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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
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.
What exactly is your point? That we should stop giving the CIA the finger because Mossad and KGB and all the others were/are doing the same thing?
I think it's an interesting step to release all this information, though. Would be great if more agencies would follow.
What I find very funny about your post, though: Do you really think the agencies are there to protect the security and wealth of a nation? The nation basically consists of the people and the government. So this is at least partially wrong. The agencies are there to protect the government and its agenda. Nothing more, nothing less. Whether that is in the best interest of the public is a matter of opinion and coincidence.
so that's your excuse? the KGB probably did it so it's ok for the CIA? gee that makes it all better
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
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....?
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I'm starting to wonder whether being a "powerful" country is such a good thing. The US (and to a lesser extent, the UK) is in all kinds of trouble trying to maintain and exercise it's power all over the world. If you compare this to countries that just mind their own business, like those in Scandinavia, I wonder what the point is. Denmark, Norway and Sweden routinely come out top in quality of life and happiness surveys.
A particular example of this: the proposal to renew the Trident missile system in the UK. It will cost a vast amount of money. A lot of it will be housed in Scotland, and nobody in Scotland wants it. It raises foreign policy hypocrisy questions, because we have nukes and we say other people shouldn't have nukes. So why are we doing it? I think it's because post-imperial Britain wants to believe it can still sit at the big table.
I say let's stop trying to do that.
Peter
Also, wouldn't a partial release of sanitized (but still shameful) information help build trust, as people would assume there is nothing else being hidden? We have no guarantee (and no way to prove) that the CIA doesn't have other much darker secrets they're withholding. The agencies are there to protect the government and its agenda. And the agenda of anyone within the agency who wants to make money from smuggling, drug trafficking or economic espionage? They've got enormous responsibility (more than the White House) as they virtually have immunity from the law.
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.
I made a torrent of that and some other CIA stuff today.
Get it here!.
I pretend to know more than I really do by mooching off google and wikipedia.
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"
Weaker countries ride on the coat-tails of the stronger ones. Best example I can think of is Canada - for decades we've been able to neglect all our national defence responsibilities because we live next door to a guy with some really big guns. Ofcourse, this doesn't mean that being small is better, only that it's nice to be small and have big friends.
While I agree with the gist of your post, I have to mention that a nuclear deterrent is a cost-effective way of ensuring that you don't get invaded. The problem lies in having both nuclear weapons and a large army. Instead of scrapping the nukes, reduce the size of the army.
Yes, but is this the modern threat? These days, the biggest threat is not from invasion and occupation, but from 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.
It's a bit like the Royal Navy in WW2. They thought battleships still ruled the waves, because that's what Nelson used. Then they sent a few to the Pacific theatre, which were promptly sunk by Japanese air power, leading to the fall of Singapore. Now nobody has battleships anymore.
Also, the cost of one bunker buster is probably enough to buy a school in Palestine. That school might prevent a good few people from becoming suicide bombers. That sounds quite cost effective to me.
I know, I know part 1: it doesn't really work like that in the real world, but we're not really trying these other options are we?
I know, I know part 2: I'm a commie pinko leftist bastard who needs to be beaten senseless by a large red-neck.
Peter
The U.S. tried policies of isolation in the early 20th century, but they didnt' work. The outcome of WWII placed a lot of responsibility on the U.S. Blame Europe.
I no this is no excuse for abusing power. The U.S. is far from perfect. But in general, the U.S. is not evil and hasn't changed in the last 10 years. We'll have a new election.
Why should we be concerned?
Not because so much of what they did was underhanded. We should be concerned that so much of what they did was pointlessly stupid.
That's the problem with secrecy. It is necessary to protect reasonable covert action, but undispensible at covering up incompetence.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
How many decades will pass before we learn about the truth about 9-11?
In your case, I'm guessing all of them.
Sorry that's still classified.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
>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.
It makes no sense for Canada to have a military that is focused on anything other than UN peacekeeping. Now that the cold war is over, Canada has no enemies. What on earth do you need a huge military for if you have no enemies? Other than the United States (which could probably buy Canada if it really wanted to), who is in a position to invade Canada?
