Spooks (Was Re: [lbo-talk] Alex Cockburn going the Hitchens way?)

[Carl Remick]

>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
>On Jun 20, 2006, at 10:26 AM, Carl Remick wrote:
>
>>Somewhat anomalously for a corporate lawyer, you are touchingly  naive.  
>>This isn't a lodestone for idealists -- such as the Peace  Corps -- that 
>>we're talking about.  This is the CIA, a magnet for  sly, secretive sorts 
>>who enjoy playing evil games.  Wake up and  smell the intrigue, counselor.
>
>No it's not the Peace Corps, but really, you've got to understand how  The 
>Pig System sucks in decent people who think they're doing the  right thing. 
>They really do see themselves as defending freedom  against Terror (or, a 
>generation ago, the Evil Empire). There aren't  many people besides Michael 
>Ledeen who are so in love with sly, evil  gaming in itself. Ditto the 
>military - it's full of people who signed  up out of idealism.

This is just another variation of my least-favorite myth:  America's 
ever-recurring Loss of Innocence.

Americans simply cannot float around in an amniotic sac of complacency, 
maintaining willful ignorance about their nation's role in world affairs and 
the corrupt nature of their own institutions.  In the past 40+ years that 
the public has been fascinated with spies, the romanticizing of spycraft 
that has characterized Ian Fleming et al. has been well criticized by the 
more thoughtful writings of John le Carré, which have been regularly praised 
by intelligence insiders for their acute understanding of what makes spies 
tick.  In le Carré POV, spies are psychologically damaged people whose 
mental illnesses are made much, much worse by their immersion in the 
mind-twisting world of intelligence.

Americans who choose to enter this world have no excuses for not 
understanding what they're getting into.

Carl