The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
"The edict by the Islamic militants to ban immunization was in response to the CIA's setting up a fake hepatitis vaccination campaign in Pakistan."
And now thanks to CIA stunts many dozen (if not hundreds) Polio workers got killed and we risk not being able to eradicate the disease.
[0] - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccin...
[1] - http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/07/28/330767266/t...
Hopefully a country that doesn't collude with the USA, since that'll hardly alleviate their suspicions. :-)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/pakistan-bin-laden_...
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/07/14/commentary/wo...
Everybody in the Middle East isn't the same.
I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action. I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for political expediency.
It is a tragedy that people are refusing vaccinations in Pakistan, but it’s not fair to entirely blame the CIA. At least pass some of the responsibility to the Obama Administration and Pakistan itself. [2]
This current event is different and shouldn't be confused with an actual success. When the intelligence services operate against the people of the United States and its elected representatives, individuals from the Agency should be going to jail. We've allowed far too much intelligence overreach and people need to start being held accountable.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_support_system_i... [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden
Yes, sometimes you should let the bad guy get away if the consequences of what's required to catch him are worse. This should be obvious, but people's minds shut down when confronted with "terrorism".
And why is that?
I ask, because, like many here -- well, as few, at least -- I grew up in the UK with the IRA bombing things around me every now and again. These were frequent events. I saw the aftermath of a few of them myself. They were as hideous, as you can imagine.
I narrowly missed being caught up in two. My girlfriend and I had a picnic on the Regent's Park grandstand the day before it was blown up with the military band playing at the time. I suspect that the bomb was right beneath us that day as we ate. Ticking away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Park_and_Regent%27s_Park_b...
There were almost nightly atrocities on the TV news. It was a constant.
But minds did not shutdown. The public message, conveyed by the media, was to carry on as normal; that to do otherwise was to let the terrorists win. So we did. We kept calm and carried on.
So why are folk, these days, freaking out at the mention of terrorism?
Rationally, we know that the number of deaths from terrorism is tiny compared to almost every other form of death. We know that the probability of being present, let alone injured or worse, at the scene of an act of terrorism is vanishingly small.
What if instead of our politicians and media ramping up the fear factor they instead suggested stoic, silent resistance. What if they said that they had our backs. What if they were positive instead of negative.
Fear of terrorism is irrational, and everyone -- well, the vast majority -- would act accordingly if the politicians and media didn't exploit citizens' fears for whatever reasons they are exploiting citizens' fears.
And, because of this, going back to your point, I agree, killing Bin Laden should never have taken priority over harming polio eradication efforts. Doing so was purely story-building to support political grandstanding. It had nothing to with security or reducing terrorism.
It looks to me like a feedback loop. Fear in the populace results in politicians and media responding to and magnifying that fear. Fearful news reporting generates better ratings in a fearful populace, which makes them more fearful. Similarly, fearful political rhetoric garners votes from a fearful populace, which makes them more fearful. This would imply that it's sensitive to small differences in initial conditions.
One thing that I'd bet makes a big difference is the existence and magnitude of other threats. The US and UK are pretty solidly secure right now. There are no major human threats present now or in the near future. Compare with the era you're talking about, in which our countries (and, of course, many others) were perpetually 15 minutes away from total annihilation at the hands of the Soviets, either because they decided to try to take over the world, or just because of some terrible mistake. I imagine one probably doesn't take a terrorist nail bomb too seriously when you legitimately think there's a real possibility that you and everyone you ever knew will be killed in a two-hour-long WWIII.
Perhaps we're geared towards thinking about existential threats, and if one isn't present, we'll magnify whatever we can find.
No, but sometimes the price of a just aim is too high to pay. In retrospect at least the damage to the anti-polio campaign was too high a price to pay for his death, just as nuking the city to get him wouldn't have been justified. I find the mistake they made somewhat understandable since they could easily have failed to foresee the consequences of their actions, but it was still a mistake.
