Peter Van Buren — The persecution of John Kiriakou

...no one except John Kiriakou is being held accountable for America's torture policy. And John Kiriakou didn't torture anyone, he just blew the whistle on it.

Asia Time Online
The persecution of John Kiriakou
Peter Van Buren, 24-year veteran Foreign Service Officer at the State Department

The one man in the whole archipelago of America's secret horrors facing prosecution is former CIA agent John Kiriakou. Of the untold numbers of men and women involved in the whole nightmare show of those years, only one may go to jail.
And of course, he didn't torture anyone. 

The charges against Kiriakou allege that in answering questions from reporters about suspicions that the CIA tortured detainees in its custody, he violated the Espionage Act, once an obscure World War I-era law that aimed at punishing Americans who gave aid to the enemy. It was passed in 1917 and has been the subject of much judicial and congressional doubt ever since. Kiriakou is one of six government whistleblowers who have been charged under the Act by the Obama administration. From 1917 until Barack Obama came into office, only three people had ever charged in this way.

The Obama Justice Department claims the former CIA officer "disclosed classified information to journalists, including the name of a covert CIA officer and information revealing the role of another CIA employee in classified activities".

Obama and Holder belong in the dock at the Hague along with Bush and Cheney.

The same Department of Justice that is hunting down the one man who spoke against torture from the inside still maintains a special unit, 60 years after the end of World War II, dedicated to hunting down the last few at-large Nazis. They do that under the rubric of "never again". The truth is that same team needs to be turned loose on our national security state. Otherwise, until we have a full accounting of what was done in our names by our government, the pieces are all in place for it to happen again. There, if you want to know, is the real horror.