John Dean: Was It The National Security Bureaucrats Who Forced Obama To Hold On Torture Photos?

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/140057

Was It the National Security Bureaucrats Who Forced Obama to Hold on to the Torture Photos?
By John Dean, FindLaw.com. Posted May 16, 2009.

Politicians come and go, but the folks who actually run the government have an agenda of their own, including covering their mistakes.

- snip -

Even before looking closely at Obama's change of mind, I understood immediately what had taken place, as soon as I heard the report on the radio. President Obama was, in fact, speaking for the national security bureaucracy in announcing his change of mind. I knew it would happen at some point. Although his first instinct had been to release the pictures, as he had released the new Justice Department torture memos, it was clear he had been turned around, and I was certain it was the work of the national security bureaucracy.

My hunch was confirmed by the AP report, which explained, "American commanders in the war zones expressed deep concern about fresh damage the photos might do, especially as the U.S. tries to wind down the Iraq war and step up operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan." How do the commanders know this to be the case? How do they know that it is the not the case that, to the contrary, more people around the world might admire us for openly correcting past mistakes? In fact, you can be certain "the commanders" do not truly know that the photos will harm America's image, but they do know how to protect the national security bureaucracy, after having risen to its top ranks. This is exactly what is going on here, and the explanation was pure bureaucratic excuse-making.

The National Security Bureaucracy

- snip -

Few presidents have true national security experience before arriving at the White House. For example, of the last twelve presidents - Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama - only Eisenhower, Nixon, and Poppy Bush truly understood national security operations when they arrived in the Oval Office. President Obama, like all the others, is getting on-the-job training. Who is doing that training? While his appointees with national security experience are playing a role, they themselves were all trained by the national security bureaucracy, and since the Democrats have been out of power for eight years, Obama's national security team is still relying heavily on the career people. It takes about 18 to 24 months for a new presidential team to get control of the national security behemoth.

- snip -

Our national security professionals have been humiliated. President Obama is a president who listens, and he has been told that airing the dirty linen that the Bush folks left behind will cause more harm than good. No doubt his top national security advisers - all products of the national security bureaucracy - started giving him serious heads-up talks when it appeared he was going to win the election, for that is when he began saying that he was more interested in looking forward than looking back, and that to investigate torture would only be looking back.

When President Obama hinted that he might prosecute those engaged in torture, he was forced to run out to the CIA for a stroking session to placate these national security professionals, assuring them that he was not going to prosecute any of them for following orders of the Bush/Cheney White House. The national security bureaucracy is testing its influence with the new president - and like all presidents, he will take some of its advice and reject other advice it gives. Right now, he is trying to figure out what to do.

Obama's Being Tested From the Inside And Outside

It is not likely that Barack Obama had widespread political support in the national security community, which would have had a natural affinity for one of their own like John McCain. But Obama needs to win their hearts and minds. He cannot effectively lead and protect the country without their support, and since so many are recovering from battered-by-the-White-House syndrome stemming from the Bush/Cheney years, he is dealing with their very bad mood. Rather than risk alienation, Obama has given in to them, at the expense of his natural constituency, the political progressives who find it appalling that the Bush/Cheney torture is not being fully exposed (and prosecuted) to prevent it from happening again -- and sooner, rather than later.

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[Arkana]

1. John Dean's really got no legs to stand on when it comes to breaking the law.

The man, like his (in)famous boss Richard Nixon, is irrevocably tied to what is perhaps the worst political scandal in the history of scandals.

[slay]

3. It doesn't make him wrong. He blew the whistle on Nixon! A great analysis by John Dean!

IMO he nailed it. John Dean testified AGAINST Nixon!

"John Dean is in the news again. Thirty years ago as counsel to Richard Nixon he mesmerized the country with his testimony in the Watergate hearings about "a cancer growing on the presidency." Eventually Nixon would resign and John Dean would go down in history for his role in the Watergate scandal. Now Dean has written a new book – his sixth – in which he concludes that the obsessive secrecy and deception in Washington today is "Worse Than Watergate." The conversation with Bill Moyers is Dean’s first television interview on "the hidden agenda of a White House shrouded in secrecy and a presidency that seeks to remain unaccountable" and his book WORSE THAN WATERGATE: THE SECRET PRESIDENCY OF GEORGE W. BUSH."

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/dean.html

[EFerrari]

5. Conservatives without Conscience is also a brilliant piece of work.

John Dean has made his amends and we're lucky to have him stll in the public sphere.

[slay]

6. I'll have to check that out

Haven't read that one yet. I really like his appearances on Keith and Rachel. He comes across as an honest truth seeker and has a great analytical mind - in a way only an insider could have. We are indeed lucky to have his views on the current situation, as well as the Bush administration.

[EFerrari]

15. It's the most lucid accounting of how these so called "conservatives" think

that I've ever read. It talks in part about authoritarianism and the different types of authoritarians.

[TexasObserver]

7. Apparently, you didn't watch his testimony during the Watergate hearings.

Some of us did, and we know he was the hero.

Your allegation lacks merit.

