CIA lawyer says Obama administration backed and continued virtually all Bush-era programs

J. D. Heyes
Natural News
Wednesday, September 7, 2011

As he campaigned for the presidency in 2007 and 2008, then Sen. Barack Obama made clear there would be no torturing of terrorism suspects on his watch, as had been done by the agency with White House and Justice Department approval during the Bush administration in the years following the 9/11 attacks.


And as it turned out, one of the first things Obama did after becoming president was sign an executive order that included a ban on the tortureof terror suspects.

That was in 2009, shortly after becoming president. But with the campaign over, now came the bitter reality of actually having togovern. As president, one of the things Obama, the new commander-in-chief, was expected to do was to continue successful prosecution of the so-called Global War On Terror begun Sept. 12, 2001. To do that would require action, not campaign promises. And action meant sticking with what worked.

That’s why, despite public protestations and campaign-like slogans of “change,” Obama used a presidential sleight of hand to disapprove torturingon U.S. soilwhile granting the CIA authority to continue the practice in countries whose record on human rights abuses was already well-known.

This is why the president, bowing the realities of office rather than the seductive sound bites of a campaign, agreed to allow the continuance of most other Bush-era anti-terrorism CIA tactics that may be distasteful to the well-heeled elite but that are vital to protect the integrity and national security of the world’s most powerful democracy.

In a soon-to-be released PBSFrontlinedocumentary John Rizzo, a top CIA lawyer, says the incoming Obama administration may have tut-tutted the agency’s anti-terrorism tactics on the campaign trail but went on to “endorse” nearly all of them when the time came to take over the reins of power.

“I was part of the transition briefings of the incoming Obama team, and they signaled fairly early on that the incoming president believed in a vigorous, aggressive, continuing counterterrorism effort,” Rizzo says in the documentary.

“Although they never said it exactly, it was clear that the interrogation program was going away. We all knew that,” he continued. “But his people were signaling to us, I think partly to try to assure us that they weren’t going to come in and dismantle the place, that they were going to be just as tough, if not tougher, than the Bush people.

“With a notable exception of the enhanced interrogation program, the incoming Obama administration changed virtually nothing with respect to existing CIA programs and operations,” he said. “Things continued. Authorities were continued that were originally granted by President Bush beginning shortly after 9/11. Those were all picked up, reviewed and endorsed by the Obama administration.”

  • A d v e r t i s e m e n t

In truth, the covert warfare programs under the Obama administration have actually expanded since the Bush team left office. While Obama may not be casting as wide a net for terror suspects around the world, that has given way to more deadlier operations, as in, an increased use of CIA-owned drones to strike terror suspects in places like Pakistan. Consider it the modern-day equivalent of President Richard Nixon’s ordering of secret bombing campaigns in Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

The Obama administration should be commended for its efforts to protect the nation from the growing global terrorist threat. Having said that, it would be a refreshing change of pace for the current White House to not just admit the preceding administration’s hard-core strategy of doing what it took to prevent future 9/11′s was effective, but also worthy of repetition.

Sources:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics…

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2…

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/ap…






 
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36 Responses to “CIA lawyer says Obama administration backed and continued virtually all Bush-era programs”

  1. Manchurian candidates keep making by BilderbergCFRWall.ST.
    no future for America if they do nothing about his deep deep sick corruption.

  2. Barry “Street Hustla” Sotero: the establishment Repugnant’s BFF.
    Rick “I’m An Aging Porn Star” Perry: the establishment Dimocraps BFF.

  3. “The Obama administration should be commended for its efforts to protect the nation from the growing global terrorist threat. Having said that, it would be a refreshing change of pace for the current White House to not just admit the preceding administration’s hard-core strategy of doing what it took to prevent future 9/11′s was effective, but also worthy of repetition.”

    I have to task issue with this last comment.
    I am convinced that the 19 so called hijackers were set up as patsies. The FBI investigations into some of the hijackers and the Able Danger operation were stymied before the attacks. Why were the investigations stopped? Because those in the know who were planning the staged false flag attacks were creating the patsies. I am also convinced that the plans for the 9/11 attacks were planned and orchestrated by military intelligence operatives from the United States and Israel, the CIA and MOSSAD.
    The author of this article apparently believes the official government story. Bush’s “strategy” of fighting the “war on terror” was based on an event that was not planned or orchestrated by 19 Muslim hijackers. They were being used.
    Bush’s so called “hard-core strategy of doing what it took to prevent another”….what…staged false flag attack?
    The author praises the Obama administration for it’s efforts in protecting the nation from the growing global terrorist threats. You mean the American led NATO “humanitarian mission” which funded Al Qaeda mercenaries in Libya, which murdered thousands of innocent people or all of NATO’s “humanitarian”bombs? You mean the drone attacks in Pakistan that have murdered hundreds of innocent people there or how about the FAKE Osama Bin Laden story.
    Bush’s strategy was based on the fraud of 9/11 and the “war on terror” is a fraud. But, this writer thinks it’s worthy of repetition for the Obama Administration.

