[lit-ideas] Re: '08 Democrats
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:50:41 -0800
This is pretty well known stuff as far as I know, Andreas: e.g.
On February 7 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_7> , 1990
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990> the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union agreed to give up its monopoly of power
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_%28sociology%29> .
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Soviet_Union#Yeltsin_and_the_d
issolution_of_the_USSR ]
Bill Clinton was in office from January 1993 to January 2001.
A Spy For All Seasons [ by Duane R. Clarridge] illustrates precisely how
clandestine operations have taken the CIA further and further from its
essential task of providing the U.S. government with the best possible
information about world affairs. The book concludes with an epilogue
bemoaning the evisceration of the CIA's Clandestine Services by Congress
and, later, by the Clinton administration. Though Clarridge correctly points
out that secrecy is what makes many CIA operations successful, he fails to
acknowledge the harm done to the national interest by such patently
ludicrous activities as the attempts to assassinate Castro in Operation
Mongoose after the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The current
evaluation of the CIA's clandestine activities, contrary to Clarridge's
argument, is long overdue. [In the review by Professor of Political Science
Terry Hopmann -- research director for the Program on Global Security at
the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies and the author
of The Negotiation Process and the Resolution of International Conflicts.
Also:
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1072169/posts> Tenet in Slap at
Clinton CIA Cutbacks
NewsMax.com ^
<http://www.freerepublic.com/%5Ehttp:/www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/2/5/1
25029.shtml> | 2/05/04 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
Posted on 02/05/2004 11:33:13 AM PST by
<http://www.freerepublic.com/%7Ekattracks/> kattracks
CIA Director George Tenet delivered an unexpected slap to ex-president
Clinton on Thursday, suggesting during a speech defending his agency that
CIA cutbacks during Clinton's tenure were responsible for the agency's
failures in the war on terror.
"When I came to the CIA in the mid-1990s, our graduating class of case
officers was unbelievably low," Tenet told an audience at Georgetown
University.
He said it had taken "years of rebuilding" for the agency to recover from
the Clinton-era cutbacks, contending that the agency was now moving in the
right direction.
"Our training programs are putting our best efforts into recruiting the most
talented men and women," he explained, saying that now "we are graduating
more clandestine officers than at any time in the history of the Central
intelligence Agency."
Tenet said it would take "an additional five years of rebuilding our
clandestine service" before the U.S. has the kind of on-the-ground human
intelligence necessary to effectively fight the war on terrorism.
In the early 1990s, the Clinton administration drastically cut back "Humint"
- efforts by the CIA to recruit indigenous on-the-ground assets regardless
of their backgrounds - after Democrats like then-Sen. Robert Torricelli
complained that the agency was relying on too many people involved in
criminal activity and human rights abuses.
Also:
CIA Officials Reveal What Went Wrong - Clinton to Blame
Christopher Ruddy
Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001
[cut]
Clinton, the Ever Clever Bastard
But Clinton, the ever clever bastard, was more insidious. Little, systematic
changes were undertaken to destroy America's intelligence agencies.
Let me explain. A regular NewsMax reader, "Roger," was a CIA spy in the
Mideast.
I met him almost two years ago. Roger wanted to tell me why a gung-ho
American quit the CIA in disgust.
Roger said the CIA was not interested in recruiting spies.
Clinton and company knew they could not just tell the CIA to stop recruiting
spies. That would look stupid and embarrassing.
So they just changed the rules of how spies are recruited, raising the bar
on requirements to such a high degree that the most valuable spies could
never meet CIA standards and couldn't work for us.
Previously, I wrote how Clinton effectively stopped the recruitment of
Chinese nationals by demanding that only high-ranking embassy officials
could be recruited - knowing this is almost impossible. Roger told me that.
Roger reminded me again of this today.
He noted that Clinton policies reached their zenith under CIA Director John
Deutch and his top assistant, Nora Slatkin. The pair ran Clinton's CIA in
the mid-1990s and implemented a "human rights scrub" policy.