Who has reason to strike Canada when Canadians will pretty much give you anything if you ask nicely and say you like hockey.
The answer is no-one. Canada has no need for a cold war level military.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
If we were all peers, you'd have to worry about countries following that good-returns-for-marginally-despicable-behavior gradient, which snowballs as the low-hanging fruit is plucked and as nations progressively set bad examples for each other, in addition to the bad blood garnered over time. The existence of superpowers and nuclear deterrents has ended the brutal, organic relationships between countries. It may not last forever, and we should use this era of relative peace to consolidate power (a la the EU) and put institutions in place that will serve us better in a changing geopolitical climate and help us avoid old follies.
"While I agree with the gist of your post, I have to mention that a nuclear deterrent is a cost-effective way of ensuring that you don't get invaded."
Who is going to invade Britain? The last successful invasion was in 1066, IIRC.
Who is going to attack Britain? It's traditional enemies are now politically tied to it through the European Union, and the Russians just aren't interested any more (despite Putin's posturing). Anyone else is too far away, and has nothing to gain by attacking Britain.
It's standard practice when you ask for public money to be spent on the military that you identify likely threats, and base your spending requests on the minimum needed to counter them. In British politics the case simply hasn't been made for Trident.
The current system in Britain seems to be to say "things might change and we may need the security later" without identifying the likelihood of changes. That is basing your defence spending on paranoia, not evidence (it's the old, flawed Precautionary Principle again). It's basically the same as saying "we have to spend a fortune on the military because no-one knows whether aliens might invade the earth at some point in the future". That's just special interests asking for a blank cheque.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
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're older than I thought.
(with apologies to Spike Milligan)
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
I agree, military action is ineffective against terrorism. But having a nuclear deterrent is still important as a last resort, in case the world moves into more turbulent times again. The costs for replacing your nuclear forces are estimated to be ~£20 billion with running costs of roughly £1.5 billion per year. In comparison, the military budget was ~£39 billion in 2002.
You could probably cut military spending by £10 billion, put £2b on new nuclear weapons, £3b on new schools in Palestine and other goodwill efforts, pocket the £5b savings, and still have improved security. But if you completely dismantle the nuclear deterrent, then your conventional military would have to make up for the shortfall, which might even require increases in military spending. Even though nuclear weapons are pointless right now, it will be too late to start building them again if the situation suddenly changes.
This is assuming that we're talking about strategic nuclear weapons. Bunker busters and other tactical nuclear weapons are not so good. They have no use as a deterrent, and are only meant as force multipliers for the conventional army.
GW Bush was, ironically enough, elected (the first time) on an isolationist platform. You can ignore the world, but that doesn't mean it will ignore you.
=======
Science -- Sealed, Delivered.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I have to admit, I guess I'm an advocate of the "Precautionary principle". :)
But it does have some merit. Would WW2 have happened if the Allies had a credible military deterrent?
I can't identify any threats to Britain at the moment, but would some appear if there was no nuclear deterrent? What about global warming, what if the changing environment causes wars over resources? Is there time to build up a nuclear deterrent if the political atmosphere changes for the worse?
You're right, spending a fortune on the military is not a good idea. But not replacing Trident would decrease security unless military spending is increased instead. Decrease the military budget and keep the nukes, that's much more cost-effective IMO.
A noble sentiment. However, I doubt it has much value as a means to console (for example) the victims killed in our war upon, and subsequent occupation of, Iraq. Or those held without access to legal representation. Or those who have been tortured.
The fact is, our political system is far too unresponsive to the will of the people, and while it may indeed, as you infer, be self-correcting over the long term, this does not seem to be sufficient because we don't live for the long term, we live for now. For some people, particularly victims of nationalist aggression like those in Iraq, now is all they'll ever have.
