Slashdot Mirror
CIA Declassifies the "Family Jewels"
An anonymous reader informs us that the CIA has recently declassified for your reading pleasure some records relating to illegal spying, assassination attempts, and other goodies. These are available from the CIA's FOIA portal. From the BBC article: " Last week, CIA chief Michael Hayden announced the decision to declassify the records, saying the documents were 'unflattering but part of CIA history.' The documents detail assassination plots, domestic spying, wiretapping, and kidnapping... Among the documents is a request in 1972 for someone 'who was accomplished at picking locks' who might be retiring or resigning from the agency."
For example, readers from India might want to check out the CIA's files about the India-China war of 1962, especially since India's Freedom of Information laws (IIRC) don't cover matters of national security.
Impromptu search engine available in 3..2..1..
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Where are the top secret documents about the assassination of Kennedy? I wanna read them!
to make us think they stopped doing &#!####{ççççç NO CARRIER
Holy crap, a government agency did underhanded things in an attempt to maintain the security and wealth of a nation and its government? I am shocked, SHOCKED, I say.
This would've never happened by fine agencies such as the KGB, Mossad, or MI5
Surely, THEY never commit illegal acts to secure their nations wealth and power.
Surely.
Baically, nothing that wasn't already known except maybe a little finger pointing and agreeing to take the blame. Anything actually "new" in this? Anything that never made the news back then? Any fresh skeletons? If we find the answer is "no" then one must assume this is just more misdirection. Of course stuff like this just goes to prove that the CIA and its similar organizations should have been abolished years ago. The really big question: is this pile of bones but the tip of the iceberg?
"We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones".
Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)
Those documents are about 60 years old. In other words, around 2070 we'll finally get to see what is done now.
You think it's in any way different today? If anything, it gets worse.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The message this sends current CIA operatives: go ahead, do whatever illegal stuff you want because you're going to get away with it - in 50 years time we'll tell everyone and have a good laugh about it.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
CIA = ( $evil ) ^ -1
The CIA is the reciprocal of evil? (Did you mean $evil ^ 0.5?)
But yes, clearly an officially endorsed and secretive organization with so much power will be highly subject to corruption. In Stalin's Russia, the secret police effectively ran the country. Perhaps it is the same here.
I can't parse that at all - who's requesting, who's retiring... what? Can someone make sense of that?
Yeah, but when will they declassify the files 'bout the sharks with lasers on their heads? Of course they deny it, but /. knows better, right? Right....?
This sig left intentionally blank.
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/ 23/1313253
Don't diss it just because its old. This is clear proof that stuff we assumed were true are in fact true. And if there's one good teacher its events from the past. The US will consider violating international laws and treaties if it suits them (assasination plans on Castro) and will also easily lie about it (the irony: one of the driving forces behind Castro was his distrust in the US. He called upon the USSR for help because, among other things, he feared for his Cuba (an invasion by the US)).
:)
Bottom line: the US brought a lot of this conflict upon itself.
Now lets take a look at our current mysteries. 9/11 anyone ? "Impossible, ridiculous, you terrorist" I hear you shout when I question the whole proceding? Gee... Same thing happened to people questioning all of this back then
I've always wanted to give the CIA a good kick in the family jewels. So where can I find these things anyway?
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
It is somewhat surprising but in general the government takes the whole FOIA and declassification thing rather seriously. It can take a long time (things can't be declassified until they don't hurt national security) and there can be parts redacted, but they really do provide a rather surprising amount of transparency on older things. As far as I can tell this latest round of declassification is nothing special. It's been done before, and hopefully will continue to be done.
The idea that the CIA gets its hands dirty with 'you' is very very old now.
Now they mess with the whole region.
Your President thinking him/herself? Or a taking a bit too long to allow new US bases?
Why turn them into a dead hero or get the army involved?
Next 'free' election the 'opposition' gets millions in free cash and a PR unit takes you apart.
People will lol at your family name for generations when its over.
Making problems in the street?
Its rendition for you.
Then the CIA gets a transcript and your Congress critter can say 'we never torture'.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I expect /. regular, Dave Schroeder, will pop up and join the discussion to post a weasel-worded justification for these documented misdeeds.
Keep up the good work. Unfortunately, many of the CIA's actions are a bit tame by the standards of most other governments.
How many decades will pass before we learn about the truth about 9-11?
In your case, I'm guessing all of them.
>After Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled a friendly government in 1959, the CIA was desperate to eliminate him.
Nonsense. "The CIA" wasn't desperate to eliminate Castro, the U.S. government was, starting at the top. The CIA doesn't decide to assassinate foreign leaders without direct orders from the President of the United States.
