The Obama legacy is surmised exceptionally well in the appointment of John Brennan as CIA director today.
One of the main reasons Obama elected to use the recent campaign slogan ‘Forward’, was because in his opinion, too many people were looking “backward”, and drawing direct comparisons between Obama and Bush’s core policies.
One of the main reasons Obama elected to use the recent campaign slogan ‘Forward’, was because in his opinion, too many people were looking “backward”, and drawing direct comparisons between Obama and Bush’s core policies.
In an excellent column on the Guardian website today, Glenn Greenwald notes that it is precisely these kind of “Look Forward, not Backward” decrees that have enabled Brennan, a man who expressly endorsed the Bush torture programs, as well as extraordinary rendition, to become Obama’s CIA Director with barely a whimper of opposition.
Brennan was also intimately involved in the illegal NSA eavesdropping program that violated the Fourth Amendment, and called for the offending communications companies to be immunized from punishment.
In 2008, Brennan was forced to withdraw from the nomination as CIA head because of fierce opposition stemming from his actions as a Bush-era CIA official. Now those actions don’t seem to matter a damn, and Brennan will be free to further increase the frequency of secret drone strikes under the program that he has seized control of over the past four years as Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor.
As Greenwald notes:
Brennan last year got caughtoutright lying when he claimed Obama’s drone program caused no civilian deaths in Pakistan over the prior year. He also spouted complete though highly influential falsehoods to the world in the immediate aftermath of the Osama bin Laden killing, including claiming that bin Laden “engaged in a firefight” with Navy SEALS and had “used his wife as a human shield”. Brennan has also been in charge of many of Obama’s most controversial and radical policies, including “signature strikes” in Yemen – targeting people without even knowing who they are – and generally seizing the power to determine who will be marked for execution without any due process, oversight or transparency.
So, a lying, torture endorsing executioner who expressly believes that spying on the American people and detention without trial are sound government policies.
Who better to run the CIA?