That is entirely aside from the domestic mess this president, vice president, and their political allies in the system have enhanced, created, and defended.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Ahhh, but Canada is a major exporter of oil (the world's 8th largest). And it is well known on /. that the US routinely invades countries to take their oil ... so if I were Canada I would be pretty worried.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Let's not go thinking Scandinavia is Utopia just yet. Sweden's got rather high unemployment, and a dirty little not-so-secret is that a large part of their economy is, in fact, driven by the arms industry... and one might say Sweden is even more indiscriminate than the U.S. in terms of who they'll sell weapons to. Your larger point, of course, is that the U.S. isn't just "powerful," but - at least recently - seems to be looking for an excuse to demonstrate its "power" (resulting in, ironically, some proof of the lack thereof...)
It's not the heat, it's the futility.
However, in a democracy, the government's agenda mostly match people's agenda as well.
Achille Talon
Hop!
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?
They don't have to be worried - "they're not even a real country anyway".
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
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.
It's not the heat, it's the futility.
I think we are in basic agreement. Although of course the picture is really a good deal more complicated.
First of all, I've done something of a disservice to the government, who provide a good deal of aid funding to Palestine and elsewhere.
Secondly, the £10bn we've just "saved" would put a very large number of Brits who work for arms company out of work. In an ideal world, they can just go and work at a school or hospital, but these don't usually require missile assembly or guidance system engineering as a job prerequisite.
Thirdly, a government that gave away a portion of military spending to a country full of terrorists would not be re-elected, because the electorate are not bright enough to realise that this might be a sensible strategy. This is related to my commie pinko remark.
Finally, aid to these countries may not necessarily help anyway. In Iran, anything done by the British is seen as interference (There was a story on the BBC about this - they attacked the embassy with eggs during the Queen's birthday celebration, apparently) and people thought that this was a British conspiracy as well.
Peter
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
However, I doubt it has much value as a means to console (for example) the victims killed in our war upon, and subsequent occupation of, Iraq.
I am trying to feel for those people, but my heart is already bleeding for the geoncide in Darfur. And the women of Kumar, did you know they beat them?
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
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.
Actually, that's a damn decent reason. Look, we're human, so we're annoying. Some other advanced civilization is going to whack us once they watch some of our television for a while just to shut us up.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
I think the Germans turned up unannounced and invaded Poland....
Behold! Uh, what was I going to say?
It's a global economy - enemies don't have to invade to cause you harm. Let's take your syllogism (no one can invade Canada, therefore Canada has no enemies) and apply it to the United States. Clearly no one is in a position to invade the U.S. either... therefore the U.S. has no enemies? But... there are a few countries who certainly claim we're they're enemy.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
On the other hand, they might just keep us around as a perfect example of why some intelligence, but not enough, is worse than no intelligence at all.
Hey, great idea! And it's about time Britain learned lessons from history. After 1914 and 1938, you finally learned that staying out of foreign conflicts is a good way to prevent war.
Er.... wait....
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
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...)"
Canada has been able to ignore our defence responsibilities because we don't need to defend ourselves militarily. Really, I mean who would we ever have to defend ourselves against? The the only really credible threat to Canadian defence is the US itself (maybe the old USSR), and no matter how much we invest in the military we'd never be able to counter them anyway. Any use of the Canadian military over the past 50 years has been over-seas and not directly related to Canadian defence. We don't need a strong military because the US is protecting us. We don't need it because we're geograpically isolated from anyone who might be threat.
Which makes doing your embarassing things in the context of covert operations even more attractive.
Really, what is the national security reason to hide experimenting with LSD? Did anybody think that KGB didn't know about LSD, or do their own experiments? The problem was that the LSD experiments were stupid. Aside from issus of ethics, they'd be laughed out of any halfway scientific journal.
But it turns out that by making the experiments, not only unethical, but outrageously unethical, you can turn them into a national security issue. God help the nation if the world knew how stupid^H^H^H^H^H^H evil we can be.
Until the law mandates effective and independent oversight of illegal covert activities, it will always be possible to gin up a pretext to sweep embarassing facts under the national security rug.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You could spend those billions in schools for Palestine and still have them hating you for whatever irrational grievance they might have.
"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.
Russia could invade. They do have generals that have publically stated that they want to take back the lands they use to control in the 1800s; mostly Alaska and some parts of Canada.
