Whistleblower Kiriakou Bows to Obama InJustice

Dear Mr. President,

Your Injustice Department won’t prosecute torturers, murderers or assassins, but they pursue whistleblowers who expose crimes, corruption and incompetence with relentless fanaticism. In August the InJustice Department announced that it would not charge CIA officials who participated in brutal interrogation of detainees during the Bush administration but yesterday John Kiriakou, a former CIA counterterrorism operative, pled guilty to revealing a covert CIA agent’s name to a reporter. Mr. Kiriakou initially pled not guilty but decided to cut a deal and plead guilty for a much reduced charge by the government and the prospect of a 30 month prison term versus 30 years. His reasons were simple: the government’s case is stacked against him and he has almost no chance of winning; his legal bills are already in the 6 figures and he cannot afford to continue the legal battle; and most important, he wants to watch his 5 children grow up. Kiriakou should have been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for he was the first to reveal that the CIA was using torture, including waterboarding, on detainees, his misgivings about that and the doubtful value of information obtained as a result. He revealed this information in 2007 but was not charged by the government with leaking classified information until January 23, 2012, long after the Bush regime was gone. It is obviously your intent to prosecute anyone who leaks information even if the information exposes high crimes and misdemeanors or corruption and incompetence by government officials. There is no doubt that if the Bush Justice Department had brought these charges against Kiriakou, Democrats would have been screaming bloody murder. However, since it is a Democratic regime, a blind eye is once again turned to injustice. It amazes me how deep and pervasive denial can be. Democrats, Liberals, Progressives, most Americans refuse to see the damage you do to democracy, to the underpinnings of justice and faith in the rule of law and it occurs to me that it is this that is necessary to accept the lesser of two evils theory which I hear over and over again. To clearly see your war crimes, your crimes against humanity, your assault on the Constitution, forces us to see that you are not the lesser but the more effective evil. The Republicans are our own home-grown Taliban but you, Mr. President, are even more dangerous, for you have hypnotized America into thinking you are on our side. And you’re not.