{"id":37936,"date":"2021-08-24T10:53:18","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T18:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=37936"},"modified":"2021-08-24T11:12:32","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T19:12:32","slug":"ray-mcgovern-war-criminals-welcome-at-fordham-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/24\/ray-mcgovern-war-criminals-welcome-at-fordham-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray McGovern: War Criminals Welcome at Fordham Law?"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Rizzo, the CIA\u2019s top lawyer, who gave the green light for torture, is dead. My former CIA colleague, John Kiriakou, who knew him well, has written a fitting \u201cencomium.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Kiriakou knew Rizzo well and describes him as \u201cthe unapologetic godfather of the CIA\u2019s torture program, a monstrous crime against humanity that he defended unabashedly until his death\u201d. Kiriakou found himself atop the CIA\u2019s WANTED list when he confirmed publicly that the CIA had been carrying out a White House-approved torture program, using techniques virtually identical to those in the Gestapo Handbuch. He (Kiriakou, not Rizzo) ended up having to do two years in prison.<\/p>\n

So, why did Fordham Law School honor John Rizzo by inviting him to discuss, on Jan. 30, 2014, his book-length unapologetic apologia for the role he played in \u201cdark-side\u201d crimes like torture – including his passing along the Bush Justice Department \u201clegal\u201d opinions approving waterboarding, for example.  Rizzo\u2019s performance at Fordham was \u2026 well, it might be described as an \u201cextraordinary rendition\u201d \u2013 a shameless, ethically vacuous defense of the indefensible. The video of that event (sans a question I asked of Rizzo) can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Artful Editing<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this article <\/a> I wrote about that extraordinary event and included the question that some later-day \u201cRose Mary Woods\u201d had deleted:<\/p>\n

Mr. Rizzo, I imagine you are feeling quite affirmed at being invited to Fordham, \u2018The Jesuit University of New York City.\u2019 I imagine President Rev. Joseph McShane, SJ had a hand in bringing you here, and in your book you make it clear that you share an admiration for Fordham alumnus John Brennan, now Director of the CIA. As for Brennan, though, not all were happy when McShane gave Brennan the honor of giving the university Commencement address in May 2012.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cA graduating senior expressed his qualms to McShane, in the presence of others, about Brennan\u2019s role in torture and in drone killings. McShane\u2019s response was not what I learned in Fordham College 55 years ago. I had learned that torture inhabited the same moral category as rape and slavery \u2013 intrinsically evil, always wrong. Fordham\u2019s president told the graduating senior, \u2018Well, we don\u2019t live in a black and white world, we live in a gray world.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Rizzo, am I right in thinking you must feel affirmed at being invited here, and at sharing President McShane\u2019s views on torture as a gray area?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It is generally frowned upon to speak ill of the dead. So, let\u2019s turn our attention to today. Rizzo is gone, but so many of his accomplices are still at large, populating the media, as well as academia.<\/p>\n

The MICIMATT<\/strong><\/p>\n

To designate what the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), about which President Eisenhower warned us, has now become, I coined MICIMATT – the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence- Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (an acronym endorsed by the likes of the late Stephen F. Cohen and Pepe Escobar). A few friends have advised me to drop the \u201cM\u201d for Media (no way will I do that! A controlled media is a sine quo non<\/em>), and to cut \u201c\u2026Academia-Think-Tank \u2026\u201d from the end of the acronym. (Again, no way!)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s just one example of how it works these days: \u201cjournalist\u201d Ken Dilanian, when he was writing for the Los Angeles Times<\/i>, regularly solicited reaction and comment on his draft articles from the CIA BEFORE publishing them. (Thanks to an FOIA request, we have exchanges of emails between Dilanian and John Brennan\u2019s PR friends at CIA<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo: Dan Creighton<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n

At Fordham Law School\u2019s think tank \u201cCenter on National Security\u201d, Dilanian appears in the above photo with his nihil-obstat<\/em> \u201cfact-checker\u201d Brennan, putting visual flesh on the \u201c\u2026Media-Academia-Think-Tank\u201d part of the MICIMATT.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoral Decline and Political Servitude\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is not as though the Jesuits who run Fordham had not been warned by one of their own prophets.  In To Dwell in Peace<\/em>, published 34 years ago, Daniel Berrigan, SJ, wrote of \u201cthe fall of a great enterprise,\u201d the Jesuit university. He recorded his \u201chunch\u201d that the university would end up \u201camong those structures whose moral decline and political servitude signalize a larger falling away of the culture itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berrigan lamented that \u201chighly placed\u201d churchmen [violated] \u201cthe Christian tradition of nonviolence, as well as the secular boast of disinterested pursuit of truth. These are reduced to bombast, hauled out for formal occasions, believed by no one, practiced by no one.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Dan wrote his book well before Fordham gave a platform to aficionados of torture and \u201cextraordinary rendition\u201d and before Fordham awarded CIA Director John Brennan an honorary \u201cDoctorate in Humane Letters\u201d (sic) and named him \u201cDistinguished Fellow for Global Security\u201d at the Law School. The values of Rizzo and Brennan were not the same as the ones I learned at Fordham College, from which I graduated in 1961. The ethics drummed into me had not yet become \u201cquaint\u201d or \u201cobsolete\u201d.<\/p>\n

I did not have to compromise those values while working as a CIA analyst working on Soviet foreign policy. But after retirement, and watch the on-steroids corruption of the entire agency under Cheney, Bush, and go-along-to-get-along directors, I had to find some symbolic way to dissociate from the CIA.<\/p>\n

As an act of conscience, on March 2, 2006 I returned the Intelligence Commendation Medallion<\/em> given me at retirement for \u201cespecially meritorious service\u201d. I explained, \u201cI do not want to be associated, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither am I a fan of \u201cregime change\u201d. More then 12 years ago, when President Obama let himself be persuaded to \u201csurge\u201d in Afghanistan, I tried to warn him of the inevitable consequences in \u201cWelcome to Vietnam, Mr. President<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Come to think of it, I might make one exception. \u201cRegime change\u201d is precisely what is needed at Fordham, lest Dan Berrigan\u2019s \u201chunch\u201d see complete fulfillment.<\/p>\n

This originally appeared at RayMcGovern.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer\/briefer of the President\u2019s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Rizzo, the CIA\u2019s top lawyer, who gave the green light for torture, is dead. My former CIA colleague, John Kiriakou, who knew him well, has written a fitting \u201cencomium.\u201d Kiriakou knew Rizzo well and describes him as \u201cthe unapologetic godfather of the CIA\u2019s torture program, a monstrous crime against humanity that he defended unabashedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-37936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37936"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37942,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37936\/revisions\/37942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37936"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=37936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}