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C.I.A. to Let "Skeletons" Out of its Closet
sgt_doom writes "The C.I.A. announced it was going to reveal "skeletons" by declassifying hundreds of pages of documents detailing illegal abuses over the years. As a preamble, the National Security Archive at George Washington University released a separate set of documents covering internal government deliberations of the abuses from January 1975. Mandatory reading for all those history-challenged individuals who believe government knows best!"
Vatican? oh wait.....
I wonder if we learn who shot Sheriff John Brown's Deputy.
I realize that picking on the CIA for what they do is all good fun for many, but the CIA is ultimately a servant of its masters - most often the president, especially before the Church committee which resulted in much more congressional oversight. Not to say the CIA hasn't exceeded its own orders from time to time - it most certainly has, and once is too many times - but instead of saying, "ooh, look what the dirty CIA did!", it may be useful to look at why they did it and where the order came from. Presidents have often used it for their dirty work, particularly prior to 1975 or so when signed directives were not required, which allowed presidents to order the CIA to do their bidding without a paper trail and have plausible deniability otherwise.
An interesting read on this and other espionage/covert action matters is James Olson's Fair Play. After giving a brief overview of what espionage is like, he puts forward 50 or so "hypothetical" situations and collects ethical and other opinions from a wide variety of people. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to look at common ethical questions the intelligence community faces and common pro and con arguments against them, as well as practical looks at how the intelligence gathering is done.
The actual reason for letting these old skeletons out of the closet is that they need to make place for the new ones!
Ba da bing! Thanks a lot! I'll be here all week! Try the fish!
Take a look at this article in Wikipedia about the School of the Americas, an USA army institue that for decades taught torture, fear, bounties for enemy dead, false imprisonment, torture, execution, and kidnapping a target's family members to Latin America dictatorships in the 60's, 70's and 80's.
An excerpt:
It's not hard to figure out why some many people in Latin America hate the USA and its hipocrisy of allegedly spreading democracy while supporting dictatorships.
This article is about releasing the secret mis-deeds of the CIA.
In general, do you think the mis-deeds of the CIA will involved illegal spying on bad corporations to protect the US Public, or will they involve illegal spying to protect the big corporations ?
Stop and think, buddy.
How the fuck did that get insightful? People live fairly well in the states. Yes, there poor, but so what? most people have roofs over their heads and food in their bellies. They're just not mansions and 7 course meals...While the states isn't perfect, I'd much rather live in the states than Cuba, Saudi Arabia, or China.
;-)
/. trolls would have you think.
And I'm Canadian
From my experience, americans think highly of their country, but most fall short at saying "best place in the world." When I worked for AMD I routinely had to visit the states and had occasion to chat it up with my co-workers from California. They often remarked about the good times they had in Europe, Canada, etc. If you asked them if they liked living in the USA they would say yes, and speak positive about it. But don't confuse thinking positive with zealotry. Most educated folk in the USA have been all over the planet and aren't as dillusioned as
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.