Yeah, like arming Bin Laden when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, who would have guessed? Iran-Contra fallout? To an outside observer, it would appear that the CIA may have a sound tactical approach in many cases, but fails miserably at strategy and long-term view.
EDIT: oh, yeah, and Iran and the Shah (for the youngin's, the movie _Argo_ gives an ever-so-brief bit of background at the beginning). How could I forget about that textbook example of blowback?
I'm with mikeash on this: sometimes the cost is too high.
For the sake of argument, compare it to more traditional hypothetical trade-offs, starting with what almost nobody would have considered justified:
Would getting Bin Laden have justified dropping a nuke on Abbottabad? … What about conventional bombing the entire city? … the neighborhood? … the block? … that house?
I suspect that the number of bystander casualties most people would consider too high is lower than the number of people who have already died either directly (medical workers) or indirectly (unvaccinated children).
Not at any cost, no. Now what with all of the "America...fuck yeah!" rhetoric after Bin Laden was killed, I gather that I might be writing for the minority opinion.
How many kids will die because they now won't be getting polio vaccines? How does that number compare to the number killed at the World Trade Center? If the numbers are comparable, then we figure brown kids have less value than Wall Street bankers? So, maybe apply a value of two-thirds (I'm pulling numbers that have been used in the past) one brown kid for someone working in NYC? If not, then what's the math that we can agree on?
It was all just a revenge killing anyway. Are we now safer with Bin Laden dead? I'm open to opposing opinions, but as far as I can tell we haven't improved anything.
We all know we do exactly that, even if we don't like to admit it. Our inaction is the proof.
There are thousands of questions like this one that we should have been asking ourselves for a very long time, but never did, on a societal level.
To depict targeting Osama as a revenge killing is not right. I try to empathize with the grievances he had and represents against the US, but I believe the world is better off without him. We don't need people who inspire others to suicide and homicide in the name of religion.
Chirac said nothing. He didn’t know where Bush was going with this.
“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East,” Bush said. ‘’Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled.”
Gog and Magog? What was that?, thought Chirac.
“This confrontation,” Bush said, “is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a new age begins.”
Chirac was bewildered. The American president, he thought, sounded dangerously fanatical.
After the call ended, Chirac called together his senior staff members and relayed the conversation.
“He said, ‘Gog and Magog.’ Do any of you know what he is talking about?”
Blank faces and head shakes.
“Find out,” Chirac said.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/10/kurt-eichenwald-50...
I also think it distracts from the more important issues: The continuous belief in Washington that they can play with peoples lives like chess pieces and shape a better world through violence. [1], [2]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Life_in_the_Emerald_Ci... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest
edit - and the most dangerous are those who don't believe, but claim faith for leverage. Those are the people who will go into a 'final war' with an eye on the spoils. The true believer doesn't believe there will be spoils at that point.
"Ezekiel tells us that Gog, the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north. Biblical scholars have been saying for generations that Gog must be Russia. What other powerful nation is to the north of Israel? None. But it didn’t seem to make sense before the Russian revolution, when Russia was a Christian country. Now it does, now that Russia has become Communistic and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself against God. Now it fits the description of Gog perfectly."
The original source appears to be the theologian Dr. Thomas Romer, whose expertise was sought to try and work out what Bush was going on about.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/08/gog-magog-and-...
Of course, they all have it wrong. As anybody knows, Gog and Magog are the two giants who defend the City of London on behalf of the Lord Mayor.
The conversation I referenced was something I had previously read in a different article and it was quoted specifically to make a point about the assertion "We don't need people who inspire others to suicide and homicide in the name of religion.", namely the point that not only do the leaders on both sides do that, but Bush tried to do it to the leader of another nuclear power, in the language of end-time theology.
Which isn't just a bit off-key, but rather is completely fucking bat-shit.
Not that I doubt the point being made in your original comment regardless.
Diligence would have required following through with the vaccination campaign. For pennies they could have vaccinated the kids, and probably evaded detection, but in their haste they carelessly exposed their operation.
> I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for political expediency.