[KittyWampus]

2. How about political reality and dealing with a hostile media climate?

[ControlledDemolition]

4. After the 'Bay of Pigs' JFK wanted to splinter the CIA into 1,000 pieces'... 11/22/63. n/t

[LooseWilly]

8. Thanks for posting this.

Dean's analysis makes what seems to me like near schizophrenia in Obama's policy decisions suddenly make sense. Of course, it's a "policy Rosetta Stone" that doesn't give me much hope that anything that seems sensible to me is liable to happen... but it at least gives me reason to be less hopeless as I look on in disgruntlement.

Maybe in another year or two, Obama will find his footing and start doing things in a manner consistent with the thoughts he expressed on the campaign trail. Or maybe he won't.

It would really be nice if he could figure out a way to put the national security establishment on a leash. If he manages to pull that off, I'll retroactively take back all the shit I've been saying about him, under my breath, for a number of days now. If not... I guess I won't.

[MADem]

9. I think he's overthinking it, Dean is.

Obama is going to Egypt. Not a good time to release pics.

We know what the pictures depict, because descriptions are in the reports--they're like the dispicable stuff from Abu Ghraib. We get to see the images of abusers who have already been punished, and the victims get to be revictimized, publicly, for the first time.

There are spring offensives underway, as there are every year, in Afghanistan and Iraq. No need to motivate the jihadis any more than they already are.

[BeFree]

11. Dean knows whereof he speaks

There are many crooks in the NSA who are leaning on Obama to make sure they are not exposed. Obama must be very careful with these spooks and Dean explains the case very well.

The pictures mean very little, the jihadists know who the enemy is and they don't need any added motivation, Bushco gave them all they ever needed.

[MADem]

13. Dean's not the President, travelling to a land where they've been known to kill their own leaders.

The motivation isn't for the taleb leadership, it's for the recruits.

And a smooth-talking, Muslim-raised (and like it or not, they believe that over there), hand-out-in-friendship, brown skinned American President is the ULTIMATE demotivator. Something to counteract THAT image would be useful to the taleb.

[Beam Me Up]

10. The "national security bureaucracy" utterly failed the American people and

the Constitution I will assume every damn one of them is sworn to protect. I don't care "why" they did it; whether they were deceived or whether they were just following orders. Some of them had to have known that the policies and operations many of them were engaged in were both illegal and immoral. If anything, it is THIS coming to light they are most afraid of. My advise isn't to Obama -- I think he knows what the right thing to do is. My advice is to the "national security bureaucracy" itself: If you want to reclaim your integrity, then you must be ready to uphold the rule of law and at least some of them know that what I'm referring to is far deeper and far more serious than the rendition and torture and in some instances murder of terrorist suspects. That is but a drop in the bucket. Their cooperation, willing or not, with the criminality of the last administration (and actually beyond) has put the American people and American interests at EVERY level of society in grave danger. This isn't only about our moral standing on the world stage, although it is that, it has to do with a complete and utter abdication of conscience, morality and genuine intelligence that ought to lead to not only national security but good governance, economic stability, BUT MOST OF ALL, genuine leadership that can address the many pressing issues that threaten not only the "national" security but the peace and security of all humanity.

For most, as a mere citizen, I would accept a truth and reconciliation arrangement; lenience in exchange for testimony under oath regarding ALL the illegal activity that has unfolded over the past eight years. For those in key positions of authority, that is, positions which had special knowledge regarding the truth of certain events, I feel less generous. At the very least they should resign their posts in shame with the full knowledge of their roles made common, public knowledge. Above that, there are a few who were in positions of command authority against whom the full extent of the law should be brought to bare. You can not cure a disease by treating only the symptoms. If this nation and the "national security bureaucracy" wants to regain the respect of the American people and the world and to fulfill its function bringing genuine security to all, it will do this, no matter how frightening, painful and potentially risky it may seem. The United States of America could still redeem itself in the eyes of the world and provide the kind of leadership that can be fulfilled far more easily, more cost effectively, with far less violence and mayhem -- and with far more success than it has under previous "leadership" that has brought us to an empire of ruin. We have a potentially great president in the White House. A man of honor and integrity, an intelligent and charismatic man that can speak not only to his fellow Americans, but to the citizens of the world. He needs the trust and backing of a national security infrastructure willing to change, willing to realize that we could be at the dawn of a new era -- if only we would stop relating to everyone with competing interests around us as "a threat and enemy." Beyond a certain point, human Civilization can not progress by only employing methodologies and social strategies that were necessary in pre-cybernetic eras. We are rapidly approaching a global crisis point that holds a new evolutionary imperative. Our old ways of doing things (such as making ourselves "safe") are inadequate precisely because they have brought us to this approaching impasse.

What is needed now is fresh vision, inspiration and, most of all, INTEGRITY based on a genuine valuing of the rule of law.



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[Solly Mack]

12. K&R

[Beam Me Up]

14. k

[Badgerman]

16. OBAMA is President...NOT...the NSA. Time Obama realized who is boss! n/t

[Karenina]

18. Thanks for sharing!

[ProgressIn2008]

17. For all I know, Dean may be right on motives, but the argument is more distasteful each time

I hear it. If the rule of law needs to be compromised by politicians until the national security community is okay with it... well, then we're in truly deep shit.