The "Family Jewels" are also available from National Security Archive website. Also included is a short history and some additional documents.
The National Security Archive (a private organization based at George Washington University) has lots of other dirt from the CIA and other organizations all obtained by the Freedom of Information Act. The site is definitely worth a visit.
Given that they are admitting to planning murder and more its hard to see the big faults that they are hiding. Genocide perhaps? Or being behind Pauly Shore?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
You can learn the truth about 9/11 right now if you want. Here's the basics of it.
America funds terrorist organisations in Afghanistan in the 70s/80s to help them defeat the soviets. Soviets get defeated, terrorists sit around with no enemy, get bored and fed up of American attitude towards them, terrorist leader with lots of money and resources (Osama) after really bad attention whore attempts (WTC car bombing in the 90s) decides to go the full whack and wake his old friends up by funding the crashing of a bunch of hijacked airliners into various prominent parts of the US, he achieves this quite successfully.
The end.
Oh wait, what? You mean this story wasn't interesting enough already and so you wanted to chuck in a whole bunch of paranoia to make it even more exciting?
The 9/11 conspiracy theories are a joke, if you believe them then you really need to get out more, blurting crap like "OMG JET FUEL DOESN'T BURN HOT ENOUGH TO MELT STEEL SO IT MUST'VE BEEN EXPLOSIVES!!1111" completely misses the fact that steel doesn't need to reach melting point to be able to bend, twist and generally collapse under the weight of tons of concrete, glass, desks and so on.
There's also the old "A MISSILE HIT THE PENTAGON COS THERE WAS NO PLANE WRECKAGE!111" argument, but wtf do you want? You're talking about an object moving at over 300mph full of jet fuel hitting into the side of a fairly old concrete building, it aint just going to leave a nice little plane carcass hanging around outside for you to see.
"BUT BUSH HAD CONNECTIONS WITH OSAMAS FAMILY!!!!", yeah, Churchill had connections with Hitler too, look how that turned out.
On page 5 they start to list the jewels and number one on the list is fully redacted, any guesses on what that might be?
This is just an administration's response to the insinuation that they are somehow the first to do unpleasant things "in the service of" their country. This says, "even you Democrats did bad things; not only that, your great Champion Kennedy did some of the worst. We could easily declassify plenty of damaging goods on Clinton the Popular, but we don't want to set that precedent, now, do we?"
This has nothing to do with the past, except insofar as it might distract from the present.
Small European countries are nice places to live because there are certain big countries that are non-evil and allow them to exist.
Don't kid yourself: Being small and weak may be inexpensive, but such countries are completely at the mercy of the monsters in their neighborhood. The only reason that Scandanavians don't speak Russian is because someone is willing to cowboy up and keep the peace (such as it is). If the U.S. chose to delegate that responsibility, who could we trust to pick it up?
You are totally blocking my view of the wall. - Dogbert
Fighting terrorism directly is pouring water on burning oil. The victim of terrorism is - generally speaking - intended to be politically and/or emotionally linked to what the terrorist sees as the source of their troubles. That's the cause, the 'message' of terrorism.
I sincerely doubt any terrorist wants to "kill everyone", leave that for depressed teenagers. Terrorists usually want more power, a return to prior power, the end of an occupation or freedom of movement in a 'free market' (an end to trade embargos). In the case of anti-US terrorism, they probably feel they are fighting a gigantic geo-strategic and economic machine that has historically exerted power over them, so reducing their options in many areas. The U.S is the target of so much terrorism because it plays nastily and such with a hard-hand abroad. So, terrorists play very unfairly back, resorting to all sorts of horrific and unquestionably sickening measures in turn.
To think that terrorists are just some rabid suicidal maniacs that fantasise about putting holes in the buildings and people to "exert terror" for the fun or fear of it is a grave misunderstanding I think. Blame your current Government for designing that misunderstanding.Terrorists seem to believe they are messengers, speaking for desperate people in extremely harsh situations elsewhere. Only a terrible mess, bleak maldistributions of power, will produce these animal responses. No, I don't think terrorism is a valid 'reponse' in any case at all. History tells that many do however.
A sorry fact, for much of the world America is perhaps the scariest, least trusted country on Earth. Many countries are shit-scared and/or angry with America and they don't like that feeling. Few Americans have the slightest idea what their Government gets upto abroad. Until America learns to back-off and stop being so economically and geo-strategically aggressive, it will sadly continue to experience hard times on the home front.
Americans can change that with their vote - if it still counts.