I'm disappointed to see that sad pathetic excuse bandied about in defense of failure and malevolence. The gig was up a long time before the press found out, when they failed to follow through with the vaccination campaign. By allowing the operation to be discovered, they endangered not only potential future operations, but also the safety of aid workers everywhere on the planet.
>It is a tragedy that people are refusing vaccinations in Pakistan, but it’s not fair to entirely blame the CIA. At least pass some of the responsibility to the Obama Administration and Pakistan itself.
It is precisely the fault of the CIA, and not the sitting President because the CIA is responsible for planning its operations. The President doesn't dictate operational details.
If you believe that, you'll believe anything.
"Improper access"? Are you kidding me? I guess Manning was a fool for not "apologizing" for his "improper access". That would've definitely saved him.
What's worse is that even after Feinstein accused them of hacking and spying, they still did it afterwards [1]. And if they get away with it now, they will most definitely continue to do it.
[1] - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140731/18065928080/cia-s...
http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/no-cia-didnt-spy-on-other-...
Nonetheless this is a complete moral failure and power-abuse that is equally worthy of punishment. They were monitoring use of the network, then attempting to classify new information as it was being analyzed.
This is the CIA hacking the Senate. It's not GOP vs Democrat or even Executive vs Judiciary vs Legislative.
Besides, I think it can be entirely fair for newspapers to pose the question of "Is this tantamount to treason?", and let people decide for themselves.
It's shady, and likely illegal, but it's not quite hacking, and it's definitely not hacking the senate.
"How is this issue partisan?"
If a media outlet did, I think they would probably have to do so carefully.
I'm not suggesting it isn't a legitimate argument to have but... especially given the political climate post-Snowden, I wouldn't expect discourse wherever the 't' work is invoked to be particularly helpful.
This is high treason against the United States Senate. What the hell is wrong with this country? I feel like the US is one big democratic tease, pretending to be a bastion of free thought and high ideals. When in reality it's no different than any other relatively peaceful, horribly corrupt government that has ever existed.
Reading a history of the Roman Republic and eventual Empire recently, I have a suspicion we're headed down pretty much the same path, simply with better access to current information. That could change everything. But it probably wont change anything.
[citation needed]
The US has seldom had a decade of peace in its history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_United_...
But I would note that we're likely at least as peaceful as the ancient empires of Greece and Rome, and probably "relatively" more peaceful than either.
Civilian police forces are born out of a commercialization of violence and an overseer to curb abuse. While there are rampant examples of the oversight failing (L.A. in the 90s, Seattle drones, or good old fashioned SWAT team overuse), by and large, I'd argue I'm living a pretty privileged and safe life here in the U.S. right now.
But, I believe that we are moving forward, the world more than just the US, by many measures: mortality [2], poverty [3], violence [4]. So, I hope that we are something different than the Roman Republic and can last longer as a republic. My greatest fear is a 1984 style of perpetual surveillance, doublethink and corporate slavery. Oh wait, we are already there ;)
[1] - http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/laterep-index.html [2] - http://www.nber.org/digest/mar02/w8556.html [3] - http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/04/17/re... [4] - http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/11/the-decline-of-violenc...
-Real democracies don't suffer from gerrymandering. -Real democracies have a free media that will challenge their government (the US news agencies are controlled by large corporations, the corporations are fine to challenge the government on a range of issues, but nothing truly substantive). -Real democracies have elections with choice, not two parties that differ only by shades of grey.
I was going to pose the question what the over / under line would be on charges for those members of the CIA who did this but then I realized that it would be a silly question. When it comes to the US Government the corollary of too big to fail is too powerful to jail.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat...
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Bolivia
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1949_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3%...
And the list goes on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...
What a tangled web we weave.
We have gone from classified information to secret laws to who knows-what-all-else.
Among many other possibilities, the CIA's character might have been secretly changed - with it's agents authorized to lie about this change. Such is the can of worms that "classified information" opens from the get-go.
-- Boss to Agent Norbert in The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.
(Okay, that was the Federal Atomic Regulatory Taskforce rather than the CIA, but the principle holds.)
