You simply have to make a radical shift of perspective, of standards of competence, in order to judge the competence of the CIA _as an intelligence agency._ I see nothing in this to indicate its organizational incompetence.
Can't leftists get over the bad habit or longing to have their enemies stupid? It's not good politics.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Grimes Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2011 5:23 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] Hendricks, Hunting CIA's Keystone Kommandos
``Hunting the CIA's Keystone Kommandos
By STEVE HENDRICKS
...''Another story. In 1994 in Guatemala, the CIA station chief decided that
the U.S. ambassador, a supporter of human rights, had to go, so he set about
gathering dirt on her. The Guatemalan Army, in cahoots with the CIA, bugged the ambassador's residence and overheard her cooing in bed to her lover, a secretary in the embassy by the name of Carol Murphy. This was just the kind
of thing the CIA had hoped to find because it was of course scandalous to have a lesbian ambassador. So the CIA went to Capitol Hill and leaked transcripts of her cooings to Members of Congress. When the ambassador was confronted with the damning evidence, she admitted whispering tender intimacies in bed to Murphy. There was only one problem for the CIA: Murphy was the also the name of the ambassador's poodle, and it was to the poodle that she had been cooing. No one in the CIA was punished for trying to run the ambassador out of the country...''
http://www.counterpunch.org/hendricks02182011.html
This essay is an interesting rainy afternoon read. It tells the story of how
Hendricks undercovered several indentities of a gang of CIA agents who kidnapped a radical cleric in Milan who was organizing his own terrorist cells outside Italy. It turns out that the police and prosecutors in Milan were trustworthy and good at their own investigations and were building a case to arrest and try this cleric. The CIA kidnapped the guy and took him to Egypt to torture him for months on end. The same Milan court brought a cast against the CIA agents, tried them and convicted them in absentia.
It takes awhile to see that such an operation was exactly as Hendricks describes, arrogant, stupid, and illegal. Such a conclusion leads to the insight into CIA incompetence, lack of accountibility, and the totally bankrupt nature of our own political system.
For me, the story is a micro-model of the whole war on terror policy apparatus and the mental constructs that created it. What the story outlines
is actually what should have been done after 9/11. Well, obviously what should have been going on for years and would have probably prevented anything like 9/11 in the first place.
Hendricks writes:
``...because Milan's magistrates and police happen to be particularly competent, the counterterrorists of Milan have been among the most active and have become among the most successful in the world. They fight terrorism
with investigations, arrests, and trials, and they have probably put away more terrorists through the rule of law in their small jurisdiction than the
entire U.S. government has done through the lawlessness of renditions, illegal war, and torture.''
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