You can dig up interesting evidence of current misdeeds related to drug running into America using quasi CIA look-alike planes flying into Miami airports at Dan Hopsicker's excellent website See in particular this
That is, conservatives tend to be low-intellect, fact-unsupported push-button ideologues whose reaction to people who point out the obvious flaws in the nationalistic dogma, is one of anger and flailing nonsense. Nonsense which when put in a crucible, burns off as smoke and fury leaving only the befuddled 'troll' asking rational questions and wondering why the obvious is so difficult to accept for some.
Silly me.
Half the Trolls out there are actually Saints.
-FL
Call me when they release documents that don't have all the good stuff blacked out.
"Look, we're being transparent! We've released all the terrible things we've done with taxpayer money! (Except for this, this, this, and this...)"
"Perhaps it is the same here."
During the US prohibition on alcohol it was not uncommon for FBI agents to arrive at work in a car with a driver, cars OTOH were uncommon. I'm also sure that some of today's prohibitionists also make a comfortable living using similar techniques. But I think details such as this can cloud the bigger picture and my guess is corrupt "public servants" are tolerated until it's convienient (and safe) to purge "a few bad apples".
The UNSC has been the smiling public face for the ongoing proxy wars around the globe since WW2, these veto weilding winners of WW2 cast a dark shadow over the whole planet in exactly the same way that Iran's "Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution" casts a shadow in it's sphere of influence. For a current example: The message that "potential terrorists" will get from the treatment of the Hamas government is "democracy is just a word", this sort of "competition" can only speed civilization's demise at the hands of the Barbarian hoardes...again...
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
How intelligent. People who see the future don't look into a crystal ball. They just look at pattens and understand how they evolve. It's not so difficult.
It's all stemming from the 'legitimate' fear that technology students might be involved in giving away state secrets.
Article
Uh huh. You can always sell a bad bill of goods to the people if you spin it right. People are such suckers for spin. Better to trust your own senses. If it stinks like a dead rat, chances are it's a dead rat.
-FL
In past releases by the CIA, when you look at the actual documents, you discover that 80-90% of the material is actually blacked out. It leaves you very curious and wondering what the blacked out stuff is.
It's understandable that some stuff (eg. the name of an informant or agent) must be blacked out, but so much? For the CIA operations in Guatemala in the 50's, for instance, the CIA was admitting to such nasty deeds (in my opinion) in the stuff they didn't black out, that you can't imagine what stuff was too nasty to release.
Can someone please confirm whether that is the case with these new documents?
Thanks.
Better intelligence is always a great thing and it's also something that can probably never be good enough, but all the "hearts-and-minds work" in the world won't change the FACT that most people in muslim countries hate us partially because we are rich and they are not, but mostly hate us (like 95%) because we aren't muslim.
And that school that could have been built with the money spent on a bunker buster would have taught what every other school in the middle east outside of Israel teaches, the Koran, because if it didn't it would get blown up and/or all the teachers would have been shot for not doing so.
No offense but not every one in the world knows how to sing Kumbaya. Sadly, force is all they have ever known, and it's the only thing that they understand.
...do you actually believe that? Given the inherent inefficiencies of public services, and the inefficiencies of this particular administration, do you really believe that the CIA is some uber-power, starting wars, lying, and (most impressively) keeping the whole thing under wraps? Hell, I have little doubt whatsoever that they do some spying and some lying, but they can hardly be called a "pool of dark power". Those kind of descriptions are reserved for cheap fantasy books, where you can divide good and evil with a freight train sideways, not for real life where everyone is human, and nothing is ever so simple.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
People hate the US b/c CNN reports us allegedly 'torturing' someone. Whether we did or not, I don't care
No, that is why people hate the USA. Your government is torturing people on your behalf and you don't even care.
Meanwhile, most other countries (IRAQ) aren't held to the same regards.
Yes they are. Iraq, for instance, was attacked when they invaded Kuwait and they have been demonised in the media ever since.
Nobody is burning flags of Al Kada (sp?) in the streets.
That's because Al Qaeda isn't a nation, it doesn't have a flag.
Yes, some interesting information, but the underlying purpose of releasing it is TOTALLY dishonest. My understanding is that the CIA is releasing information as a public relations gesture. My understanding is that the agency is releasing only information that no longer matters to it, with any modifications it wants to make.
Almost the CIA's ONLY purpose is to help rich people get richer by providing information and violence paid for by U.S. citizens. The organization did not just suddenly become honest. (Read the linked article.)
Bush and Cheney have consistently claimed they are above the law. This fits the definition of a dictatorship: "A form of government in which the ruler is not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition".
The CIA invented a term for the destructive consequences of its actions: Blowback. Blowback doesn't matter to the agency, however, since it still gets what it wants. Also, for CIA employees, more trouble in the world means more money and promotions.
