CIA, Senate ‘responsible for crimes against humanity’: Anti-war activist

High-ranking US officials, including senators and CIA officers are “responsible for crimes against humanity,” and notorious for their “subterfuge, deceit and deception,” a political commentator said on Saturday.

The recent clash between the Senate and the CIA over the spy agency’s torture methods may be a “carefully orchestrated ploy,” said Darnell Stephen Summers, a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a national veterans’ organization that campaigns for peace and justice.

A still secret report by the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal torture program for years.

Earlier this month, the intelligence committee voted to make public parts of the blistering report which provides details of the CIA’s torture techniques – including waterboarding, wall-slamming, and shackling.

The vote to declassify a summary of the massive 6,300-page report followed an unprecedented clash between Senator Dianne Feinstein and the CIA. Feinstein accused the agency of spying on her panel staff who compiled it and the CIA accused Senate Intelligence Committee staff members of illegally obtaining CIA documents.

“The very people who are responsible for crimes against humanity [are] bickering among themselves about who did what and when,” Summers told Press TV.

Summers also referred to the recent crisis in Ukraine, saying it is the direct result of Washington’s interference there.

“It’s important to note that the present situation in Ukraine is the direct result of the interference of high-ranking US government officials, including the [US] ambassador to the Ukraine himself, in the internal affairs of that sovereign state, bringing its government to collapse, and then putting their own choices for top positions into power and leadership via coup d’état, all with no regard for so-called democratic principles,” he said.

“Wherever you look, subterfuge, deceit and deception, those are the fingerprints of the CIA and its fellow US government counterparts,” Summers concluded.