  4. ” CIA lawyer says Obama administration backed and continued virtually all Bush-era programs ”

    Its a billion dollar industry, created by Bush-Cheney and the military industrial complex, funded by the banksters, and paid for by Americans who live in fear.

    Just how do think this will all end, if not by bloody revolution.

    Liberty is worth fighting for, and we are being pushed into the corner of stasi prison.

    Freedom is not free, I just can not believe that we Americans are willing to let our elected officials take it from us.

  5. This is our second posting regarding the photo purported to evidence a fragment of the fuselage from Flight 175 that came to rest on top of WTC 5. This photo, taken October 25 by Gene Corley, was used by Popular Mechanics and Wikipedia to discredit 9-11 truthers. Unknown to us at time of first posting on this, it was already clear that the fragment in question had been added long after the WTC attacks. See Figures 62(c) in:

    h*t*t*p://drjudywood.com/articles/DEW/StarWarsBeam4.html

    Also, rare photos taken underneath the plane just prior to impact, methodically analyzed, reveal that the dimensions were longer than the Boeing 757-200 alleged to be the plane striking WTC 2. We decided to look further.

    And guess what? We have more evidence, from our own analysis, showing the photo is faked! As amateurish as the forgery of Obama’s fake birth certificate! Funny, how what was claimed to be evidence favoring the official story turns out to be evidence against it!

    What did we find? The lighting and shadows are wrong. See how the light shines on the back of the worker but not on the building in front of him? And if it came from behind the photographer, which would explain why his glove is so bright, why doesn’t it illuminate the side of the building in the distance? If a flash was used, why does it only hit the worker?

    The fuselage and window size are too small. Or the worker is too big. Do this: In a graphics program, draw lines around the windows, then move these lines around his head. Is the window too small? The worker is about 15 feet behind the alleged fuselage section, and so, given the effect of perspective, the relative sizes don’t match up.

    Most damning of all, look at the fold lines that run horizontally along the side of the plane, just above and below the windows. In the alleged fuselage fragment, they are perhaps 8 inches distant from the windows. In standard photos of the side of a 757-200, they are more than twice that distance. Perhaps someone can get this info.

    Well, there is more! Quoting from Wikipedia on Newton’s Laws of Motion: “Law I: Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.” If this were true, then the fuselage fragment is misbehaving! It veered nearly 45 degrees to the right, based on the flight path of Flight 175! And to do so, it would have to go through the center of WTC 2, zig-zagging its way around the steel core columns, to come relatively undamaged. SHAME ON YOU, SIR ISAAC NEWTON, for such a stupid law!

    Or maybe, Wikipedia is at odds with itself! Click to enlarge it’s diagram of the impact area. See,

    h*t*t*p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Trade_Center,_NY_-_2001-09-11_-_Debris_Impact_Areas.svg

    As others more expert than we have already concluded, and for many more reasons beyond what we cite above, Flight 175 did not strike WTC2!

    Bozo Boris, Mayor of London, NIST, Popular Mechanics, Wikipedia, and all you other trolls blessed with an IQ marginally better than a chimpanzee, what say you to this?

  6. same shit but different assholes. HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
    lmao

  7. Why did Obama cross the road? Because he said he wouldn’t! placeofrefuge2012.com

    • hahahahahahahahahahahahaha Marla!!

  8. And you wondered why nothing changed in the last 3 years. Hmmmmm I wonder who’s pulling the strings since the 2008 election and coup d’etat.

    This is the real story that the media is not and cannot report on. Learn what Osama, Obama, Biden, Bin Laden, the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists, and Sarah Palin had to do with the last election and the military’s overthrow of our government. Search PalinsDirtyLittleSecret.blogspot and learn the biggest story in the history of our country and the world before it gets deleted.

  9. What a waist of an article. And we pay for that CIA lawyer, his salary ? That CIA lawyer and his superior should be on Welfare salary, period.

  10. oh we didnt know that lol

  11. Oh absolutely. We are in George W. Bush’s third term. I never thought I’d loathe a President as much as I loathed Bush. Boy was I wrong.

  12. They like their torture. Especially the type that can not be proven.

  13. It has been clearer and clearer that he has continued where Bush left off. Even the main stream media has reported that he is acting more like a Republican. He didn’t close GITMO. Kept the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan going. Started another war, this time in Libya, which even the Republicans weren’t for.

    It is PROOF it does not matter who you vote for. Democrat or Republican. They have their own agenda and are continuing on with it whether you like it or not.