Remember, the terms NSA and CIA are just names that you are allowed to know, to try to get you to think you know what the U.S. government is doing. There are many agencies with names and purposes you are not allowed to know. If you are a U.S. citizen, you are, however, expected to pay. If you are not a U.S. citizen (and sometimes if you are), you may be expected to pay with your life.
CIA Declassifies the "Family Jewels"
The family jewels consist of assassination attempts of political leaders, coups, bombing and other activities truly reprehensible by any stretch of imagination.
I wonder what will constitute of the "dirty laundry" if the "family jewels" are this colorful.
The most beautiful thing about this kind of acknowledgement is that no one pays for the illegal activity. The connections between the CIA and the mob which likely protected the mob can be revealed without jailing the case officers involved. Presidents who authorized this kind of thing are beyond just out of office. As criminal activities go, these things are an incredible success even when they didn't accomplished their criminal objectives. To me, this is most unabashed insult to the American people that I can think of.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
It is pretty easy to get a 3yr old to eat peas once you get them to visualize WHIRLED PEAS.
These are quoted from this mornings NYT article. I think they tell us a lot:
"Some anecdotes reveal just how far outside the law some C.I.A. agents strayed. One technician was arrested in 1960 after trying to bug a Las Vegas hotel room. The operation had been requested by Sam Giancana, the Chicago mobster, who was then helping the C.I.A. in a plot to assassinate Mr. Castro.
Mr. Giancana had been concerned that his girlfriend, the singer Phyllis McGuire, was having an affair with the comedian Dan Rowan, and surveillance was ordered to "determine the extent of his intimacy" with her.
Some of the activities detailed, while lawful, would have been embarrassing had they emerged at the time. One document revealed that John McCone, director of central intelligence during Kennedy's presidency, authorized an Air Force plane to fly the Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis and the soprano Maria Callas from Rome to Athens, a favor that led to media inquiries."
>Britain wants to believe it can still sit at the big table.
>
>I say let's stop trying to do that.
Then you will have terms dictated to you by those who still sit at the big table.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
About the same amount of time or more as it takes for the truth about JFK comes out.
>Yes, but is this the modern threat? These days, the biggest threat is not from invasion and occupation, but from
/worked/ - it raised the ante to the point where conflicts cannot be solved through that avenue any more.
/those/ issues again.
>global guerilla warfare, also known as terrorism. The weapons we spend all our money on - submarines, fighter jets
>and all that high tech robotic crap - is almost useless against all that. There might be an argument for removing a
>huge proportion of the money we spend on all that phallic hardware and sticking it into other activities, like
>intelligence and hearts-and-minds work to stop the terrorists from hating us so much.
While you are correct that modern weaponry is largely ineffective against terrorism, you are incorrect in assuming that the original threats that the modern weaponry was developed to counter have gone away. They have not. In fact, I would argue that the reason why terrorism has risen to prominence is because the "old school" weaponry
That does not mean, though, that if you ditched all of that hardware that the old school threats would not come back into play again.
We have successfully developed modern weapons systems that appear to work quite well in defending us against traditional military aggression. Yes, we need to develop new ways to deal with guerrilla fighting. But we need to keep the old tools around, too, or you'll be facing
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Just so people know - this is a dupe from a story on Saturday - C.I.A. to Let "Skeletons" Out of its Closet [ http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/ 23/1313253&from=rss ]
I spoke with a professor who taught my course on U.S. Intelligence and National Security a while back. He had been a staffer with the Senate Intelligence Committee for over a decade and had read the entire classified version of the Warren Commission report. His opinion on it was basically this - there simply isn't any sufficient proof to tie the killing to anyone but Oswald, nor proof that Oswald had acted on anyone's behalf, although he did suspect some sort of Cuban involvement somewhere in the killing. But, he qualified, that his suspicions could not be proven and amounted to more of a gut feeling rather than something based strictly on evidence - Castro by then must have known of the numerous attempts Kennedy had ordered on his life.
Maybe at Guantanamo, but you can bet in Iraq or Afghanistan that information about impending IED attacks or resistance leadership movements can very much save lives. I agree that the oft-cited ticking time-bomb nuke scenario is a bit far-fetched, but that doesn't mean the entire premise of the argument is invalid.
Poor Sadadam... he wasn't a bad person, he was just misunderstood!
How did this get modded insightful? Honestly, who thinks this ridiculous hyperbole is even remotely true? Since when has the United States gassed entire towns of its own people? Since when has the United States established rape rooms for political dissidents? Since when have the leaders of the U.S. whipped men to death, randomly cut off the hands of innocent people or forced some victims to run off the tops of buildings? (And in case anyone even thinks of denying this, here's the video, starring U'day Hussein. For God sakes it was so common they even allowed it to be filmed.)
