[lbo-talk] CIA and Feminism (was Alex Cockburn going the Hitchensway?)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 6/22/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Jun 22, 2006, at 11:04 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > Realism wasn't the term mentioned here.  It's been said that the CIA
> > employees who have desk jobs are liberal, honest, progressive, etc. --
> > all based on such solid evidence as a few acquaintances here and
> > there.
>
> No, it's also based on an understanding of its history. Have you ever
> read any histories of the CIA? They are - or were - "liberal" in the
> way that Truman and JFK were - dedicated agents of empire who are
> willing to be quite brutal while using humanitarian rhetoric. They're
> not likely to play cowboy, with taunts like "dead or alive" or "bring
> it on." They, or at least many of them, realize that you have to know
> something about the people you're trying to dominate, which is why
> they and their civilian counterparts created the discipline of area
> studies in the 1950s. As I recall, the Church Commission report
> revealed that the CIA's analysts warned the Nixon admin against the
> dangers of invading Cambodia, but they did it anyway. Similarly with
> Iraq - a lot of analysts predicted, quite accurately, that it would
> be a disaster.

For a long time after the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, even most
liberals and many leftists -- including yourself -- didn't think that
the Iraq War was a disaster, at least not a disaster that should
compel a swift end to it.  Now you, as well as many on the broad left,
think it's a disaster, but what are you gonna do about it?
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>