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

Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com
Tue Jun 20 08:25:30 PDT 2006



>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



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