Few things in this world infuriate me more than this kind of moral relativism crap. Is the United States perfect? Most certainly not. Why does this fact make some people jump to the opposite conclusion that the U.S. is the worst country in the world or that other countries shouldn't be held accountable for their crimes against humanity?
-Grym
... also wondering if certain Europeans remember Munich, Pan Am 103, and the Achille Lauro. Although if you want to split hairs, I suppose you could say that the third was in the ocean, the second flying, and the first Israelis*, so they hardly count.
* And a German police officer.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I know many here are excited about this - although few and far between will be those who actually read the documents - but, as someone who studied the U.S. Intelligence Community a fair amount as a Political Science undergraduate, I can honestly say that I don't see any new revelations in all of this. Much of this was released in the original Church Committee over 30 years ago when the CIA - of its own accord - put together the "family jewels". Everything that wasn't in there has since been released in one way or another. It's fun to peruse primary source documents, yes, but also extremely time consuming.
It's certainly quite hard to argue that the CIA was right in all of this, but it should also be pointed out that each of these programs occurred with orders that came from sources much higher than the DCI - most often the president. As a result of the Church Committee and the "family jewels", legislative oversight has become part of the Intelligence Community's life. While excessive oversight can be a burden - as all excessive oversight is for any organization - I think legislative oversight has been a net positive for all involved. The introduction of a requirement for signed directives for all orders from the President has also helped prevent presidents from abusing the CIA to do their dirty work.
No government organization is ever temporary.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
"Sometimes, the ends justify the means, and the means ain't too pretty. But the thing is, most of these abuses are just that- they're abuses, not places where tough choices had to be made to save lives."
This is an excellent point, and one not enough people focus on. I expect abuses from any government agency (and if you don't you're an imbecile, thousands of years of history prove me right) but it is the organizations that are tasked with doing the distasteful, dirty business of statehood whose abuses infuriate me the most.
When given the kind of power and access the CIA and other such agencies have, going above and beyond to actually abuse the power you're given is quite a feat. An "abuse" from the CIA means they did something very, very wrong. It is exactly these agencies, with near limitless power to act, that need to be slapped the hardest when they step out of line.
You say this
"All that has to be done is to declare a perpetual state of war so you don't have to declassify anything anymore, since it would hurt national security if the enemy knew some plot of a while ago"
Then you say this
"Yeah, but the war that papers refer to is dead and over. Colder than it ever was."
These two statements cannot be reconciled. If you can declare a perpetual state of war (a state which we are in now, as GP said) and never have to declassify anything anymore then why does it matter how old something is or that it's over? Your second point directly contradicts your first.
Saddam is likely comparatively worse (and I say likely because the US is very good at hiding things that would be embarrassing) but the issue is not relative morality. The horrible things that we do we decide to lump into a different category than that of our adversaries. We contextualize our atrocities to justify or say "shame, shame, shame" for those we can't contextualize (Abu Ghraib). When presenting the atrocities of our foes we completely remove all context and offer the implication that they did this horrible thing because they were evil. If we're going to justify our action by contextualizing them it's only fair to apply the same metric to the atrocities of others.
This dump is very valuable. But what about all the covert operations run since the end of this dump's timeframe? The current Bush government is run by people who made their bones in Iran/Contra and earlier. Hell, Robert Gates was the CIA director who both covered up Iran/Contra and created Osama's "mujahideen" in Afghanistan. Now Gates runs the Pentagon while we're at war in Afghanistan and Iraq against mostly covert enemies, while trying to start a hot, open war with Iran.
The past is prelude. And with the Bush gang, the spook wars never stop.
--
make install -not war
that would be a great skit for the daily show John Stewart: "And in other news today, President Bush thanked the CIA for all their hard work" ((President Bush staring blankly at the camera for 60 seconds)) http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs.asp?doc_no=000 1038412&title=PRESIDENT+BUSH+THANKS+CIA&abstract=& no_pages=0004&pub_date=9%2F27%2F2001&release_date= 1%2F23%2F2004&keywords=GEPHARDT&case_no=F-2004-002 41©right=0&release_dec=RIPPUB&classification=U &showPage=0001
-asleep
All the summaries I've read so far indicate little, if anything, that wasn't already known. If anyone has a link to an analysis of what information released that hadn't been previous revealed, please post it. This seems like non-story and the CIA gets no points from me. "Yes, we really did all the lousy shit you already figured out we did and we promise not to do it again." Yeah, right.
Google for swedish suicide myth and read the bazillions of links. There is nothing unusual about their suicide rate at all.
