August 24, 2009

The 2004 CIA Inspector General Report

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The 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report on treatment of terrorist detainees has finally been released. Spencer Ackerman has the full text over at his place. I’m reading through a copy now. As I mentioned this morning, we already knew a lot about this report. We already knew that the CIA staged mock executions and threatened one detainee with a gun and a power drill. More broadly, Leon Panetta is right: the fact that this country did horrible, inhumane things to terrorist suspects is old news. Sure, not everyone acknowleges it. But that’s what it is: old news.

None of this is to say that we shouldn’t be trying to figure out exactly what happened, when. A lot of the journalistic work around this subject has to be done detective-style. There’s value in simply establishing what happened. But the the real question—the question that matters politically, the question that matters going forward—is whether anyone will face any consequences whatsoever for all that misconduct. Eric Holder’s announcement today suggests that some people might, but they’re likely to be the Lynndie Englands and Charles Graners: the “low-level operatives” the Center for Constitutional Rights (and now the ACLU) are worried will be the focus of the probe.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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