31 March 2012 By Jacob G. Hornberger In a series of interviews in 1977, television
journalist David Frost asked Richard Nixon about the
legality of his actions as president. Nixon responded,
"Well, when the president does it, that means it is
not illegal." That mindset has also long been a guiding principle
for the CIA, and unfortunately the American people
have gone along with it, in the name of the Cold War,
"national security," and now the "war on terrorism."
The result has been a life of the lie, a life that
purports to constitute "freedom" and "limited
government" but that in reality constitutes much of
what occurred under communism — state kidnappings,
assassinations, military coups, arbitrary arrests,
secret prisons, torture, secret detentions,
extra-judicial executions — and, most important, the
assurance, implicit or explicit, of absolute immunity
from criminal prosecution. The idea, which has long been taught to American
students in government-approved schools, has been that
when regimes like China and the Soviet Union do these
sorts of things, that constitutes communism and, thus,
is evil and immoral. But when the CIA does them,
Americans and the world are expected to consider them
pro-freedom and good and moral. The CIA is now discovering, much to its chagrin,
that not everyone in the world holds the Nixonian
mindset. A good example involves Poland, a country
where people suffered under decades of communist
tyranny and, therefore, are quite familiar with the
types of actions the CIA has been engaged in. The CIA used this former communist country to set
up some of its post-9/11 "black sites" as part of its
much-vaunted "war on terrorism." These were the chain
of secret gulags around the world in which the CIA
would deposit its kidnap victims, secretly incarcerate
them, torture them, and deny them access to lawyers,
the judiciary, family, the Red Cross, and the press.
The whole process conjures up the period when the KGB,
which was the Soviet Union's counterpart to the CIA,
would exile prisoners to prison camps in Siberia. Polish authorities have now criminally charged the
former head of the Polish intelligence service with
working with the CIA to establish some its black sites
and torture system in Poland. As
this article in the New York Times states,
it is "the first high-profile case in which a former
senior official of any government has been prosecuted
in connection with the agency's program." The Polish press is reporting that charges might
also be pressed against one of Poland's prime
ministers during the time that prisoners were
allegedly tortured at the prison. The CIA's reaction? The Times reports that
it is terribly distressed over the fact that the
entire matter has been made public because "foreign
officials were assured that their assistance would
always remain secret." Of course, this isn't the first time that a foreign
country has filed criminal charges arising out of the
CIA's "pro-freedom" criminal escapades. Recall that
when the CIA kidnapped a man in Italy as part of its
"war on terrorism," the CIA officials involved in the
kidnapping were charged and convicted of felonious
criminal offenses in that country. Of course, by that
time the defendants had vamoosed from the country and
have steadfastly refused to return to face justice.
Has the U.S. Justice Department instituted criminal
actions against the CIA for its criminal actions in
either Poland or Italy? Please, don't make me laugh! The Justice
Department, not surprisingly, takes the same Nixonian
position that the CIA does — that when the CIA does
it, it isn't illegal. That, of course, includes torture and murder. Think
about the people who have been taken into custody by
the CIA since 9/11 and then tortured or even executed.
Has anyone been charged with torture or murder in
those cases? Of course not because, you see, it's not
illegal when the CIA does it. Moreover, let's not pretend that this is a new
phenomenon. Go back to the year 1973, when the CIA
helped murder a young American journalist in Chile
named Charles Horman during the U.S.-supported coup
that brought a military dictatorship into power. Is there evidence of CIA complicity in Horman's
death? Why, yes there is. After many years of false
denials on the part of U.S. officials, the U.S. State
Department released a memo indicating that the CIA had
in fact played a role in Horman's murder. Wouldn't that be enough for any honest prosecutor
to begin issuing grand-jury subpoenas? Why, of course
it would. But not when it's the CIA that does the
murdering. The Justice Department wouldn't touch
Horman's murder with a 10-foot pole, and it still
won't despite the fact that there is no statute of
limitations for murder. Good for the Poles. Good for the Italians. The
people of these two countries, who suffered under both
fascism and communism, are reminding Americans that
there are objective standards of morality and right
conduct, standards that not even the CIA should be
permitted to violate. Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the
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