More on the Rove nonsense and left's sudden touching concern for the agency that brought you assassination plots and poisoned cigars. If every employee of that outfit was fired tomorrow and had to work at Burger King, would the country be better off? Worse off? I'd say better. Either they're sitting around Langley writing memos to the file or they're helping to spread corporate misery abroad--deposing democratically elected governments to put in someone more to the liking of...your boss. The cold war is over, and Islamofascism is a defense contractor-friendly canard. Where was the C1A on 9/11? Leaving it to you and me to deal with it. We all want Bush gone, but getting involved in the daily minutiae of the Washington pencil-pusher class is just nauseating--and pretty much a parlor game unless you have subpoena power and suspects in the dock. A majority of Americans have come to understand that Bush is a creep because of the Iraq dead, Schiavo, Social Security, and people like Michael Moore getting the truth out to a mass audience--no one cares about the he said she said of the Plame case. One day we bloggers are all chewing like rodents on the Downing Street memos, then--whoops, they weren't the answer, Bush didn't resign, so now we're chewing on the meaning of "covert." If you want to do something, show Fahrenheit 9/11 to some middle class Republicans--make'em watch that footage of Bush zoning out in the school and Bush calling the new robber barons his "base."
Update: Let's end this post on a less angry and class-baiting note--and I decided "our new robber barons" was a more subtle turn of phrase than, um, what was there originally--by noting that it was written before Bush inevitably changed the subject from RovePlame to the new Supreme Court nominee. If past practice is a guide, this should give us all a break from the center-left's unpacking of State Dept. memos, which has been going on for the last week in a manner recalling the 101st Fighting Keyboarders' intrepid "kerning analysis," which as we all know, blew the lid off Rathergate.
Perhaps I have some of that Stockholm Syndrome, but I don't see the intelligence community the same way. Here's an analogy that sort of captures my view.
A Catahoula can be a silly companion animal, a working dog, or a dangerous animal. Sometimes all three. If the dog creates havoc I primarily blame the owner.
  
In a dangerous world, it's useful to have dangerous people on our side: the operations side of the CIA, the SEALS, etc. But they must be kept on a tight leash, and focused on the right tasks by the civilian leadership.
However, I do see the other side of the argument quite clearly. That's why I'm making the world safe for 500 channels of HD TV rather than providing technology for spooks.
Not saying we don't need a police or investigative force to head off threats to the nation. This particular agency, though, along with most of the bloated US defense establishment, is a Cold War relic. Spectacular as 9/11 was, we're still talking about a few tinhorn terrorists threatening us these days, not SPECTRE or SHMERSH or KAOS or even HYDRA. It should have been swords to plowshares after '89. Instead you have these massive "defense" bureacracies thinking of ways to keep their jobs and keep the money flowing. All that money and they still don't protect us. A standing army, or even a standing elite force of killers, just encourages useless adventuring, a la Iraq and Afghanistan. If the 50 states are threatened militarily we mobilize, that's been our history up to the current bureaucratic era.
I would just point out that the useless adventuring of Iraq and Afganistan are the brain-childs of Bush & Co., not the CIA. In fact, you could argue that the CIA (or at least a part of the CIA) was trying to dissuade those bunglers by giving truth to the lie. Which is why Rove acted as he did. Which takes us back to the outing of Plame. I agree with Mark above. Tight leash. Very tight leash.
And on a lighter note, it's SMERSH not SHMERSH. Only reason I know this is because I'm reading Live and Let Die right now. I had know idea James Bond was such a condescending racist. Ah well, another boyhood hero trashed.
Under the separation of powers doctrine that is fast becoming a fading memory it's Congress who's supposed to dissuade the bunglers. Congress also has oversight over the Agency but they mostly just write them a blank check every year--another Cold War habit that should be broken, and would be in my Administration.
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More on the Rove nonsense and left's sudden touching concern for the agency that brought you assassination plots and poisoned cigars. If every employee of that outfit was fired tomorrow and had to work at Burger King, would the country be better off? Worse off? I'd say better. Either they're sitting around Langley writing memos to the file or they're helping to spread corporate misery abroad--deposing democratically elected governments to put in someone more to the liking of...your boss. The cold war is over, and Islamofascism is a defense contractor-friendly canard. Where was the C1A on 9/11? Leaving it to you and me to deal with it. We all want Bush gone, but getting involved in the daily minutiae of the Washington pencil-pusher class is just nauseating--and pretty much a parlor game unless you have subpoena power and suspects in the dock. A majority of Americans have come to understand that Bush is a creep because of the Iraq dead, Schiavo, Social Security, and people like Michael Moore getting the truth out to a mass audience--no one cares about the he said she said of the Plame case. One day we bloggers are all chewing like rodents on the Downing Street memos, then--whoops, they weren't the answer, Bush didn't resign, so now we're chewing on the meaning of "covert." If you want to do something, show Fahrenheit 9/11 to some middle class Republicans--make'em watch that footage of Bush zoning out in the school and Bush calling the new robber barons his "base."
Update: Let's end this post on a less angry and class-baiting note--and I decided "our new robber barons" was a more subtle turn of phrase than, um, what was there originally--by noting that it was written before Bush inevitably changed the subject from RovePlame to the new Supreme Court nominee. If past practice is a guide, this should give us all a break from the center-left's unpacking of State Dept. memos, which has been going on for the last week in a manner recalling the 101st Fighting Keyboarders' intrepid "kerning analysis," which as we all know, blew the lid off Rathergate.
- tom moody 7-20-2005 2:46 am
Perhaps I have some of that Stockholm Syndrome, but I don't see the intelligence community the same way. Here's an analogy that sort of captures my view.
A Catahoula can be a silly companion animal, a working dog, or a dangerous animal. Sometimes all three. If the dog creates havoc I primarily blame the owner.
In a dangerous world, it's useful to have dangerous people on our side: the operations side of the CIA, the SEALS, etc. But they must be kept on a tight leash, and focused on the right tasks by the civilian leadership.
However, I do see the other side of the argument quite clearly. That's why I'm making the world safe for 500 channels of HD TV rather than providing technology for spooks.
- mark 7-21-2005 9:16 pm
Not saying we don't need a police or investigative force to head off threats to the nation. This particular agency, though, along with most of the bloated US defense establishment, is a Cold War relic. Spectacular as 9/11 was, we're still talking about a few tinhorn terrorists threatening us these days, not SPECTRE or SHMERSH or KAOS or even HYDRA. It should have been swords to plowshares after '89. Instead you have these massive "defense" bureacracies thinking of ways to keep their jobs and keep the money flowing. All that money and they still don't protect us. A standing army, or even a standing elite force of killers, just encourages useless adventuring, a la Iraq and Afghanistan. If the 50 states are threatened militarily we mobilize, that's been our history up to the current bureaucratic era.
- tom moody 7-21-2005 11:49 pm
I would just point out that the useless adventuring of Iraq and Afganistan are the brain-childs of Bush & Co., not the CIA. In fact, you could argue that the CIA (or at least a part of the CIA) was trying to dissuade those bunglers by giving truth to the lie. Which is why Rove acted as he did. Which takes us back to the outing of Plame. I agree with Mark above. Tight leash. Very tight leash.
And on a lighter note, it's SMERSH not SHMERSH. Only reason I know this is because I'm reading Live and Let Die right now. I had know idea James Bond was such a condescending racist. Ah well, another boyhood hero trashed.
- Kevin (guest) 7-22-2005 12:39 am
Under the separation of powers doctrine that is fast becoming a fading memory it's Congress who's supposed to dissuade the bunglers. Congress also has oversight over the Agency but they mostly just write them a blank check every year--another Cold War habit that should be broken, and would be in my Administration.
- tom moody 7-22-2005 9:04 am