Pssst, Can You Keep a Secret?

With all of the sins of the Bush Administration and the Congressional Republicans I have to admit that I am much more shaken by the occasional complicities of the Democrats. Perhaps the most egregious example to date has been the revelation from Illinois Senator Dick Durbin in April of this year:

Durbin says public was lied to about Iraq

”WASHINGTON, April 27 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said on the floor of the Senate that he knew the American public was being misled in the run-up to the war in Iraq.


Durbin said he kept quiet because of his position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, The Washington Times reported.


"The information we had in the Intelligence Committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Durbin said Wednesday.


"I was angry about it. (But) frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the Intelligence Committee, we are sworn to secrecy…” It is a very tough pill to swallow; knowing that certain members of Congress could have blown the whistle on the evil schemes of the Bush Administration but kept quiet for up to five years AFTER the invasion of Iraq.

Today (h/t Nicole Belle @ Crooks and Liars dot com) comes this from the Washington Post:

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002

In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say

By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007; Page A01
(Staff writers Josh White and Walter Pincus and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.)

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, (Emphasis TLS) a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.”

The article goes on to identify other members of Congress and the attitude of the moment:

”With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan)
.
Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."”

If this report is true, and thus far there have been no denials issued, I am left again to wonder if the Democrats have any more moral authority than the Republicans when it comes to defending the values of the United States. While it is important to safe guard classified information designed to protect our country from attack, I have to question whether remaining silent when you know that our country is being intentionally mislead into war or when agents of our government are engaged in illegal activities (regardless of the righteous intent) does not stand in marked opposition to the obligation these representatives have to do the right thing as our fellow citizens.

Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue