CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou speaks out"But what really bothers me, is that there is no prosecution of CIA officers who obviously violated LAW

[link to www.veteranstoday.com]

"But what really bothers me, is that there is no prosecution of CIA officers who obviously violated the law"... John Kiriakou

[ Editor’s Note: John Kiriakou is now out of jail and now deserves a pound of flesh (or more) from those who put him there. This was government at its worst and it serves us all…protects us all, to see to it that there is some blowback for the punitive prosecution.

It was done purely to keep the CIA’s going rogue on torture hidden as long as possible so those involved could get further away from the blood splatters. This includes the Bush White house attornies that gave them “veil thin legal opinion” cover.

And if you haven’t noticed, no one in mass media is posing the question of whether the current ISIL barbarity was birthed back in the days when attornies said it was OK as long as you had a good reason. They would never admit that, but when you strip off all the Christmas wrapping that’s what you have.

John also is still behind the curve, not having been able to read VT, as his comments below seem to indicate the state sponsored terrorism was not a key facter in all of this, including Osama having been a fellow CIA agent.

But he will have time to catch up now that he is out as he states below he wants to continue fighting for human rights and civil liberties. That is still the bumpy road it was when he went inside. I will see if we can get an interview with him for VT TV and radio… Jim W. Dean



Former CIA analyst John Kiriakou blew the whistle on the agency’s use of waterboarding and was subsequently locked up. Fresh out of prison and on the heels of the CIA torture report, he feels vindicated – and says he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
Sentencing day

Sentencing day

RT: You’ve described your time in detention as “terrible years that ruined you personally,” yet you’ve also said it’s all been worth it. Can you expand on that?

John Kiriakou: You know, I really do believe that it was worth it. I’m proud to have played a role, however small, in the outline of torture in the United States.

And to me, the past now is water under the bridge. I’m proud to have played that role and it’s time to move on and continue this fight for human rights and civil liberties.

RT:You are currently writing a book about the conditions you encountered in prison. What were those conditions like?

JK: I was surprised by the terrible quality of the medical care, of the food. American prisoners aren’t even fed human-grade food. I remember passing boxes, cases of food in the cafeteria marked “not for human consumption, feed use only” or “for sale only in China.” And the medical care was even worse. There were almost a half a dozen deaths of prisoners when I was there in prison, and almost every one of those deaths was preventable.

RT: What was your motivating factor to put yourself through this? You must have known there was a high risk you were taking on.

JK: No whistleblower really sets out to be a whistleblower. I saw a policy that I believed was not just wrong, but was criminal, and I decided to speak about it. I really didn’t think long-term about how the US government can bring its full weight against a whistleblower.

The goal really of the Justice Department is to ruin the whistleblower personally, professionally, and financially. I hadn’t thought that through, and that’s exactly what happened to me. But again, it’s opened up a whole new world for me in the realm of human right and civil liberties.

RT: You say that the aim is to ruin the whistleblower. Washington has now officially admitted that torture took place, and a comprehensive report has been released – do you consider this a final victory?

JK: Absolutely. Everything that I said was true, and we now know that because of the release of the torture report.

RT: Now that all this is public knowledge, do you think the CIA will abandon its torture practices for good?

JK: I do believe that the CIA will abandon torture. Not just because it’s illegal, but because the truth always has a way of coming out. And I don’t think the organization can withstand another revelation that they had yet again begun a torture regime.

RT: No one has of yet been held accountable for the torture program. How do you feel about that?
The man that came out of the shadows

The man that came out of the shadows

JK: It’s the great irony, isn’t it? Personally I feel that the Justice Department is hypocritical to charge me for a crime, and not just me but other whistleblowers as well – [such] as Ed Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and others – and then allow the torturers to go free.