CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley pulled up a 2007 interview with George Tenet, CIA director at the time of 911, and who was the man in charge when the CIA turned to 'enhanced interrogation" on his authorization.
It begins with a short selection of Senator John McCain's remarks supporting the release of the report, drawing on his own personal experiences with torture. And then it gets brutal.
In the 2007 interview, Pelley pushes hard: Tenet refuses to give an inch, denying that what was done was torture repeatedly, getting angry, telling Pelley he doesn't understand. A telling moment is when Tenet talks about getting hammered because "You idiots couldn't connect the dots." (We know who couldn't be bothered with connecting dots.)
Tenet answers a direct question by stating that no one died during interrogation. But then he adds "In this program that you and I are talking about? No." Which of course leaves out all the other programs...
Tenet keeps repeating in the aftermath of the 911 attacks, he was desperate for answers. Were there going to be nukes? Was another attack coming? 3,000 people had just died. He keeps repeating you have to understand the context.
Well, the report is all about context, as much as we've learned so far. Perhaps Tenet's desperation for information by any means could be understood as a panic reaction in the immediate aftermath. But we know the programs went on for months and years; we know they involved complicated logistics of black sites, covert transport, and 'forced rendition'. It's a pretty calculated 'panic' that lasts for years and develops into an entire institutional apparatus in partnership with foreign powers.
We now have confirmed by the report that the torture yielded little of value while consuming lots of resources, and the blowback from it has forever destroyed our moral credibility. They don't have to hate us just for our freedom; we've given them plenty of fresh new material. The report doesn't tell them anything they don't already know. (Déja vu really - We too often forget our history in the Philipines and elsewhere we've played at the game of empire. Shit happens.)
To see Tenet in this interview from 2007 is see the corruption at the highest levels of our elites. Tenet was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom; he has moved on through the revolving door into academic positions and corporate boards. And thus the power elites look after their own.
If you can stomach it, you can see Michael Morrell, former acting director of the CIA labeling the Democratic report as 'deeply flawed', and complain angrily how this is incredibly damaging to CIA agents who are now having the rug pulled out from under them. They had legal justification for their actions, were carrying out the mission they were given. They are being victimized.
Never mind that the legal justifications have never been tested in court. Never mind that the CIA deliberately lied about how effective its actions were, and lied to the Congress that is supposed to oversee it. Repeatedly.
The cognitive dissonance is a reflex by now: NO! It wasn't torture and we were JUSTIFIED in doing it. It's a classic Catch-22.
No one is going to go to jail. No one is going to pay for any of this. And there is a plentiful supply of George Tenets out there in the Deep State that exists beyond the accountability of media scrutiny or electoral choice by voters. Tenet's medal and preferment are the way silence is bought and accountability dodged. As our leaders turn to the CIA and other dark agencies to do what can not stand the light of day, they are compromised in turn by a shared guilt.
And there seems to be no effective answer to the problem. We demand security; we have our fears played on by those who would exploit those fears for power, and we are ashamed by what is done in our name - and angry at anyone who drags it out into the light. America is a land ruled by fear; that is why our spies have free reign to run amuck around the world, while our police have license to shoot down black people and brutalize those who would protest.
The terrorists have won; we have institutionalized fear in the national consciousness.