Not that I'm suggesting they would or have any real intention to do it, but they could.
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
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.
...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.
It's not the heat, it's the futility.
Don't forget that the "American attitude towards them" that they got fed up with was that pretty much all support (weapons, money, etc.) was immediately stopped when the Soviets were defeated, so groups fighting to regain control of their own country no longer had the resources to proceed with the next step of rebuilding a government and repairing the damages of war.
They thought the U.S. cared about them and their country, but in reality, the U.S.' goal was to defeat the Soviets.
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.
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.
My point exactly.
Oversight is meaningless unless it is independent.
The founders, I don't think, conceived of a state with an extensive intelligence apparatus, otherwise the functioning of that apparatus would be restrained by checks and balances.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
You're falling victim to the same fallacy you're trying to point out in others. Yes, the cold-war style fighting is out of fashion *now*. Today, suicide bombers are our adversaries. But tomorrow's war might well be with China, or a resurgent Russia, or who knows who else?
Terrorism can affect policies and shape the context of conflicts, but it has a piss-poor record for achieving results that last. At best, it's a reactive force. Conventional wars, on the other hand, are a threat to our country's very existence.
We spend so much energy on WMD equipped terrorists, right? Why? Because they could take out one of our cities. China or similar powers could take them *all* out, save for our overwhelming conventional arms. It's a bit early to throw them out, IMHO. The total death toll from terrorism has yet to equal a single night day's cost during WWII. Don't miss the forest for the trees.
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
If there's a resource shortage, won't nuking a place and destroying resources be a rather suicidal move? I understand the principle of MAD is that these methods won't actualy BE used, but I just can't get over the overwhelming stupidity of it. "If we can't have the world, no one can!" Humanity gets wiped out and we don't even get to leave pretty corpses.
There's a big difference between now and 1933. European states had been intermittently at war with each other ever since they were formed. Plenty of people knew that the Versailles conference hadn't solved anything, and that the same thing was bound to happen again. But war between European states is today unthinkable, and this is one of the major diplomatic achievements in history. War between Britain and Germany is about as likely as war between England and Scotland.
The only countries that could conceivably pose a threat to Britain are Russia and China. No one else can currently threaten Britain, and the idea that mickey mouse states like Iran could ever do so is ridiculous. Russian interests would not be served by war with the EU, and in any case the EU is rich enough and they are poor enough to be bought off with trade agreements and possible membership. The Chinese simply aren't interested in starting a war. They are probably the most restrained country when it comes to nuclear weapons, holding just enough for a deterrent, and they have more than enough problems trying to drag their own country into the modern age to worry about war with Britain, which is far away and cannot threaten China at all. Whatever you think of Israel's nuclear arsenal, at least they have an obvious reason to have one.
As someone else said, threats these days are from non-state actors, who will not be deterred by Trident. Trident is a monument to the British inability to accept that Britain is now a small country with diminishing clout, and one whose citizens are not served by pathetic attempts to maintain "credibility". That money would be better spent on solving British social problems, or by giving it back to the taxpayers.
The problem with the precautionary principle is that it leads to absurd outcomes. There are any number of terrible things that have a minute chance of happening, and which it would be very expensive to protect against. If you take the PP seriously, then you're like that guy who's worried about crime who can only afford Kraft Dinner because his house is surrounded by razor wire, floodlights, attack dogs and a private milita. Everyone can see how ridiculous that is, yet the defence policies of many nations are similarly irrational.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
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
The Chinese aren't Muslim. Does China face the same problems we do?
Al Qaeda and others have stated a lot of reasons for hating us. How about we stop pretending those are merely excuses and try addressing them? They fit. The 'we're not Muslim' argument is the excuse.
One can be powerful and still not be a bully.
... 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.
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
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.
Let's take your syllogism (no one can invade Canada, therefore Canada has no enemies) and apply it to the United States. Clearly no one is in a position to invade the U.S. either... therefore the U.S. has no enemies? But... there are a few countries who certainly claim we're they're enemy.
How many countries has Canada invaded lately?
