Short opinion piece by the OSU Lantern on Missing CIA tapes.

[sinkingfeeling]

MIA CIA tapes no coincidence


It was recently discovered that, in November 2005, the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed video footage documenting hundreds of hours of interrogations - including instances of waterboarding - performed on suspected al-Qaida prisoners after Sept. 11. It was more recently announced in a report by a blue ribbon Sept. 11 study panel - comprised of several former members of the 9/11 Commission - that the agency knowingly impeded the 9/11 Commission by failing to acknowledge or produce the tapes until well after their destruction.

The disclosure comes at a time when the president has repeatedly taken a firm "We don't torture" stance, even as his new attorney general has continued to refuse to classify waterboarding as such. Obviously, there were many things on those tapes that members of Congress - let alone the American public - were not meant to see.

The Lantern feels that the actions taken by the CIA to cover its tracks are aptly reflective of the above-the-law tone set by the Bush administration with regards to the War on Terror. Because of the repeated loopholes carved out by the president to keep waterboarding (and American torture of detainees abroad) legal, despite the ardent disapproval of a vast majority in Congress - most notably and vocally by fellow Republican (and former prisoner of war) John McCain - the president has effectively followed through on his self-awarded title of ultimate decider.

Following the trumped up claims that led the nation into war in 2003, it would appear the CIA is now firmly within the president's pocket, delivering what he wants to hear and scrapping what he does not.
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The title had me boiling until I read the article. I thought it was pretty good for a college paper.