The future releases will indeed be important, but I have to say that if there is unreleasable, "hot" information from failed operations that have been subject to three Congressional inquiries (in which Congress got much of what is now blacked-out), I would most definitely want that information examined by Congress and published if at all possible. It is evident that the CIA - however much it has changed - has not changed in a key area: the unreasoning paranoia that led to many of the crimes in the first place.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There's a rather simple test to figure out which one is better and which is worse, you know: which one would you rather live under?
In August 1957, Diefenbaker signed the NORAD (North American Air Defence) agreement with the United States, which required the subordination of the RCAF Air Defence Command to American command and control. The USAF was in the process of completely automating their air defence system with the SAGE project, and insisted that the RCAF had to use it as well. One aspect of the SAGE system was the BOMARC nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missile, which when intercepting bombers over Ontario and Quebec would be exploding over major Canadian cities.
And lets not forget Gerald Bull, who's funding was cut due to pressure from the US.
His plan was to give Canada autonomy in satellite lauches, but the Canadian officials, being the easily bought and paid for lackeys of their southern overlords that they are, decided that reliance on NASA was a far superior approach.
You can't take the sky from me...
These pdf's would be easier to wget! Hmmm....
It's not a question of being powerful, or power being good or not. Problems arise when you lose sight of the limits of power you have and extend yourself beyond it. It also doesn't help when you spend most of the power you have on showing others you are powerful. Usually what's left is not even enough to maintain said power so you end up neglecting your own peoples needs and the principles that brought you power. This is the certain downfall of almost every powerful nation throughout history. Small or weaker nations on the other hand, has an almost perfect picture of what they can and can not do, thus they can more easily perfect the art of maintaining themselves.
Doesn't that strike you as barbaric? How do you know who to torture?
The US has had the gloves off for years, so to speak, and more people are dying in Iraq. How much longer until people like you accept that your argument is invalid?
My other SIG is a Sauer.
First off U.S. citizen here so lets get that right out of the way.
s _military_history_events
Now for the substantive business it's all well and good to mouth platitudes like the U.S. isn't evil but here is the actual history:
Time line of CIA interventions: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html
Time line of U.S. military interventions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_State
We have been interfering with some other governments business just about EVERY single year since the U.S.founded, that is why "they" hate us. Note that this is entirely against the founding principles of the American republic which were isolationist in nature. Try reading A People History of the U.S. by Howard Zinn and Gore Vidal's perpetual War for Perpetual Peace to see just how "good" we are. Good at propaganda which an American Edward Bernays (Freud's nephew) invented that is...
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
If there were something going on that a group didn't want you to think about, they'd generate what seemed to be a more important story with much the same characteristics. This story is about dirty secrets in high government. Yet it's not a news story as the major facts have already been known. What else is going on that's similar, that the government doesn't want thought about too hard? Within 24 hours we're given notice that the White House, and specifically Dick Cheney's office, were subpeonaed for information on the recent (already determined illegal be federal courts) wiretapping increase. It's probably not just this we're being defelected from, but from the almost inevitable refusal to comply, something far more illegal than the wiretapping as it flies in the face of the Constitution, as does much of the present administration's actions.
Shiny hat material? Read "Psychological Warfare" by Paul (E.E. "Doc" Smith to S.F. fans) Linebarger. It's 60 years old, but is still a required text at the War College. You can be sure the primary movers of the present administration have read it and taken it to heart. The barely concealed course of the present administration, based on machinery put in place by previous administrations, is an obvious application of the techniques described and prescribed by Linebarger. But as I said, read it. Don't just believe me. That's the point of it.
You'll have trouble finding it. Although still in print for the limited distribution noted, it's barely available to the public. Last I looked I could only find German translations, going for over US$300. I only got to keep mine due to a clerical error that made it appear that I'd returned mine already, as required. Generating clerical errors like this are now called "social engineering". It's not a new idea.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Torture is only effective as a means of intimidation against the population, not as a tool for information. Other occupying powers have used torture in that way. It not only leads to largely worthless intelligence, it confirms suspicions, hardens resolve and leads to extremism, as can be seen in use of torture against Qtub, Zawahiri, et al.
I encourage you to read Suskind's book on torture, or at least this article. Or at least think beyond what you see on 24.
Holy Mother of God! Have you never read a book, never read any history whatsoever?? Evidently, not!
Aside from the rather obvious fact that all those "inefficiencies" of the Bush gang have earned them, and their cronies, billions upon billions of dollars, I would strongly suggest you read the autobiography of a former Director of Plans of the CIA, Richard Bissell, a brilliant - and not particularly conscience-driven, fellow who was the brain behind the Marshall Plan, the U-2 program and then the SR-71 (A-12) program, spy satellites, the overthrow of the democratically-elected Guatemalan government, and Area 51, of course (and that's just what we are aware of). Many believe he was also the planner behind the JFK assassination, and rightfully so.