How many democratically elected leaders has it assassinated in order to install brutal mass murdering thugs?
When our military is blowing up your family we *are* your enemy. There's no need to "claim" shit.
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.
"Yes, but is this the modern threat? These days, the biggest threat is not from invasion and occupation, but from global guerilla warfare, also known as terrorism."
Yes, the world changed drastically in 1776^W1917^W2001! No longer will we ever see warring nation-states, rather we must defend ourselves from the insidious republican^Wcommunist^WIslamo-fascist foes within our midst, lest we all be consumed! Only a fool would worry about defending national borders with the New World Order coming about!
"They thought battleships still ruled the waves, because that's what Nelson used."
No, he used ships of the line. If they were stuck in the days of Nelson, they wouldn't have built the HMS Dreadnaught with its fewer, larger guns built on turrets, capable of being elevated for plunging fire.
"Then they sent a few to the Pacific theatre, which were promptly sunk by Japanese air power, leading to the fall of Singapore."
Name one British battleship (i. e. not a lightly-armored cruiser) sunk by the Japanese. Heck, outside of Pearl, name one American battleship sunk by the Japanese.
The fall of Singapore had less to do with naval technology and more to do with the Germans. Two-front wars are hard.
"Now nobody has battleships anymore."
Nobody has battleships any more because they can't sink things from as far away as a carrier, at least not with 1930's technology. We use carriers today because they still work and there's no compelling reason to put R&D into light gas or rail guns.
"Also, the cost of one bunker buster is probably enough to buy a school in Palestine. That school might prevent a good few people from becoming suicide bombers."
Or, suicide bombers being what they are, it might become a target in the Fatah vs. Hamas fratricide.
Actually, I would expect Canada's military requirements to rise somewhat due to pressures from global warming. The legendary northwest passage is opening up, which will make Canada a major trade route and open up disputes over borders and natural resources (oil, fishing, etc.). There are already heated debates over whether these areas are international waters, or sovereign Canadian territory. Of course, most of those conflicts are relatively benign ones with the US at the moment, but I wouldn't put it past the Russians, Chinese, or North Koreans to try something shady. Maybe you won't need a huge army, but you will need a substantial navy/coast guard. Also, not to sound xenophobic, but there is the potential that Canada's relatively large immigrant population may increase its vulnerability to terrorism and other forms of extremism.
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.
You make an excellent point, Red Flayer, after all, the CIA was running a successful (while it exsited) counter-proliferation operation, Brewster Jennings, until Cheney chose to shut it down by outing Ms. Plame. Next, Cheney chose to give a speech stating that the US faces certain nuclear attack from terrorists.
Seems like Cheney was having trouble smuggling those nukes or dirty bombs and needed to find a way to stop the opposition. (See reports of nuke smuggling in the 'stans, Cheney's former Halliburton area of operations.)
I was thinking more along the lines of "You want to take our resources? Well you can't, because we'll nuke you if you try.". Would the US have invaded Iraq if they really had WMDs? No way.
It's a pretty rough drive from Germany to Canada, though.
English is easier said than done.
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
I don't actually disagree. What better way to save money than to replace parts of an expensive conventional army with more cost-effective nuclear weapons. After all, the purpose of a standing army is defense, which a nuclear deterrent is best at.
We don't know, because they're -really- good at it.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
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.
I don't think you understood my point, which has nothing to do with whether foreign countries are justified in disliked America. The syllogism you put on the table was that since no one is in a position to invade Canada, therefore Canada has no enemies. You're now abandoning this position in favor of, "Canada is nice to other countries, therefore Canada has no enemies."
This is more defensible, but unfortunately still unlikely to be true. Canada's less interventionist foreign policy puts it farther down on the list of disliked countries, but its freedoms, standard of living, etc. are still going to create envy among the roughly 80% of the global population that doesn't enjoy similar standards. And that's going to cause you problems eventually. Sorry.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Siberia has never been invaded either.
Canada's defence is of a different nature. Blackflies, mosquitos, horseflies, deerflies and -44 (F or C don't matter at that temperature) weather and a summer that falls on a tuseday in August.
