Skipping the Dirty Details

Some weird stuff on NPR lately. Friday on ATC Siegel talks to Mark Mazzetti, of the The New York Times, about Colonel Klink General Hayden of the CIA pulling a little coup on his "independent" Inspector General, who apparently has been probing a little to hard at the old CIA. Mazzetti broke the story about this unprecedented usurpation of CIA power by a director. All right, so far so good. But the bizarre aspect of this piece is that Siegel gives no weight to the CRIMES of TORTURE and KIDNAPPING that the spooks have been committing and that
CIA Inspector General John Helgerson seems to believe may be illegal. Instead Siegel refers only to "interrogation" and "rendition" and focuses on how many inside the CIA think that Helgerson is leading a "witch-hunt" and how agents involved in dirty op's resent some Washington based softy who just doesn't understand how dangerous and necessary these crimes are.

Wow.