Here's how Roger described it in an e-mail Tuesday evening: "Deutch and
Nora, Clinton's anti-intelligence plants, implemented a universal 'human
rights scrub' of all assets, virtually shutting down operations for 6 months
to a year. This was after something happened in Central America (there was
an American woman involved who was the common law wife of a commie who went
missing there) that got a lot of bad press for the agency.
"After that, each asset had to be certified as being 'clean for human rights
violations.'
"What this did was to put off limits, in effect, terrorists, criminals, and
anyone else who would have info on these kinds of people."
Roger says the CIA, even under new leadership, has never recovered from the
"Human Rights Scrub" policy.
Perhaps that was the intention.
But we, the American people, Congress, and honest media need to examine all
of these issues, now and quickly. If we don't, we risk even more grave
dangers than those that we just lived through.
I could go on.
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 4:55 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: '08 Democrats
The USSR fell apart long before Clinton, so you tell me how effective the
CIA was. And Clinton bombed OBL and was accused of wagging the dog. Also,
the CIA's installation of the Shah, whose repressive tactics made political
discussion possible only in the mosques, the reason for Khomeni's rise.
Whatever, you don't see any of that. Keep apologizing for them.
-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence Helm
Sent: Feb 24, 2007 7:38 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: '08 Democrats
"Conventional Wisdom" of the intelligence community, Irene. Not of your
nutcase demonstrators. No president is going to listen to them, but he will
listen to his intelligence community. He may get some bright young men to
review the existing intelligence, but he will use it; which he did. Now
(and here one needs to understand the meaning of the word "lie") if that
information turns out to be false, then a mistake was made. If the
president believed that wrong information; then he made a mistake - but an
understandable one - at least it ought to be understandable because everyone
else "in the know" made the same mistake. This has nothing to do with
Bush's intelligence. Hillary made that same mistake for example. A whole
litany of Democrats have been quoted as believing the same things Bush did.
Part of our "intelligence" problem was that the CIA had been eviscerated
during the Clinton administration. We cut back on our intelligence as a
bonus for having won the Cold War. What did we need intelligence for? We
discovered what we were missing after 9/11. We had no assets on the ground
in Iraq. We had to rely on the testimony of Iraqis escaping from Iraq. The
CIA vetted them and made recommendations, but this "intelligence" reflected
what Saddam wanted us to believe about his weaponry.
I followed this closely at the time which I previously described and which
you obviously didn't read. Blitz didn't say Saddam didn't have WMDs. He
said that Saddam refused to provide the evidence that he didn't have WMDs.
Saddam was also refusing to allow inspectors, inspectors into certain areas,
etc. He was having a good time jerking us around. Just about everyone at
the time said he had WMDs. He behaved as though he had WMDs. Saddam's
generals thought he had WMDs. His generals weren't involved in a lie. They
were as mislead as almost everyone else. After the fact we learned that
Saddam was purposely implying that he had WMDs so as not to lose face
amongst the surrounding nations.
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 3:32 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: '08 Democrats
The world demonstrated against invasion. Blix said over and over there were
no WMD. The Nigerian yellowcake, the fuel rods, the Downing Street memo,
the 12 missing words, and on and on. If we went to war based on
conventional wisdom and misinformation, then we are idiots beyond belief.
I'd rather think Bush lied. Are we so absolutely idiotic Lawrence, that we
would start a war on conventional wisdom, especially when it was event to
the world, including to nobodies like me, that it was all fabricated.
Fabricated is a fancy way of spelling lie. Our choice as Americans: our
president lied, or we're idiots. Which one is it, Lawrence?
-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence Helm
Sent: Feb 24, 2007 6:12 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: '08 Democrats
Irony valid only for those not knowing the meaning of the word "lie."
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 2:51 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: '08 Democrats
Sounds right. Obsess over cheating on one's wife but applaud excuses for
invading a country and then botching it. Nothing wrong with this picture.
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