There have actually been several US covert attempts to invade Canada. In each case some polite canuck buys the invader a beer and the invasion augers into the groud shortly after that
Besides if the US wanted to invade we'd surrender and ask for reparations and disaster relief. cf "the mouse that roured".
Canada simply doesn't need a whole lot of defense. We probably don't need what we've got actually.
Need Mercedes parts ?
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?
I dunno, building a school for them to teach their offspring to hate and kill the infidels doesn't strike me as money well spent, from a western point of view.
Either they learn to live and let live, or we deliver the money to them in the form of said bunker buster....and try to keep them from reproducing more little suicide bombers.
I fear the latter is the course to be chosen, in that you just cannot seem to reason with a zealot that thinks anyone not worshipping their god in the correct way should be killed.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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...
Because the Chinese know Kung-Fu!!!
Seriously..much more difficult. China is a much more closed society, the muslim/middle eastern types would stand out like a sore thumb over there...hard to run covert terrorist plans over there. The closed, communist society there kinda makes it tough, not to mention they've got billions of people over there...by shear body counts they could run the terrorists over to death without even using weapons.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I can't find the specific quote, but he was talking about the US reliance on foreign oil production and mention the oild sands of Alberta as "our oil".
There is no need for Canada to be invaded, their higher echelons have already been bought.
You can't take the sky from me...
These pdf's would be easier to wget! Hmmm....
No, he pretty much hit the nail on the head. Islam is about having a moral imperative to justify everything you do. Democracy is a process that does not guarantee a righteous outcome. If you're not righteous, you must be evil. If the process allows evil to prevail, it's evil itself. You can't compromise with evil because that makes you evil.
Some times you have to fight fire with fire as they say.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That statement applies to a large percentage of bible-thumping, bible-belt, good ol' boys in the United States.
Hell... the queen of the right, Ann Coulter, said we should go to the middle-east and "kill or convert" them all.
"From the Middle East to the Middle West, it's 'pray and pass the ammunition'"
---From Rush's new song "Way the Wind Blows"
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
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.
We don't know, because they're -really- good at it.
How sneaky can you really be riding a polar bear into battle waving a hockey stick?
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]
That's just the distraction that lets the Mounties attack from the flank.
The sneaky way is to invite the person over, then when they freeze to death, no one notices. Kinda like how if someone is shot in gang territory, the assumption is random victim, not assassin.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
The syllogism you put on the table was that since no one is in a position to invade Canada, therefore Canada has no enemies.
That wasn't me.
You're now abandoning this position in favor of, "Canada is nice to other countries, therefore Canada has no enemies."
No, my point was just that "But... there are a few countries who certainly claim we're they're enemy." makes no sense.
We have forced a lot of countries to know that we are their enemies because we have actively chosen to make enemies of them.
It just seemed to be a turn of phrase designed more to conceal than reveal. That was the only thing I was addressing.
I don't have any mod points today :(
The sneaky way is to invite the person over, then when they freeze to death, no one notices. Kinda like how if someone is shot in gang territory, the assumption is random victim, not assassin.
;-)
Ok, you got me. That's definitely a much sneakier way. Plus, I live in Chicago, so I know it could work
You're attributing posts to me that I did not make.
My claim was that Canada did not need a cold war style military because it had no enemies. It follows that you have no threat of invasion if you have no enemies, but the converse does not necessarily follow.
Someone said that Canada does not need to be under threat of invasion to have enemies. That's true. Nevertheless, Canada has no enemies per se. Name one country that is likely to use conventional military force against specifically Canadian interests that would not merit a UN Security Council authorized response.
That's right. There isn't one. That's why Canada's military needs to be geared towards UN missions (aside from Coast Guard stuff).
Canada is a relatively civilized country that solves its differences with other countries through diplomacy and appeal to international norms. Any other country knows that the Canadian government will be happy to talk over disputes and that Canada is regarded as a good international citizen.
The difference between Canada and the US is that Canada does not have a vast military presence throughout the world, and does not have a record of acting unilaterally. Plenty of other countries might disagree with the Canadians, or dislike their way of life, but pretty much every country respects Canada.
