The CIA Disappoints me

[Username17]

So the CIA is claiming that they didn't go behind the back of the Speaker of the House on the torture issue. Here's the problem: they claim they briefed congress on four dates. On three of those dates they actually didn't even have a briefing and the congressmen were in fact elsewhere doing other things on camera. On the fourth date there was a briefing. But there were also people who weren't cleared for that information and supposedly never received it in attendance.

It's not that I especially mind some government agency fighting with Pelosi, or even that I object over much to the nation's Spy Agency telling elaborate falsehoods. I mind the CIA being that fucking incompetent. If you have a working relationship with someone and you want to claim that you told them some classified information, it's probably best if you just did your damn research and picked a time when you were actually alone with them and discussing classified information. Because those events totally exist.

That kind of lazy incompetence on the part of the Central Intelligence Agency is what got us into all this mess with Iraq in the first place. I don't want to see it in 2009.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

The CIA should be dismantled and rebuilt for no other reason than its massive bloodsoaked history and unaccountability. Though I'll accept it going under if people just go 'you people are too dumb to be evil; you're all fired and here's a REAL fact-finding agency'.

In a speech before the CIA celebrating its 50th anniversary, President Clinton said: "By necessity, the American people will never know the full story of your courage."

Clinton’s is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing the CIA because they don’t know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform. Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked.

Furthermore, Clinton’s statement is simply untrue. The history of the agency is growing painfully clear, especially with the declassification of historical CIA documents. We may not know the details of specific operations, but we do know, quite well, the general behavior of the CIA. These facts began emerging nearly two decades ago at an ever-quickening pace. Today we have a remarkably accurate and consistent picture, repeated in country after country, and verified from countless different directions.

The CIA’s response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical pattern. (Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church’s fight against the Scientific Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA’s criminal behavior were harassed and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they were foreigners. (See Philip Agee’s On the Run for an example of early harassment.) However, over the last two decades the tide of evidence has become overwhelming, and the CIA has found that it does not have enough fingers to plug every hole in the dike. This is especially true in the age of the Internet, where information flows freely among millions of people. Since censorship is impossible, the Agency must now defend itself with apologetics. Clinton’s "Americans will never know" defense is a prime example.

Another common apologetic is that "the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all." There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants. The CIA had moral options available to them, but did not take them.

Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: "Which American interests?" The CIA has courted right-wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit the country’s cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight the wars that stem from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama. The second begged question is: "Why should American interests come at the expense of other peoples’ human rights?"

The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes against humanity. Our intelligence community should be rebuilt from the ground up, with the goal of collecting and analyzing information. As for covert action, there are two moral options. The first one is to eliminate covert action completely. But this gives jitters to people worried about the Adolf Hitlers of the world. So a second option is that we can place covert action under extensive and true democratic oversight. For example, a bipartisan Congressional Committee of 40 members could review and veto all aspects of CIA operations upon a majority or super-majority vote. Which of these two options is best may be the subject of debate, but one thing is clear: like dictatorship, like monarchy, unaccountable covert operations should die like the dinosaurs they are.

[angelfromanotherpin]

If anyone would like to read a well-written history of the CIA's incompetence, Legacy of Ashes is worth the time. It will lower your expectations of them appropriately.

Short version: it has always been very tragicomically bad at its job, and all efforts to fix it within its existing organization have accomplished nothing.

[Username17]

That's only slightly unfair, but it is unfair. The CIA's policy producing division has always been a huge liability for the United States and the world as a whole. But while they overthrew Iran twice (making it worse for us and their citizens twice), and did all that disastrous crap in Cambodia, and the only thing nice I can say about their attempt to assassinate Cuban leadership and replace it with members of the actual mob is that at least it failed hilariously. And so on in almost every part of the world. Even within our own borders with their totally mysterious and unjustifiable cocaine import scheme. But that's actually a relatively small part of the organization.

Most of what it does is collect information. And honestly The World Fact Book is pretty damn cool.

We just need them to go back to spying and stop trying to influence events. Because they obviously aren't qualified to determine what covert actions would produce outcomes that would be beneficial to the US.

-Username17

[Caedrus]

Spies spying = good

Spies trying to be like James Bond = bad

Seems pretty simple to me.

[Gelare]

Oh man, The World Fact Book is quality, I remember using that thing all the time. What a handy tool.

[The Lunatic Fringe]

That's only slightly unfair, but it is unfair. The CIA's policy producing division has always been a huge liability for the United States and the world as a whole. But while they overthrew Iran twice (making it worse for us and their citizens twice), and did all that disastrous crap in Cambodia, and the only thing nice I can say about their attempt to assassinate Cuban leadership and replace it with members of the actual mob is that at least it failed hilariously. And so on in almost every part of the world. Even within our own borders with their totally mysterious and unjustifiable cocaine import scheme. But that's actually a relatively small part of the organization.

Most of what it does is collect information. And honestly The World Fact Book is pretty damn cool.

We just need them to go back to spying and stop trying to influence events. Because they obviously aren't qualified to determine what covert actions would produce outcomes that would be beneficial to the US.

-Username17

This is very correct.

Covert operations are, by definition contrary to democracy. The idea that the CIA ought to do anything other than take sneaky pictures of foreign leaders needs to put down like the fascism that it represents.

[Sir Neil]

http://www.cracked.com/blog/five-fun-fa ... a-and-lsd/

"So the U.S. Government hired Nazi war criminals to spearhead a worldwide campaign of uninformed, non-consensual drugging using their elite army of magicians and whores… so what?"