Quote Originally Posted by Penta View Post
If the CIA are not interrogators, then who in our government is, that has a charter authorizing operations outside the United States?
The Defense Intelligence Agency? Maybe even the State Department? Really, i don't think is something US, as a liberal republic, should be doing. I understand the arguments for aggressive interrogation, torture, and extraordinary redefinition but ultimately think they corrupt the intelligence process more than add to it, to say nothing of what they do for the image or moral standing. Maybe it is an essential function but I just think the negatives out weigh the positives. Most importantly, I don't think American service people, whether they are intelligence professionals, military officers, or enlisted men, should be put in a position where, it can be argued, they are violating the US constitution and committing war crimes. Frankly, lynndie england was fallboy and its disgraceful. Check out The Torture Papers; the documents are all there. you can see a lot of it google books.

I agree with Dr. Zelikow's second point that jedburgh posted. The real issue at hand in extraordinary renditions is how the detainees are handled. If the people weren't being tortured and abused extraordinary rendition would be not be an issue that the EU would act on like it is. Its going to be interesting how this EU investigation pans out and, much further down the road, how contemporary debates on torture are going to be cast by historians.

Back to the CIA, hasn't it been a victim of serious mission creep? As far as i understand (and please let me know if i am wrong), the CIA Charter defines the CIA as an mere independent analytical Agency. The Truman Administration, through NSC decisions, quickly gave it an operational capacity, expanding on some vague clause like "undertake such other functions related to national security." I think the CIA ended up picking up everything the military or state department couldn't or wouldn't do. I just think interrogations is a perfect of example of the CIA getting involved in stuff it shouldn't and, on a practical level, is diluting the quality of intelligence sources and overall analysis that follows.