Press TV has conducted an interview with Ken O’Keefe, activist and former US marine from Hawaii, about a new row erupting between the US government and the Congress over an investigation into the CIA’s torture program.
What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Now what is your opinion on this? Any surprises here?
O’Keefe: Well there is no surprise but there is some smoke and mirrors as per usual. I mean the idea that the Senate or Congress is adversarial to the White House and CIA is mythological. I mean they both work for the same masters, the bankers, the bankroll, the campaigns that put these politicians in office are the ones that are pulling the strings of these puppets.
So to think that the Congress and the Senate is somehow going to serve the interest of the people and genuinely investigate accusations of torture is a bit silly and I think people would make a big mistake if they thought that were the case.
At the same time it also reveals importantly that there is no openness not with the Obama administration or with the Bush administration or any administration quite frankly. The government of United States like most governments of the West operates completely and totally absent of any lawful constraints. That is just the way it is in at this particular point in history.
Press TV: So then Ken why even entering to this whole public charade of even holding a Senate committee to investigate the CIA over rendition or torture? I mean, you know, is it out of fear of the public citizens or what is it out of fear of?
O’Keefe: Well it is kind of like the whole charade of Republican versus Democrat or Tory versus Labor in the UK. The idea that we have opposing views and that we have a choice and that if we want a different government we can vote a different government into power and that this will solve our problems and we will have representation if only we vote correctly, this is all a myth and we can see the policies for what they are.
The policies remain the same whether it is Bush or whether it is Obama and we can go back and we can see that pattern continuously. But if people have to give up the myth and accept the fact that they actually have no control over the major issues which decide their fate and their children’s fate, then they have to do something about it but if they can live with the illusion that there is some sort of representation, then they can go on about their lives.
So this is a charade to appease those that do not want to have to face up to the fact that our government has committed treason at the highest levels and continue to do so.
And with regard to torture, there is no question as to whether or not the United States government is involved in torture whether it is solidarity confinement, whether it is confinement with no due process of law, whether it is a million different things that we have done, waterboarding and whatnot, the US has been torturing people long time, never mind the tons and tons of accounts from Iraqis and Afghans who have been through torture. We know this is true.
Press TV: So can you speak about people living with an illusion? Do you believe that the American public at large has been successfully put within this illusion and do you believe that there is any hope at the end of this tunnel, is there any hope for the American people waking up to these facts?
O’Keefe: I absolutely do and I have returned to America now. This is the stolen nation of Hawaii which is a whole other story. But nonetheless, I am back in America and we can see what they want to do with me being back here, but the bottom line is this:
The American people are waking up. There are large, large numbers of Americans who are realizing that they have no representation that the president, the Congress do not represent them, that the bankers continue to reap the benefits of the bottom paid for government that basically kowtows to their every whim and I think this is becoming increasingly unacceptable for more, more people including and I repeat my calls for the oath-taking patriots of America in the military and the police forces who swore to uphold the constitution, it is time and at some point you are going to have to face this fact to go and arrest these traitors in the US Congress and the White House because they have also taken an oath to uphold the constitution and they have broken that oath indisputably.
This is the fact and I do not have any doubt that at some point the American people finally – the real patriots – will do what’s necessary.
Source: PRESS TV
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