Re: CIA chief sacked for opposing torture
Cycloptichorn wrote:Will this show up in the US media?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-524-2036182-524,00.html
Quote:CIA chief sacked for opposing torture
Sarah Baxter and Michael Smith, Washington
The CIA's top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as "water boarding", intelligence sources have claimed.
Robert Grenier, head of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, was relieved of his post after a year in the job. One intelligence official said he was "not quite as aggressive as he might have been" in pursuing Al-Qaeda leaders and networks.
Since the appointment of Goss, the CIA has lost almost all its high-level directors amid considerable turmoil.
AB "Buzzy" Krongard, a former executive director of the CIA who resigned shortly after Goss's arrival, said the leaks were unlikely to stop soon, despite proposals to subject officers to more lie detector tests.
Krongard said it was up to President George Bush to stop the rot. "The agency has only one client: the president of the United States," he said. "The reorganisation is the way this president wanted it. If he is unwilling to reform it, the agency will go on as it is."
"History will judge how good an idea it was to destroy the teams and the programmes that were in place."
We all know that in 2004 Bush ordered a 'purge' of those in the CIA who didn't agree with his politics; the leaks that one sees about the various nefarious activities Bush has been up to are the CIA's way of fighting back against his attempt to politicize their job.
Cycloptichorn
Like it or not, the President was elected by a majority of the citizens of this country.
Therefore he gets to set policy.
If someone, like Grenier, doesn't agree with this policy, the honorable course to follow is resignation.
The same dynamic applies to Democratic/Liberal Administrations as it does to those described as Republican/Conservative.
I would bet large sums of money that Grenier is a
Major League Dick. Of course his protestations resonate with partisans on the Left. Some of them would be happy to entertain the Devil if he had bad things to say about Bush.
The deal is that you serve at the pleasure of the President. The American people elected George W. Bush. They did not vote on whether or not Grenier had a job.
If a Grenier thinks that an Administration under which he serves is following a road to ruin, then he has a duty to let it be known. However, he does not warrant some sort of immunity from the consequence of his disloyalty. Virtue's rewards are seldom so prosaic as continued employment.
Grenier's credentials are impressive, but hardly overwhelming. For every Grenier there are three equally qualified experts who will contend that "waterboarding"is not excessive and is highly productive.
Both sides of these debates would do well to stop shopping around for people who will advance a notion they find ideologically acceptable.
Side note: Grenier had the job for
one year. Any f*ck-up in any line of work can last a year. The mistake was in elevating him to the position he held, not depriving him of it. It's rare in business, and far more so in government, that a failure is identified and dealt with within 12 months of hire.
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