Should you actually read a book, you may learn something.....
21st Century Reading List:
The Bush Agenda by Antonia Juhasz, American Dynasty by Kevin Phillips, Blood Money by T. Christian Miller, Hostile Takeover by David Sirota Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast, Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, No Place To Hide by Robert O'Harrow, Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class Thom Hartmann, War is a Racket by General Smedley Butler, Licensed to Kill by Robert Young Pelton, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace by Gore Vidal [and on the JFK assassination, David Talbot's "Brothers" and joanmellen.net]
I don't have any mod points today :(
Submitted for your approval: Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps I think a problem is that no matter what fact or evidence you can bring to light, you can always be passed off as another crazy. And when an awful truth finally does come out ("What? There are no WMDs? Bush and his administration lied to us?") what do we do? We get people into Congress and the Senate who are going to fight for what the American people want. And they did, for about two days. "President Bush, bring out troops home or else!" "No." "Please?" "No." "Fine. Have a candy bar."
Also, you would find one of the founding members of Delta Force (US Army Special Forces Detachment Delta), Eric Haney, strongly disagreeing with you....
Excellent.
http://use.perl.org
Why do I give a rats ass about the form of government in Europe as an American? In fact I don't...
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Hate to sound like a troll, tin-foiled hat person, or whatnot, but I'm sure there are still countless documents that are not unclassified yet and never will be from that time frame. And also, how can we actually trust all of these reports when we hear that our intelligence agencies and foreign *ahem Russia, I'm looking at you* agencies that we acquire information from are fabricated? The most prominent example is WMD's in Iraq....
"Since when has the United States established rape rooms for political dissidents?"
Oh, the "rape rooms" line again. You mean like US state and federal prisons? Arrest and rape are so synonymous in our culture that it's trotted around as a punchline. We'll fly into a self-righteous rage over the punitive rapes of women in Pakistan, but, in the US, we joke about subjecting men to sexual assaults for as little as violating drug prohibitions.
Quote from the parent comment: In the case of the CIA, "collecting information" is their job description.
Ignorance of government: Not only are most U.S. citizens ignorant of the activities of their government, they are willfully ignorant, in that they hold strong opinions with little or no attempt to educate themselves.
The CIA "Directorate of Operations", at present called the "Clandestine Service" is responsible for most of the U.S. government's problems in the Middle East today. That part of the CIA destroys governments and kills people. For example, see these documents collected by George Washington University: The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup, 1953.
That part of the CIA: 1) Breaks laws at will, 2) Inserts lies into newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines, 3) Kills people they decide they want to kill, 4) Is not under any real control, 5) Hides how much money is spent, 6) Often acts to protect the profits of wealthy people in the U.S., sometimes spending $100 of taxpayer money to protect $1 of private profit, 7) Is not honest about its purposes, and 8) Generally acts as a secret police and an arm of a hidden government that resembles a dictatorship rather than a democracy.
If you really love your country, you will learn about your government. I love the U.S., and that's why I've educated myself about both the good and the bad.
Not a funny subject: A Timeline of CIA Atrocities.
you quite fairly deserve to be punished for your hypocrisy. uh, i fergot it's us. what i meant to say is that we are so semantically creative, we should be rewarded, and the jihadeen should kiss and make up with israel. anyone who thinks iraq didn't have wmds has never eaten felafel.
What--Kim Jong Il & Caesar Chavez were busy?
Even if terrorists hijacked planes into skyscrapers every single day, they'd need 63 years. Assuming there was an infinite number of skyscrapers and that passengers allow the hijackers to pilot the plane instead of fighting them.
Then assume WW3 will be fought with nukes.
Apart from this, I agree fully that money would be much better spent constructively instead on military operations.
Though any mention of terror makes me angry and wants to lunge out at current media focus and government-encouraged "war on terror" mass hysteria... People need to get some perspective on terrorism. Without nukes, single attacks can't do shit. Really. Sure, bombing people is horrible, but they cannot cause any real damage.
I'm not saying you should ignore terrorism. I'm saying you should worry about it slightly less. Traffic accidents kill more people that terrorisms, so you should probably be slightly less worried about terrorism than traffic accidents. Anything more, and it's just going to end up huring yourself indirectly.
The mass hysteria after the terror attacks are causing more damage than the attacks themselves. Until people get some perspective and get on with their lives, they're only helping the terrorists.
