they didn't. Why has no one else from Congress spoke up? That no one has spoke up, makes me think that she was there and not paying attention and/or didn't understand what was said, and no one else wants to call her out about it.

Just to clarify :

Is the CIA allowed to lie to people in/of that position anyway ?

I appreciate we're talking about a whole heap of "what if" scenarios here regardless.

My understanding is that the CIA is not supposed to act/investigate anything "on American soil"-- that being the jurisdiction of the.... FBI ( right?) .

Obvious BS and OHMYGAWDTHEYAREFACISTSANDALIENSLAVES111111** aside exactly how answerable is the CIA A. Answerable and B. realistically answerable to the American public anyway?

*fully aware this is not going to that representative of the country as a whole*

** let's be honest here: EVERY countries secret sevice has/does gakky things.. yes some more than others perhaps, but let's for a moment assume that the motivation for such is at least based in the general actvitiesof the Govt. of said power.

The CIA is not supposed to lie to Congress. Congress is, in effect, the oversight board. If the CIA is caught lying to them, bad, bad things would happen to the CIA. I'm sure all the top brass would be removed from their posts, possibly prosecuted, and the Agency could be gutted and/or dissolved into a number of smaller departments. So, I have a hard time believing that the CIA would outright lie to Congress, but I can easily believe that they 'understated' the truth of the matter.

The CIA has swung a pendulem path, historically. From its creation after WW2 to 1960 (when Kennedy was elected), they were pretty much given free reign to do their thing. Kennedy threatened to break up the CIA, and the perception was the covert ops group was doing 'their own thing'. The CIA still pretty much made up their own orders in the 1960's. In the 1970's, Congress had a number of hearings about the CIA and/or that involved the CIA. In the 1970's, the CIA scaled back as a result. In 1980, Reagan made William Casey the head of the CIA and put him on the cabinet (the only time the CIA Directorship has been a cabinet level post). Casey, to some degree, also seemed to make up his own orders, but I think it was a case of giving Reagan plausible deniability. In the 1990's, with a democrat in the White House, the CIA again was scaled back. Under Bush the younger, the CIA was again given a fairly big leash to run on.

The CIA is in a difficult position. Usually, at the end of any controversy, they are left holding the bag and take all the blame. As a result, they tend to want everything in writing and they want someone else to sign off on the legality of anything. But, the powers that be always want plausible deniability. (ie, "I didn't tell him to assasinate Castro, I just said it would be easier if he was 'out of the way'.") And while the CIA is supposed to resist political pressure while doing their job (whether covert ops or intelligence evaluation), when the President is pushing you, and it's a shade of grey, you're going to be inclined to come down on his side of the line.

Yes, the CIA is not to operate within the US. They have two basic groups - Intelligence and Covert. Intelligence gathers and evaluates data. Covert Ops do things that are denied. Historically, people had to have been in covert ops to get any 'juice' in the Agency, but I don't think that is still the case. One of the major problems pre-9/11 was that different intelligence agencies weren't communicating. So, the CIA knew some things, the Pentagon knew some, and the FBI knew other stuff. But, no one was trying to piece the whole jigsaw together. Supposedly, that has changed under the Department of Homeland Security. I have my doubts, just because it's human nature to protect 'your turf'.

Historically, the CIA did some shady things. Like try to rig foreign elections and get the mafia to kill Castro. It's also been suggested that they were behind Kennedy's assassination (which I don't think is true). As a result, no one really trusts anything the CIA does.

Ta. Much obliged squire.

Reassuringly/depressingly that's pretty much what I thought/"knew" the CIA were all about.

Despite the potential bost to the share value of tinfoil manufacturers we'd best leave the Kennedy assassination behind us perhaps..

. better minds and all that etc etc....( although I do , REALLY , have a theory as to what really happened from a conversation with a member of the family )

In the UK we have a similar thing with MI 5 and MI 6 .. and the obvious potential conflicts of interest between the various departments. I guess any such problems are less severe due to things like size of the country.number of agents etc etc.

... And I guess the CIA, not least as the official BIGBADGUY of Hollywood loses ( and gains) certain situations as well.

I appreciate we are on the edge of "tinfoil hat" time, but, as ( and I beg pardon if this isn't the case) an educated and informed member of the American population, exactly how ( more or less anyway) ...errmm...... "confident" or perhaps "secure" do you feel with regards to the USA intelligence agencies at the moment?

I'll emphasise this isn't typical LOLYANKEESSUCK bashing-- as I'd hope my postings would show-- more a genuine query as to how the "average" American sees their intell agencies.

reds8n wrote:I appreciate we are on the edge of "tinfoil hat" time, but, as ( and I beg pardon if this isn't the case) an educated and informed member of the American population, exactly how ( more or less anyway) ...errmm...... "confident" or perhaps "secure" do you feel with regards to the USA intelligence agencies at the moment?

We're talking about the CIA and the US gov't. Don't we have to (by instinct) use ye olde tinfoil hats? Not trying to be sarcastic, it's just that we are generally cluess even when we have the "facts".