FTR I am not a Canadian.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
When the Soviets rolled into Afghanistan, while it was clearly and blatantly wrong (and very reminiscent of what's going on in Iraq today), the Afghanis would have fared much better had the US left them alone (the Sovs were quelling religious extremist upheaval there, which they were afraid of and believed related to the Islamic revolution taking place in neighboring Iran at that time).
Instead, the Americans aided the worst, most criminal element of Afghanistan, the muhjadeen. Some or most of the wealthier members of Afghani society had fled when the Sovs invaded, but the first thing that vile muhjadeen did was to go on a killing spree of all the educated Afghanis and the members of the Afghani arts, leaving only the muhjadeen and religious extremists alive (with subsistence farmer/peasants in the hillside, of course). Never did anyone believe the US was their friend.....
You will find, historically speaking, this is the usual way things transpire - just look at every situation in South America when Henry Kissinger led the way in overthrowing democratically-elected governments, there, along with socialist and populist governments, in other words, economies equitable to the majority.
I never said that I did think torture was a good policy. I was simply disputing the GP's assertion that short-term information is rarely useful. From the discussions I've had with soldiers and what I've read about military intelligence, he couldn't be farther from the truth. If we're going to discuss policy, we should at least be honest about the issue instead of resorting to platitudes and carte blanch assertions, that's all I'm saying. Honestly speaking torture, done intelligently, probably is effective and would often yield life-saving information.
Now, that being said, I don't think that, as a general policy torture should be accepted. First of all, I don't think it is morally justifiable. Neither Iraq or Afghanistan are wars of survival. Secondly, as an under-manned occupying force, one of our main goals should be to put forth a positive public image. Any tactical advantage we might gain from torture is probably severely outweighed by the strategic consequences of such a policy. Lastly, I wouldn't trust this administration to effectively carry such a sensitive policy competently. In fact, they've already proven that they're incapable of it. One of the main contributing factors for the Abu Ghraib incident is that they tasked civilian translators with little to no training and no accountability to interrogate detainees. And then they act as if they had no idea how abuse could have occurred.
Hah. Hardly. The United States has been quite restrained with respect to what it's capable of. In historical terms, the U.S. occupation of Iraq has been lukewarm and inviting to resistance.
I suspect that one day, when the U.S. has receded from its current position of dominance in the world that some of the main detractors of the United States will look back and yearn for the days of "U.S. oppression and abuse." Or do you think that countries like China, Iran, or Russia are capable of better?
-Grym
My mistake, then - let me rephrase to, "The syllogism that was put on the table...."
Fair enough. I wasn't trying to conceal anything or indeed to make any point at all about the U.S. I'm not denying that our foreign policy has created enemies. (In some sense, I'm glad it has.)
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Because nuclear weapons are inherently dangerous, that's why. They make a country less safe.
Bertrand Russell once said that you could expect a man to stay on a tightrope for a short time without falling off, but to expect him to stay on for 50 years would be ridiculous. THAT is the problem with nuclear deterrence. The New Zealand government crawled out from under the nuclear umbrella 20 years ago, and has remained out (to the lasting pride of its citizens). Their reasoning was that nuclear weapons, by their very nature, put you at an abominable risk, and that if there is no pressing necessity, you should not want to be defended by them.
I'm not naive, and, given the current situation, the possession of nuclear weapons by certain states is unavoidable and probably necessary. However, this is not the case for Britain, who has no need of them at all (nor do the folks across the ditch). Sure, it might be cheaper to defend yourself with nuclear weapons, but it is vastly less safe. It's like those people who hoard up masses of guns to defend themselves against criminals.
My own view is that it is highly likely that there will be a limited nuclear exchange in the next 20 years. Probably between Israel and one of the Arab states, or (more likely) between India and Pakistan. At that point it will become obvious to everyone (in a way that it is obvious to rational people now and was so back in 1945) that war will have to be abolished forever, irrespective of how much we wish we could use it to solve our problems.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
Outstanding point, Good Citizen pzs. Richard Bissell, a former director of plans for the CIA (and the brains behind the: Marshall Plan, the U-2 and SR-71 spy plane programs, the spy satellite program, Area 51, etc., etc.) did state in his autobiography that for a country to have a healthy economy it must have maximum investment (i.e., nonmilitary) in its infrastructure.
