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The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

nytimes.com

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Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#51

Post by acdha »

poof131 wrote: post #38
TeMPOraL wrote: post #25

You know what's CIA's even more reckless breach of trust? Organizing fake vaccination campaigns[0]. Now the efforts with eradicating Polio in some parts of the world meet with resistance of people who don't trust the vaccination campaign isn't a cover for US clandestine operations[1]. Hard to blame them, to be honest. "The edict by the Islamic militants to ban immunization was in response to the CIA's setting up a fa…

I don’t believe that is an entirely fair characterization of that action. Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? Hiding in an allied country whose intelligence services derailed previous missions? [1] I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action. I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for…

> Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden?

I'm with mikeash on this: sometimes the cost is too high.

For the sake of argument, compare it to more traditional hypothetical trade-offs, starting with what almost nobody would have considered justified:

Would getting Bin Laden have justified dropping a nuke on Abbottabad? … What about conventional bombing the entire city? … the neighborhood? … the block? … that house?

I suspect that the number of bystander casualties most people would consider too high is lower than the number of people who have already died either directly (medical workers) or indirectly (unvaccinated children).

Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#52

Post by poof131 »

secstate wrote: post #17

Well, I wrote my congressmen. What else can we possibly do? This is, however, a fucking travesty of justice. How can you possibly be caught committing a crime and have the higher-ups formally apologize, and say they wont do it again? This is high treason against the United States Senate. What the hell is wrong with this country? I feel like the US is one big democratic tease, pretending to be a bastion of free though…

I sometimes wonder if we are in the mid to late republic. [1] I want to believe in the progress of the country, but sometimes it seems like stagnation since the 70s and that post WW2 may have been the zenith of the American Rebublic. The divide between military and civilian, the Tammany hall nature of D.C., the bread and circuses all around, our country has issues to fix.

But, I believe that we are moving forward, the world more than just the US, by many measures: mortality [2], poverty [3], violence [4]. So, I hope that we are something different than the Roman Republic and can last longer as a republic. My greatest fear is a 1984 style of perpetual surveillance, doublethink and corporate slavery. Oh wait, we are already there ;)

[1] - http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/laterep-index.html [2] - http://www.nber.org/digest/mar02/w8556.html [3] - http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/04/17/re... [4] - http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/11/the-decline-of-violenc...

Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#53

Post by mikestew »

poof131 wrote: post #38
TeMPOraL wrote: post #25

You know what's CIA's even more reckless breach of trust? Organizing fake vaccination campaigns[0]. Now the efforts with eradicating Polio in some parts of the world meet with resistance of people who don't trust the vaccination campaign isn't a cover for US clandestine operations[1]. Hard to blame them, to be honest. "The edict by the Islamic militants to ban immunization was in response to the CIA's setting up a fa…

I don’t believe that is an entirely fair characterization of that action. Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? Hiding in an allied country whose intelligence services derailed previous missions? [1] I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action. I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for…

> Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden?

Not at any cost, no. Now what with all of the "America...fuck yeah!" rhetoric after Bin Laden was killed, I gather that I might be writing for the minority opinion.

How many kids will die because they now won't be getting polio vaccines? How does that number compare to the number killed at the World Trade Center? If the numbers are comparable, then we figure brown kids have less value than Wall Street bankers? So, maybe apply a value of two-thirds (I'm pulling numbers that have been used in the past) one brown kid for someone working in NYC? If not, then what's the math that we can agree on?

It was all just a revenge killing anyway. Are we now safer with Bin Laden dead? I'm open to opposing opinions, but as far as I can tell we haven't improved anything.

Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#54

Post by mikestew »

Symmetry wrote: post #45
poof131 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe that is an entirely fair characterization of that action. Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? Hiding in an allied country whose intelligence services derailed previous missions? [1] I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action. I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for…

Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? No, but sometimes the price of a just aim is too high to pay. In retrospect at least the damage to the anti-polio campaign was too high a price to pay for his death, just as nuking the city to get him wouldn't have been justified. I find the mistake they made somewhat understandable since they could easily have failed to foresee the consequences of their…

> I find the mistake they made somewhat understandable since they could easily have failed to foresee the consequences of their actions, but it was still a mistake.

Yeah, like arming Bin Laden when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, who would have guessed? Iran-Contra fallout? To an outside observer, it would appear that the CIA may have a sound tactical approach in many cases, but fails miserably at strategy and long-term view.

EDIT: oh, yeah, and Iran and the Shah (for the youngin's, the movie _Argo_ gives an ever-so-brief bit of background at the beginning). How could I forget about that textbook example of blowback?

Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#55

Post by dan_bk »

mikestew wrote: post #53
poof131 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe that is an entirely fair characterization of that action. Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? Hiding in an allied country whose intelligence services derailed previous missions? [1] I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action. I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for…

> Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? Not at any cost, no. Now what with all of the "America...fuck yeah!" rhetoric after Bin Laden was killed, I gather that I might be writing for the minority opinion. How many kids will die because they now won't be getting polio vaccines? How does that number compare to the number killed at the World Trade Center? If the numbers are comparable, then we…

> If the numbers are comparable, then we figure brown kids have less value than Wall Street bankers?

We all know we do exactly that, even if we don't like to admit it. Our inaction is the proof.

There are thousands of questions like this one that we should have been asking ourselves for a very long time, but never did, on a societal level.

Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#56

Post by poof131 »

Symmetry wrote: post #45
poof131 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe that is an entirely fair characterization of that action. Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? Hiding in an allied country whose intelligence services derailed previous missions? [1] I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action. I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for…

Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? No, but sometimes the price of a just aim is too high to pay. In retrospect at least the damage to the anti-polio campaign was too high a price to pay for his death, just as nuking the city to get him wouldn't have been justified. I find the mistake they made somewhat understandable since they could easily have failed to foresee the consequences of their…

I agree, the vaccination part of the operation was a mistake. But if the information had been released in 5-10 years the effects would have been less tragic. There are reasons clandestine operations should stay clandestine, at least for a period of time. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakil_Afridi

Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#57

Post by makomk »

tomjen3 wrote: post #28
TeMPOraL wrote: post #25

You know what's CIA's even more reckless breach of trust? Organizing fake vaccination campaigns[0]. Now the efforts with eradicating Polio in some parts of the world meet with resistance of people who don't trust the vaccination campaign isn't a cover for US clandestine operations[1]. Hard to blame them, to be honest. "The edict by the Islamic militants to ban immunization was in response to the CIA's setting up a fa…

Shouldn't be difficult to fix. The programs should just be financed and controlled by Saudi Arabia or some other ME country.

The CIA subverted genuine local medical staff and used them their fake vaccination scheme. I don't think there's any way of convincing militant groups that vaccination workers aren't potential CIA spies at this point, at least not if they've got any sense.

Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#58

Post by DanielBMarkham »

The nation needs an intelligence community. In the modern world, that's non-negotiable.

But having said that, there are a few breaches of trust that warrant extreme action, and this is one of them. This isn't some low-level analyst using his pull to get out of a parking ticket. This is the executive branch of government running an intelligence operation against another branch of the government.

There's no known universe in which this is anywhere near being acceptable. And even if you buy the lone wolf scenario thrown out here, it still means that the agency had an atmosphere in which it seemed okay to do this -- and it was done with little or no oversight. In fact, this is a much worse scenario, because it implies that lone wolves all over the agency are doing all sorts of things on their own initiative. God knows what.

Congress, kicking and screaming, is going to have to grow a set of balls and publicly tear apart the intelligence apparatus again. We are probably going to need new constitutional amendments to address property rights and the idea of "personal papers" in the digital age. Computers are extensions of people's minds. They are not like music players or VCRs. Not at all.

This whole mess has been an example of how the political class will put off making a decision that might involve risk as long as possible. I keep wondering what more has to come out, and how much is enough.

Sadly, I think we're not there yet.

Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#59

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

poof131 wrote: post #38
TeMPOraL wrote: post #25

You know what's CIA's even more reckless breach of trust? Organizing fake vaccination campaigns[0]. Now the efforts with eradicating Polio in some parts of the world meet with resistance of people who don't trust the vaccination campaign isn't a cover for US clandestine operations[1]. Hard to blame them, to be honest. "The edict by the Islamic militants to ban immunization was in response to the CIA's setting up a fa…

I don’t believe that is an entirely fair characterization of that action. Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? Hiding in an allied country whose intelligence services derailed previous missions? [1] I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action. I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for…

>I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action.

Diligence would have required following through with the vaccination campaign. For pennies they could have vaccinated the kids, and probably evaded detection, but in their haste they carelessly exposed their operation.

> I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for political expediency.

I'm disappointed to see that sad pathetic excuse bandied about in defense of failure and malevolence. The gig was up a long time before the press found out, when they failed to follow through with the vaccination campaign. By allowing the operation to be discovered, they endangered not only potential future operations, but also the safety of aid workers everywhere on the planet.

>It is a tragedy that people are refusing vaccinations in Pakistan, but it’s not fair to entirely blame the CIA. At least pass some of the responsibility to the Obama Administration and Pakistan itself.

It is precisely the fault of the CIA, and not the sitting President because the CIA is responsible for planning its operations. The President doesn't dictate operational details.

Re: The CIA's Reckless Breach of Trust

#60

Post by auxbuss »

mikeash wrote: post #40
poof131 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe that is an entirely fair characterization of that action. Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? Hiding in an allied country whose intelligence services derailed previous missions? [1] I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action. I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for…

Killing one guy who isn't even all that important in the organization should definitely not have taken priority over seriously harming polio eradication efforts. Yes, sometimes you should let the bad guy get away if the consequences of what's required to catch him are worse. This should be obvious, but people's minds shut down when confronted with "terrorism".

"... but people's minds shut down when confronted with "terrorism"."

And why is that?

I ask, because, like many here -- well, as few, at least -- I grew up in the UK with the IRA bombing things around me every now and again. These were frequent events. I saw the aftermath of a few of them myself. They were as hideous, as you can imagine.

I narrowly missed being caught up in two. My girlfriend and I had a picnic on the Regent's Park grandstand the day before it was blown up with the military band playing at the time. I suspect that the bomb was right beneath us that day as we ate. Ticking away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Park_and_Regent%27s_Park_b...

There were almost nightly atrocities on the TV news. It was a constant.

But minds did not shutdown. The public message, conveyed by the media, was to carry on as normal; that to do otherwise was to let the terrorists win. So we did. We kept calm and carried on.

So why are folk, these days, freaking out at the mention of terrorism?

Rationally, we know that the number of deaths from terrorism is tiny compared to almost every other form of death. We know that the probability of being present, let alone injured or worse, at the scene of an act of terrorism is vanishingly small.

What if instead of our politicians and media ramping up the fear factor they instead suggested stoic, silent resistance. What if they said that they had our backs. What if they were positive instead of negative.

Fear of terrorism is irrational, and everyone -- well, the vast majority -- would act accordingly if the politicians and media didn't exploit citizens' fears for whatever reasons they are exploiting citizens' fears.

And, because of this, going back to your point, I agree, killing Bin Laden should never have taken priority over harming polio eradication efforts. Doing so was purely story-building to support political grandstanding. It had nothing to with security or reducing terrorism.

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