Ron Paul: End the CIA!
Former congressman Ron Paul advocates for abolishing the United States Central Intelligence Agency in a new op-ed where he condemns the CIA and its controversial enhanced interrogation practices.
On Sunday, the retired Texas lawmaker wrote on the website for the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity that “CIA covert actions across the globe have led to destruction of countries and societies and unprecedented resentment toward the United States.”
“For our own safety, end the CIA!” urged Paul, who served nearly three decades in Congress and thrice ran unsuccessfully for president before retiring early last year.
Even though the US government has largely curbed the CIA’s sordid use of torture tactics, Paul writes that a recent decision from across the pond should serve as a reminder that the agency should once and for all be laid to rest.
“Last week the European Court of Human Rights found that the US government transferred individuals to secret detention centers in Poland (and likely elsewhere) where they were tortured away from public scrutiny. The government of Poland was ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to two victims for doing nothing to stop their torture on Polish soil,” Paul wrote.
According to Paul, the court’s decision marks the first time ever that any European body like it has connected an EU nation to US torture practices. Regardless, he writes, the “Obama administration refuses to admit that such facilities existed and instead claims that any such ‘enhanced interrogation’ programs were shut down by 2009.”
“We can only hope this is true, but we should be wary of government promises. After all, they promised us all along that they were not using torture, and we might have never known had photographs and other information not been leaked to the press,” Paul added.
Transparency is again an issue, he adds, as Americans continue to wait for the eventual release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s torture program, the likes of which has been stalled for years and momentarily sparked a Department of Justice investigation into alleged wrongdoing on behalf of both the legislative and executive branches.
“Meanwhile, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior current and former CIA officials are said to be frantically attempting to prepare a response to a planned release of an unclassified version of a 6,500 page Senate Intelligence Committee study on the torture practices of that agency. The CIA was already caught tapping into the computers of Senate investigators last year, looking to see what information might be contained in the report. Those who have seen the report have commented that it details far more brutal CIA practices that have been revealed to this point,” insists Paul, giving him all the more reason to call for the abolishing of one of the American government’s most secret agencies.
Of course, the CIA isn’t the only US entity that has earned the ire of the former congressman. On top of years of campaigning to end the Federal Reserve, Paul has previously called for ending the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