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."
I wasn't really paying attention to who wrote what, obviously! Sorry.
Well, congratulations for them. Maybe we should just turn over the problem of nuclear proliferation in South Asia and North Korea to Canada. They could use their diplomacy to bring about a solution that is equitable to all. No doubt the countries involved would be happy to put aside their differences and come to the table in peace and brotherhood. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.
Oh wait, no - we can just appeal to the United Nations to solve these problems. Even better!
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Oops, that should should have read "We don't not need a strong military because the US is protecting us
Oh really?
It ramps up after that, certainly. But to say intervention wasn't foreign policy is simply ignorant.
When the definition of cold starts at somewhere about -30 degrees C (just frisky above) one would think they're naturally good at cold warring really.
Atheism is a non-prophet organisation
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
Once again, another fool trying to makes things strictly black and white. The U.S. tried to stay out of the major events of the early 20th century. No country the size and population of the U.S., even in the late 1800s, is going to be completely isolated. LOL!
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 Prince of Wales, one of the most modern battleships of the British Navy. Technically the Repulse was not a lightly-armoured crusier, it was a battlecruiser (somewhere between a cruiser and a battleship).
The fact that Japanese didn't sink any more US battleships is more a comment on the disparity of force between the two sides (better/more ships/planes).
meh
International trade has ended it. Countries fought wars over resources, in order to enrich themselves. Trade provides a counterweight to this. Trade is a benefit to a country, and war between countries destroys trade. If loosing the trade will outweight the benefit of aquiring a resource, you do not go to war.
Or put another way: War is expensive. If a country is willing to sell a resource at a reasonable price, it's cheaper to buy it than to take it.
And if there is a war in the future, it is likely between nuclear superpowers. China and the USA, if oil or any other resource should become so critically important that it will be considered more important to a nation than the huge cost of a war.
I lost my sig.
At least the fool gave some facts. Got any to support your argument? I guess I don't see how being involved in those "major events" wasn't a policy decision. Which puts some doubt in the claim that "U.S. tried policies of isolation in the early 20th century". In addition, there were many policies pursued by President Wilson which were certainly not isolationist in nature. In my view, you are the one attempting to make things black and white; the GP is simply providing evidence to the contrary.
Now, the mood in the country is different from government policy. The American people may very well have been isolationist. But to describe a government which has troops spread all over the world to get involved in "major events" as pursuing policies of isolation, seems like quite a stretch of the meaning of isolation.
Here is a Wilson quote which illustrates an essential point:
"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down...Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused". -- From Lecture at Columbia University (April 1907)
Whatever the mood in the country or the political wind of the time, one thing I think is true is that the U.S. has never pursued a truly isolationist economic policy. And that is really the point, the U.S. has a long history of using military power to support our economic interests. The U.S. is certainly not alone in that. What exactly is your evidence supporting the nothing that the U.S. tried isolationist policies and they failed? Lots of factors played into when the U.S. entered various wars, the issue is far from black and white.
Geographically isolated?
Well, you see, we have these wonderful inventions these days called "ships" and "airplanes"....
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
Great. So #1 on the list could be a series of top-secret incidents 300 pages long?
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
The U.S. is far from perfect. But in general, the U.S. is not evil and hasn't changed in the last 10 years.
If trying to kill foreign leaders, making deals with mobsters, breaking your own laws, holding people for 5 years without charge in an overseas country to prevent them falling under your laws then coercing them to confess to crimes that weren't on the books when the person allegedly commited them, and invading countries "is not evil" in general I'd hate to know what your definition of evil is.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Excuse my french, but Amen.
"Whatever you think of Israel's nuclear arsenal, at least they have an obvious reason to have one."
I think Japan would say otherwise to any mention of nuclear weapons.
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.
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.
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.