You would think the government would have learned by now

As an addition to SpeakGood, this post was written by our more liberal friend and Oakland University correspondent Mary Maloy. Any opinions expressed within are hers.

----------------------------------------------------

You would think the government would have learned by now: the American Public gets antsy when you start editing recordings. The C.I.A, in a Nixon-esque fashion, destroyed two tapes of interrogations of terrorism subjects, including Zacarias Moussaoui, in which severe interrogation methods were used. Naturally, scandal has erupted.

A problem arises in the fact that these videos have been requested to be used as evidence in the terror suspect Moussaoui’s trial, but the tapes were destroyed even though they were requested. The CIA explained that the tapes were destroyed because they may endanger the safety of the undercover officers working, and that the tapes didn’t have any intelligence value. Somehow this isn’t legally considered “withholding evidence”.

CIA, is that the best you got? Surely you have learned from Nixon. Remember how he said by being president he had executive privileges to withhold the tapes from trial? He was the president, and he got denied. You are just an agency, and not mentioned in the Constitution. What powers do you have to wield?

Blog readers of SpeakGood, contrary to popular belief, I can and will defend a Republican from time to time –I really liked Lincoln- and CIA Director Michael Hayden isn’t to blame. I’ll give you a moment to let this sink in.

He was not the leader of the CIA when the tapes were produced. He wasn’t the leader of the CIA when the 9-11 Commission asked for those tapes. He was not the leader when the tapes were destroyed in 2005. In fact, he doesn’t have much to do with it, and from what the interviews have been reporting, he doesn’t seem to know much about it either. Maybe Mike isn’t the guy we should be going after. Sure, I’m upset he hasn’t been able to provide us with many answers regarding why the CIA didn’t tell anyone that they had records of these waterboarding interrogations, or who authorized the destruction, but he wasn’t in charge then.

I normally would demand more out leaders of massive intelligence agencies, but it seems mediocre performances out of political leaders is trendy, and I’m feeling forgiving. So maybe we should be giving these former leaders the third degree. George Tenet was the leader when the recordings took place in 2002, and Pete Goss was leader when the tapes were destroyed, and both knew that videos of interrogations were being collected. Why aren’t they being burned at the stake? I know Democrats love to bash Republicans, and God knows I do too, but we are going after the wrong guy, America. We aren’t going to get decent answers from this guy. How about seeing George and Pete sweating it out in front of a crowd of pseudo-shocked congress people?