The issues of which you speak, seem like inherent challenges to making effective yet responsible intelligence organizations, rather than just garden variety stupid choices.
At this point from a simple costs vs. benefits standpoint I just do not see how even having a CIA (or at least the Clandestine Service portion) is worth it. They have wasted probably billions of dollars on countless blunders over the decades. They constantly embarrass the State Department by lying to and stealing from our supposed allies, and getting caught doing it. And they get informants killed. Now they're spying on the US's own democratically elected representatives. Meanwhile, what imminent dangers to US security has the Clandestine Service ever prevented? How do they justify their own existence? The Cold War ended decades ago, I don't see how their mission is relevant anymore.
But having said that, there are a few breaches of trust that warrant extreme action, and this is one of them. This isn't some low-level analyst using his pull to get out of a parking ticket. This is the executive branch of government running an intelligence operation against another branch of the government.
There's no known universe in which this is anywhere near being acceptable. And even if you buy the lone wolf scenario thrown out here, it still means that the agency had an atmosphere in which it seemed okay to do this -- and it was done with little or no oversight. In fact, this is a much worse scenario, because it implies that lone wolves all over the agency are doing all sorts of things on their own initiative. God knows what.
Congress, kicking and screaming, is going to have to grow a set of balls and publicly tear apart the intelligence apparatus again. We are probably going to need new constitutional amendments to address property rights and the idea of "personal papers" in the digital age. Computers are extensions of people's minds. They are not like music players or VCRs. Not at all.
This whole mess has been an example of how the political class will put off making a decision that might involve risk as long as possible. I keep wondering what more has to come out, and how much is enough.
Sadly, I think we're not there yet.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/ju...
That makes it sound like the investigation is politically motivated, which I find disappointing. It seems highly likely that some of those practices continued under Obama, and if there's any hint of political leaning in an investigation like this then most people will just ignore it as more partisan bullshit.
All congressional investigations are political motivated. That said, who cares if it helps the truth comes out?
The mere fact that the CIA was willing to pull BS like this on their overseers: "The CIA, though, spied on what the staffers did on the system. This allowed the CIA to manipulate investigation. When the staffers found some particularly juicy bit of information, the CIA was able to yank it from the system and re-classify it so that the staffers couldn't use it. Before the final report was ready, the CIA was already able to set the political machine in motion to defend itself from the report." http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/no-cia-didnt-spy-on-other-...
Personally, I'm glad they did that if only so the general public is aware of the kind of BS the CIA pulls.
No, what's politically motivated was that the chain of command that authorized and enacted torture was never prosecuted. This is not just a simple violation, but a Grave Breach as defined in the Geneva Conventions. In an effort to avoid what would be an inevitable partisan shitstorm, the heinous acts committed by the CIA and authorized explicitly by the White House were whitewashed. This report was the only thing that remained in the arsenal to hold these perpetrators accountable, and the CIA was actively attempting to thwart its work.
Its completely political. The outsourcing of torture began under the Clinton administration:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/02/14/outsourcing-tor...
"In 1995, Scheuer said, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt, making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally—including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea. “What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian,” Scheuer said. “It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.” Technically, U.S. law requires the C.I.A. to seek “assurances” from foreign governments that rendered suspects won’t be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was “not sure” if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed."
"No jail? You fail."
If Brennan can't be prosecuted for perjury, then a very public and (really) career-ending firing is in order.
As for the Congress that has been soaking up these lies and dissemblance, well, if you're a U.S. citizen, don't forget to vote. Also in local elections, where candidates grow into future Congress-critters -- or used to, before they started simply buying their way in.
Bush is mentioned three times in the article. Guess how many times Obama is mentioned? Not once. The most powerful and influential person in this issue, Not Mentioned Once.
So what if Bush implemented these policies. So what if by some miracle they were able to prosecute and convict him. We'd still have the status quo.
Articles like the one above are the very reason I hold "The Paper of Record" in almost as low esteem as outlets such as Fox News.