I lost my sig.
The Madrid train bombing happened just before an election in Spain.
That election, the Spanish government, for good or ill, changed from one sympathetic to our "war on terror" to one unsympathetic to it.
It is possible that the one affected the other.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
I find the fact that Kennedy's assassin Oswald was himself quickly assassinated by Jack Ruby to be damningly suspicious. The whole problem of terrorism is that it is orchestrated and conducted on a scale that exceeds that of mere judicial and domestic security apparatus to cope with.
When the assassin himself gets blown away right after while in custody, then you know something deeper's going on. It's too convenient for covering tracks to have been a mere coincidence. Kennedy was legitimately disliked by the national security establishment because he was geopolitically naive, and didn't understand balance-of-power politics.
1) The CIA has a serious credibility problem these days because it's pretty obvious they've been fucking up everything in the last decade or so. Bin Laden is still on the loose, Khameni is still in charge of Iran, Iraq is a disaster, North Korea has at least half of building a nuclear weapon down, mediocre European journalists figured out their 'extraordinary rendition' operations, and they still couldn't build a case against most of the guys in Gitmo with them in custody and a few years to try.
2) After a bitter pissing contest with DoD, the Director of Central Intelligence has been demoted, and now the Director of National Intelligence and his key staff are all former military. And old spooks resent this because of their proud tradition of fucking up and not having anyone know about it.
3) The spooks are basically exceptionally paranoid government employees who refuse to play well with others (esp when others have clearances and need to know) lest their deep dark secrets be known to someone. Well, here's a reason to play ball better: everyone already knows (some of) the deep dark secrets.
4) These deep dark secrets show that:
a) the spooks really aren't all powerful, or particularly powerful at all, so Americans should lower their expectations and our enemies should let their guard down (so it's more sporting)
b) they've been playing the same dirty tricks since the creation of the CIA, and today's scandals are nothing new. What's actually new is that the tradecraft has gotten so sloppy that people are hearing about it.
c) so if they're breaking the law and doing so while failing in their missions, well, that's the real reason they need so much secrecy.
Sure, there are planes and ships. How many nations have the capacity to use offensive aircraft against Canada? About 10, mostly Western democracies. How many nations have tranport capacities (and navies capable of defending them) to land a significant force on Canadian soil. Probably the same 10 or so who operate aircraft carriers; maybe a few more. The US, Russia, Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, China, India spring to mind.
How many of those countries are realistic threats? I'd be comfortable saying nil.
The Western European countries with large forces (e.g. Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy) really don't pose a threat. There militaries are larger, but fighting over seas is more difficult and expensive, so that probably helps narrow the gap a little. Besides to believe they could attack you'd have to A) imagine some extremely improbably reason for them to attack, and B) take into account that there would likely be a significant build-up to the attack. French vessel aren't going to mysteriously appear off the coast of Nova Scotia. It took over a year for the US government to get the population to buy into the war in an already disliked Iraq. Do you really think a European country is going to suddenly go to war against friendly little Canada. I'm reasonably confident that if a war with a European becomes even remotely possible that Canada will have plenty of time to bulk up.
Like-wise, the non-European countries are really even less of a threat. First off, they're even further away. A lot of them have much larger militaries in terms of number of troops, but only a few of them have the capicity to get those troops half-way around the world. But even assuming that wasn't an issue, they'd still be relative non-threats. Most of those countries have large militaries for a couple reasons; they either face very real threats from countries in their own area, or the militaries are a key element of domestic control. Transfer troops to a needless over-seas war, and the country either faces assault by its neighbours or sever domestic instability. You think that if India puts troops in Canada that Pakistan or China won't take advantage of that?
The way I see things, there is simply no credible military threat to Canadian at moment. That may change, but then we adapt as things change.
Australia is also a geographically isolated country with a military roughly comparable to Canada's. Yet Australia manages to survive just fine without having the US as a neighbour.
Chaotic Citizen 631995,
See this web site, one of hundreds like it: A Timeline of CIA Atrocities. And this one, too showing U.S. government documents collected by George Washington University: The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup, 1953.
And, hundreds of books like Blowback
Summary of your comment:
The U.S. government doesn't engage in violent secret behavior.
Besides, other governments engage in violent secret behavior, also.
It's impossible to know what happened in secret, because secrets always remain completely hidden.
Discussing violent secret behavior of the U.S. government is too popular.
People who read Slashdot should focus on the violent behavior of other governments.
Although you haven't read any of the books, or followed the history of the U.S. government of the last 70 years, your knowledge is far superior, and you feel "justified" in being disrespectful.
They tried to censor the signature of Howard Osborn on the documents, but they missed it on Page 53.