    • Dr. Ron Paul’s voting record in the House of Representatives is PROOF we do have someone to vote for who will do what he says.

      • Bullshit,Just because Ron has common sense AND SEEMS TO BE A “REGULAR GUY”, doesn’t mean he is a good choice for president!
        He thinks all you that support him are crazy and liars because you don’t believe the governers bullshit lie about 911..

        VOTE CONSTITUTION PARTY

      • “No country has ever voted its way out of a Tyranny”—-JK

  14. Obama hasn’t rescinded a single Executive or Presidential order since taking office, including but not limited to, the Patriot Act. What further proof is needed that there isn’t a “two party” system? It’s more akin to professional wrestling: it’s a work on the marks, the American citizens.

    • The NUMBER ONE high crime against the US Constitution is the criminal establishment of corporate-fascist religionism. These criminal, so-called “foreign policy laws”criminally supporting and criminally establishing neo-fascist Jewish Likudnikism in Palestine are all completely illegal and treasonous to the very basis of our system of Republican Liberty.

      The DeMOBlican/RepublicRAT established- corporatist ZioNAZI Party system is establishing religion, they are all traitors.

  15. what a co-inky dink!

  16. BREAKING: EXCLUSIVE: New York: Honoring the tenth anniversary of 9/11, former NYC Mayor, Rudi Giuliani, has offered to introduce Americans to a new ‘panty-based’ economy.

    An official with “KY-Investments division” has indicated that the city will be announcing a special commemorative “3-for ten bucks” exchange rate for the duration of the festivities at Ground Zero.

    [*For a limited time the Guiliani special offer will be available online. According to Homeland Security; “Family members of the deceased will be bound and gagged, and anyone known to have questioned the ‘official 9/11 story’ will be arrested if seen in the vicinity of Manhattan!” ]

    Although not confirmed, Lady GaGa has offered to host the special event, in her words, “to make sure the American people understand that they are bound by ‘Royal order’ to take it from the rear, whether standing up, or laying face down…”

    • YOUS A HERRRRRB …… HERB!!!!!!!

  17. “The Obama administration should be commended for its efforts to protect the nation from the growing global terrorist threat.”

    That’s where me and this author part company. J. D. Heyes is obviously a Neo-Con shill.

    • Indeed the supposed ‘threat’ of people maintaining their own freedom from tyranny.

    • obviously!!

  18. Impeachment on the grounds of insanity is probably the only remaining solution. We damn sure won’t survive another forced pResidential selection…

    • Isn’t established Bilderberg-theocratic, corporate-religious-cultist “preselection” of “our leaders” by our lordly-ennobled established-Bilderberg High Priesthood Sadducees and their media Pharisees the “American Way”?

  19. In fact the Obama bin Soetoro regime have expanded, intensified and institutionalized all the illegal, unconscionable and unconstitutional Top Secret Tyranny criminal mob establishments of the criminal Episcopal-Corporate Socialist ZioNAZI NeoCon Tory-Bushites.

  20. WE THE PEOPLE OF THE REPUBLIC ARE THE RESISTANCE TO NWO  DEMOCRACY

    • Indeed Freedom and plain old “democracy” are virtually opposites. Democracy is not a right to vote to establish the tyranny of a fascist-corporate-religionism. Political Republican Liberty is freedom from religious-socialist fascism.

      There can be no such thing as a “faith” without maintaining the freedom of individuals to choose one, should they choose to Bellevue in any…

      Freedom of religion and/or to participate in socialist religionisms is freedom from them.

      “Inasmuch as religious freedom and political liberty are inseparable, it is our duty to defend both, and defense in the first instance is best.” = Thomas Paine, Pennsylvania Magazine 1775

      “Today (rabid-extremist white racist, established-corporate-cultist) ‘christianists’ stand at the head of Germany…” = Adolph Hitler’s acceptance speech

  21. Barry, why don’t you reinstate ex-order 11110. Kennedy’s order to end the Fed and print debt free money, so man can be what he was meant to be “Free and Independent”. Curiously this is one of the first orders cancelled by LBJ, Et Tu Brute !!!

    • Nothing ‘curious’ about it, it was the principle reason why the Texas neo-Tory-Fascists murdered him.

  22. So? …this isnt news, its common knowledge and your preaching to the choir.

    • This isn’t common knowledge to most people. There are a lot of new readers to this site. A lot of people that I talk to think the Federal Reserve is a U.S. government entity. You’re preaching to a lot of people here, not just the choir

      • No, its common knowledge among anyone that reads a newspaper or watches msm, alternative or any other lamestream for that matter…you dont have to be a truther to see that Bush/Obama=same shit but different assholes.

        • HOW ORIGINAL AND FUNNY:”same shit but different assholes.”

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