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A Traitor to Torture
By John Kiriakou
Those who invented
America's torture program were promoted and protected by
presidents of both parties. Only the whistleblower was
prosecuted. This is his story.
September 13, 2021 -- "Information
Clearing House
-- "Scheer
Post" -
Once upon a time, a
keystone of American exceptionalism was the claim of a moral
high ground when it came to how our forces operated abroad, in
war or peace, especially when it came to the use of torture,
that hallmark of enemies we stamped as evil, primitive and
sadistic. The ends were not supposed to justify the means, lest
we be no better than our rivals and predecessors.
Yet, within
months of the 9/11 attacks, frustration with the interrogation
of a single alleged enemy agent led to the creation of a
sprawling, global CIA-run torture program using violence, sleep
deprivation and isolation on more than 100 men. While
the program was eventually
outlawed and
deemed a massive strategic and moral failure,
nobody was held legally accountable — except, in a terrible
irony, a whistleblower who risked everything to expose it.
Nearly two decades
after US taxpayer dollars began paying, against all
international law, to waterboard, beat, freeze, shackle, and
isolate humans in boxes not much bigger than their bodies, the
only person who has been prosecuted is John Kiriakou, a former
analyst and case officer for the CIA, who served 23 months in
federal prison for telling reporters the truth — after being
prosecuted by a Democratic administration which actually
promoted the torturers.
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In this week’s
installment of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert
Scheer hears from Kiriakou the inside story of how the the
program started as part of a cynical power struggle between the
CIA and FBI, why torture does not save lives or secure better
intelligence, and how, while the program was started under
Republican President George W. Bush, it was a top appointee of
President Obama, himself a key architect of the torture program,
who chose to prosecute him five years after his interviews with
ABC which should have made him a national hero instead of a
disgraced felon.
The discussion also
reveals how much is still unknown about the torture program, and
how much bipartisan work has been done to repress a full
accounting of it. What we do know, however, is horrifying, as
Kiriakou details with many examples of practices that often led
to madness, death and permanent disability:
“You know, people
begin undergoing organ failure with no sleep. The CIA was
authorized to keep people awake for 14 days beyond the point
of [risk of death]. That was one technique. Another was
called the cold cell, where you’re chained to this bolt in
the ceiling and you’re naked, and your cell is chilled to 50
degrees Fahrenheit. And every hour a CIA officer goes into
your cell and throws a bucket of ice water on you. We killed
people with that technique.”
The conversation
also explores the highly selective and self-serving choices the
US government makes in who is prosecuted for leaking government
secrets, including the shocking case of Gen. David Petraeus, who
gloated when Kiriakou was convicted but himself had leaked
classified information to his biographer (with whom he was
having an affair), including the identities of ten covert CIA
officers, but
suffered minimal repercussions.
“[Petraeus] had given
her access to the black books, which are literally the most
highly classified documents produced by the Central Intelligence
Agency,” said Kiriakou. “And what did he get? He got 18 months
of unsupervised probation, a misdemeanor, and at sentencing, the
judge came down from the bench to shake his hand and thank him
for his service to the country.”
Even before he left the
CIA and became a whistleblower, it became clear to him that
having a conscience and belief in the law were detriments to
advancement. He tells the story of how, despite having been
lauded for capturing the “number three in Al-Qaeda” he was
passed over for a promotion; he was later told it was because he
was the only one of 14 agents recruited for the torture program
who had deemed it immoral, unethical and illegal.
Those who would
eventually participate were otherwise highly-educated,
successful people — as Scheer notes, the same so-called “Best
and the Brightest” who engineered the disastrous war in
Vietnam.
“That’s right,” agrees
Kiriakou. “These were friends of mine. Our wives were friends.
Our children played together and here they turned out to be
monsters, monsters. Murderers in some cases.”
John
Chris Kiriakou (born August 9, 1964) is an American author,
journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a
columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of Loud and
Clear on
Sputnik Radio
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