Curt Mills — Panetta: Putin Wants To Restore the Soviet Union

Thank heaven HRC was defeated. This is off the wall. Panetta has lost the plot. 

Panetta would have played a major role in a Clinton restoration. Fortunately, he will play no role in the Trump adminstration. 

Even if Putin want to restore the USSR, the possibility of that is zero. Putin has his hands full keeping the Russian Federation afloat, fending off NATO, and countering jihadism.

Leon Panetta served as SecDef, CIA director and WH Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton, where he learned the fine points of serving the military-industrial complex and broker power. 

People like him are serous liabilities for the future success of the Democratic Party. The Clintons and all associated with them need to be put out to pasture if the Democrats want to be competitive again.

US News
Panetta: Putin Wants To Restore the Soviet Union

Curt Mills

Gareth Porter — Hillary Clinton and Her Hawks

Looks like HRC is obsessed with turning Syria into another Libya.

It is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for figures known to be close to a presidential candidate to make public recommendations for new and broader war abroad.

Consortium News
Hillary Clinton and Her Hawks

Gareth Porter

Also

Whatever the problems with the Democrat’s foreign policy planks, the Republican platform is far worse.

Counter Current
“Most Progressive Dem Platform in History” Disturbingly Hawkish on Foreign Policy

Ben Richards

William Blum — American Exceptionalism and American Torture

 Lest we forget...

If you open the window of torture, even just a crack, the cold air of the Dark Ages will fill the whole room.

Cold air or stench?

No, Obama didn't end torture.

BTW, if you haven't seen Brazil (1985 film), it's as apropos as Orwell's 1984.

Counterpunch

American Exceptionalism and American Torture
William Blum

Also

Truthout
We Need Moral Certainty on Torture

Victoria Bassetti, Brennan Center for Justice | Op-Ed

We need to reestablish that foundational, incontrovertible moral certainty we once had about torture. The Senate report was a bold and important step toward reestablishing that certitude. More is needed. 

There is a less known coda to the Milgram experiments. When dissent was added into the equation, when someone objected to the shocks being administered, the experiment participants’ willingness to inflict abuse diminished substantially. 

"The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act," Milgram wrote after more than a decade’s work.

Washington's Blog
Senior U.S. Government Officials: Release the Full Torture Report

With permission from Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

MEMORANDUM FOR: Senator Mark Udall 

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) 

SUBJECT: Stopping Torture 

We, the undersigned are veteran intelligence officers with a combined total of over 300 years of experience in intelligence work. We send you this open letter at what seems to be the last minute simply because we had been hoping we would not have to.…

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.) 

Thomas Drake, Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service, NSA (resigned) 

Daniel Ellsberg, former State Dept. & Defense Dept. Official (VIPS Associate) 

Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska; former Army intelligence officer 

Larry Johnson, CIA analyst & State Department/counterterrorism, (ret.) 

John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism operations officer; federal prison, Loretto, Pennsylvania 

Edward Loomis, former Chief, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA 

David MacMichael, USMC & National Intelligence Council (ret.) 

Ray McGovern, Army Infantry/Intelligence officer & CIA presidential briefer (ret.) 

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.) 

Todd Pierce, MAJ, U.S. Army Judge Advocate (ret.) 

Coleen Rowley, Minneapolis Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.) 

Peter Van Buren, Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) 

Kirk Wiebe, Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA (ret.) 

Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret); Foreign Service Officer (ret.)

Dan Froomkin — Panetta Says Rahm Emanuel Cussed Him Out for Cooperating With Senate Torture Inquiry

Ouch.

The Intercept
Panetta Says Rahm Emanuel Cussed Him Out for Cooperating With Senate Torture Inquiry
Dan Froomkin

Panetta Starts Singing Contractors’ Tune After Closed-Door Meeting — Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crowe

When the cost-cutting begins in earnest, it's about whose ox is going to be gored and who have the most clout to protect their own oxen.

Well, that didn’t take very long.

Two days ago, while representatives of war profiteers were on the Hill trying to push elected officials to protect their profit margins from the deficit committee, heads of the war industry met in a closed-door meeting with Defense Secretary Panetta. The next day, the war contractors held a press conference to try to spin away the fact that military spending costs jobs compared to other ways of spending the money. And today, Panetta and his subordinates came out swinging with the same bogus spin on “jobs.” Panetta says that cuts to the Pentagon budget that would be triggered if the deficit committee doesn’t produce a plan that passes Congress could cause the jobless rate to jump 1 percent.

Why, it’s almost like they planned the whole thing.

Read it all at AlterNet, Panetta Starts Singing Contractors’ Tune After Closed-Door Meeting