Senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, blows up.
She claims the CIA made efforts to sabotage her Committee’s investigation of illegal CIA interrogation/torture of detainees.
The CIA vehemently denies it did anything wrong.
So a new front in the internal war opens up.
The key fact here is: Feinstein’s Committee has been carrying on this investigation of the CIA for SEVERAL YEARS. It is preparing a 6000-page report.
For several years, the CIA has been aware of the coming storm.
The damage to its reputation will be large.
What does an agency like the CIA do when faced with such a problem? It tries to mount a major distraction.
Here is one hypothesis to consider:
The distraction was Edward Snowden.
Yesterday, I wrote a piece titled, “Is Edward Snowden lying?” It laid out a case that Snowden was actually still working for his former employer, the CIA, when he was handed a treasure trove of NSA documents by CIA pros.
Thus, casting a very bright light of blame on a different intell agency, the NSA.
The CIA wasn’t hoping to get away clean on its torture program. But it was hoping to maintain a degree of parity with the NSA, within the US intelligence complex.
The CIA didn’t want to be the odd man out with a scandal of enormous proportions on its hands. It wanted company.
For decades, the turf war over federal funding and importance has been going on, between CIA and NSA. At the CIA, for the past several years, the prospect of taking a dagger, for its torture program, and suffering the consequences, has been grim.
Absorbing public shame as the dirty little brother in the US intell nexus, while big brother, the NSA, appeared relatively clean, was too horrible to contemplate.
So the Snowden operation was launched.
Dianne Feinstein has now shown which side she’s on—and for whom she might be operating as a surrogate. She excoriates Snowden as a traitor, defends the NSA, and blasts the CIA with a charge of trying to torpedo her Committee’s investigation.
The NSA stays silent, while privately rejoicing that the CIA is taking the heat recently reserved for it, the NSA.
In this war, there are no real winners. There is only the shifting of blame, and the hope that the enemy takes more hits. If not, then each side can console itself with the knowledge that everyone’s hands are shown to be dirty.
Nothing about these events minimizes the importance of the documents Snowden’s press surrogates have released, or the importance of true findings about the CIA’s torture program.
But this internal war does highlight how destructive and amoral agencies and operatives of the federal government can be, even toward each other, and how low they will go.
Also highlighting the enormous rotting superstructure called the federal government, which continues to move further along in controlling our lives, while it claims to be only concerned about “the greatest good for the greatest number.”
Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/snowden-feinstein-cia-nsa-the-internal-war/
“But this internal war does highlight how destructive and amoral agencies and operatives of the federal government can be, even toward each other, and how low they will go.”
Bunch of cutthroat SOBs, aren’t they?
That will work in our favor.