Ya gotta love these guys -- the top officials of our national security state and the retired mouthpieces who leak and speak for them to the media. Juan Cole has the latest classic slur from former CIA (and NSA) head MIchael Hayden. Hey, Dianne Feinstein, previously the stalwart senator from the national security state, is now simply too emotional to know whether torture is un-American or not. You know those women. They just let their emotions get the better of them and you gotta love them for it (but you cant pay them any mind!)... Tom Weve written about former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden plenty of times around here, and the guy is practically a caricature of what youd expect him to be. He defends the intelligence community at all costs, and is quick with baseless insults to anyone who disagrees with him, and also (laughably) seems ill-prepared to be a fortune teller. Weve also written about California Senator, and head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, many times as well -- often watching her make similarly ridiculous claims in defense of the intelligence committee. However, as weve seen over the last few months, the one place where she seems to draw the line is with the CIA and its torture program. Feinstein, normally a staunch defender of the intelligence community, has been battling the CIA over the release of the $40 million, 6,300 page report that shows that the CIAs torture program (which she still refuses to call torture) went way beyond what was authorized, produced no useful intelligence and resulted in the CIA lying to Congress about the program. Since the two are normally in lock-step on various issues, its interesting to see what happens when they differ. On Fox News over the weekend, Chris Wallace asked Hayden about the report, and Hayden pretty explicitly tossed out the ridiculous misogynistic argument that Feinstein was, effectively, too emotional to judge whether the report should be released. While he didnt make that claim exactly, he came about as close as possible to saying it without saying it ... Either way, the choice of words by Hayden is deliberate and obnoxious. Hes suggesting that a female Senator might be too emotionally driven and fragile to understand the realities of war, where people like him -- people who apparently sold out their morals long ago -- make important decisions like when and how to violate the Geneva conventions, torture people and to then lie to Congress about it. Call me crazy, but when it comes to stopping a brutal and un-American program of torturing people in violation of international law, a little emotion might be a good thing. juancole/2014/04/reventorture-feinstein-emotional.html
Posted on: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 13:24:44 +0000