I'll start by saying that the Torture Report released by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is very heartening to see. It took a while for Dianne Feinstein to get all the pieces together due to the +Central Intelligence Agency continually stonewalling the investigation, which took a particularly nasty public turn back in the lame duck session of the 112th Congress in 2012, in addition to around this time in 2013. Still it's good that it's released, and that its contents that are public give the rest of us a clearer picture as to what the CIA did in the time frame from the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to George W. Bush's exit from office in January 2009. While I haven't read it yet, what I do know is that from seeing articles published on it is that the CIA went to Bush and Dick Cheney with this plan from before the attacks, and in the aftermath, got the clearance to go about implementing the "enhanced interrogation techniques" and using it on figures such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed. The fact is that these techniques were not only useless in obtaining any credible information for breaking up attacks, they destroyed our credibility across the world as now we can't get any information on anything unless someone chooses to give us the information voluntarily.
As for the protests, luckily the craziness in Berkeley seems to be dying down (as in no one getting on the interstate freeways). Still, it's lucky enough that Berkeley Police and Police from around the Bay Area are working together to help facilitate the protests so that they can go about peacefully. One key note to these protests turning into riots, most of the anarchists taking part are actually not from the Bay Area and/or from the Berkeley area itself. Most I think are coming here from the Central Valley, primarily around Fresno, just to start trouble for the sheer heck of it. Then again, this is not a huge surprise, come to think of it. Since many in the Valley areas have no real love for the Bay Area, and in particular both San Francisco and Berkeley, due to what many of them see as a sinner's haven of Liberalism that must be destroyed at all costs.
As for the protests, luckily the craziness in Berkeley seems to be dying down (as in no one getting on the interstate freeways). Still, it's lucky enough that Berkeley Police and Police from around the Bay Area are working together to help facilitate the protests so that they can go about peacefully. One key note to these protests turning into riots, most of the anarchists taking part are actually not from the Bay Area and/or from the Berkeley area itself. Most I think are coming here from the Central Valley, primarily around Fresno, just to start trouble for the sheer heck of it. Then again, this is not a huge surprise, come to think of it. Since many in the Valley areas have no real love for the Bay Area, and in particular both San Francisco and Berkeley, due to what many of them see as a sinner's haven of Liberalism that must be destroyed at all costs.
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