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‘John Brennan War Criminal’ Protests Interrupt Senate Hearing
Human rights defenders shut down Thursday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing to confirm President Obama’s nominee John Brennan, an alleged war criminal, as CIA director, now also known as America’s “Drone Czar.”
This afternoon, Tom McCarthy reported for the Guardian, “The Brennan hearing has yet to begin, but already protesters in the audience are standing with signs that say “Brennan=war criminal” and ‘Brennan=drone czar.’”
McCarthy has been hitting homeruns in his reporting on a live blog of protesters interrupting the Senate intelligence Committee grilling Obama’s nominee for CIA director, criminally complicit in the U.S. torture program.
“Brennan’s appearance represents a major showdown in the long battle between the secretive Obama administration and advocates for government transparency. The president has made a devilishly potent opening gambit,announcing the release to Congress, after years of refusal to do so, of the official memo laying out the legal case for the drone assassination of US citizens abroad.
Senator Ron Wyden said Tuesday, “Every American has the right to know when their government believes it is allowed to kill them.”
Wyden was on the Senate’s Committee questioning Brennan Thursday. Human rights protesters on the scene obviously supported Wyden and human rights, raising their voices for the voiceless targets of the illegal drone wars.
As Select Committee on Intelligence chair Dianne Feinstein, D- Ca, began her opening statement McCarthy reported, “Protesters catcalled Brennan when he entered the room. She warned them to be quiet.”
Feinstein chastised the audience to be respectful, telling the shouting rights defenders, who were holding anti-drone and War Criminal placards, “What we will do is remove you from the room. Let there be no doubt.”
“Feinstein seeks to assuage concerns that the drone program is being run without oversight. She says her committee has conducted ‘significant oversight of the government’s conduct of targeted strikes…’,” McCarthy reported.
“Feinstein says she can “confirm that the number of civilian casualties that have resulted from such strikes each year has typically been in the single digits.”
Single digits? Not one human rights investigation on Drone strikes has supported Feinstein’s claim.
Then, as Brennan began to speak, he, too, was immediately shouted down.
A protester was removed and Feinstein issued warning No. 2:
“I’m going to say once again, that we welcome everyone here, that we …expect no hissing, that we expect no demonstration in this room. This is a very serious hearing. I will stop the hearing, and I will ask for the room to be cleared.”
“Now another protester,” followed by, “Would you pause Mr. Brennan?” Feinstein says. “If you would remove that individual if you please, as quickly as you can.”
“The protester is removed,” McCarthy reported.
Brennan resumed, saying, “I’d like to thank my wife Kathy…”
“A third protester,” McCarthy reported, adding, “This one is much louder.”
Feinstein then said, “If you could please expedite the removal,” and after clearing the room, she said,““The next time, we’re going to clear the chamber, and bring people back one by one.”
After another protester immediately began shouting, Feinstein cleared the room and the hearing was recessed.
McCarthy then reported that his colleague Adam had to channel-surf to find the hearing and had the following to say about it:
“The Senate hearing to appoint Brennan is apparently not interesting enough for some news channels. While MSNBC and Fox News carried the hearing live, CNN ignored it to focus on a news conference about the ex-police officer suspected of shooting dead former colleagues in California.
Even as protesters were being ejected from the Senate hearing, CNN stayed with the California press conference. Police named Christopher Jordan Dorner as a suspect in a double killing on Sunday, and he is suspected of shooting three officers this morning.”
Brennan served in the CIA as the George W. Bush administration “rendered” terrorism suspects, mainly innocent targets, kidnapping them off streets around the world to be secretly detained and tortured in the custody of the CIA or foreign governments.
In 2005, Brennan said that he was ‘intimately familiar’ with cases of rendition and that he considered the practice ‘an absolutely vital tool’ to combat terrorism, according to the LA Times.
McCarthy also added Tweets from noted rights defenders and journalists, such as this one from Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald:
“The Nobel Peace Prize Committee should frame a copy of the DOJ assassination white paper and then hang it on its wall. #DroneLaureate”
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Human Rights news reporter Deborah Dupré is author of “Vampire of Macondo, Life, crimes and curses in south Louisiana that Powerful Forces Don’t want you to know,” 450 pages packed with censored stories about the BP-wrecked Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico that continues causing hidden catastrophic human and environmental devastation.
Please watch the “Vampire of Macondo” book trailer, “First book to reveal BP Gulf Oil Human Rights Abuses.”
Follow Dupré on Twitter @DeborahDupre. For interviews, email [email protected].
