Article

2022-10-08 Government Corruption

Has the C.I.A. Done More Harm Than Good?

[New Yorker] On January 4, 1995, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, of New York, introduced a bill called the Abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency Act. It had been a rough stretch for the C.I.A. The year before, Aldrich Ames, a longtime officer, had been convicted of being a longtime mole for Soviet (and then Russian) intelligence. Despite having a reputation among his colleagues as a problem drinker who appeared to live far beyond his means, Ames had been given high-level assignments with access to the names of American sources in the U.S.S.R. When the F.B.I. finally arrested him, he was in the Jaguar he used for commuting to work at Langley; by then, he was responsible for the death of at least ten agents. Moynihan said that the case was such a flamboyant display of incompetence that it might actually be a distraction from "the most fundamental defects of the C.I.A." He meant that the agency—in what he considered to be its "defining failure"—had both missed the fact that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse and done little to hasten its end.

He gave a diagnosis for what had gone wrong. "Secrecy keeps mistakes secret," he said. "Secrecy is a disease. It causes a hardening of the arteries of the mind." He quoted John le Carré on that point, adding that the best information actually came from the likes of area specialists, diplomats, historians, and journalists. If the C.I.A. was disbanded, he said, the State Department could pick up the intelligence work, and do a better job.

Moynihan was, in some respects, being disingenuous. As he well knew, even if his bill had passed, spies and spying wouldn’t have gone away. The State Department already had its own mini agency, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The Departments of Energy and Treasury each had one, too. The Defense Intelligence Agency conducted clandestine operations; U.S. Army Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, and the Office of Naval Intelligence kept themselves busy as well. The National Security Agency was nearly two decades away from the revelation, by Edward Snowden, a contractor and a former C.I.A. employee, that it had collected information about the phone calls of most Americans, but it was a behemoth even in Moynihan’s time. So was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There were about a dozen agencies then; now, after reforms that were supposed to streamline things, there are eighteen, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (O.D.N.I.), a sort of meta-C.I.A. that has a couple of thousand employees, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis. The Drug Enforcement Administration (which currently has foreign offices in sixty-nine countries) has an Office of National Security Intelligence. Four million people in the United States now have security clearances.

Posted by Besoeker 2022-10-08 01:55|| || Front Page|| [13 views ] Top

#1 Four million people in the United States now have security clearances.

Including the ones like Hunter.

Posted by Dron66046 2022-10-08 02:22|| 2022-10-08 02:22|| Front Page Top

#2 DPM was one of very few Dems that I ever respected.

Ever since his "Defining Deviancy Down" essay I felt that he could tell up from down.

Posted by AlanC 2022-10-08 09:35|| 2022-10-08 09:35|| Front Page Top

#3 Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from back when Democrats came in other varieties than 'corrupt' and/or 'crazed leftists'. Miss him.

Posted by magpie 2022-10-08 09:49|| 2022-10-08 09:49|| Front Page Top

#4 The CIA does not trumpet its successes. Is that because it has none?

Posted by Herman Throsing5918 2022-10-08 11:18|| 2022-10-08 11:18|| Front Page Top

#5 Moynihan wrote a book at the time called, appropriately enough, Secrecy. It made the same point as Dron comment #1 - half the government has some sort of clearance or another. DPM tried to point out how ridiculous it was to stamp everything SECRET and admirably attempted to stem the tide. His Senate seat then passed to Hillary who set new high scores in the Deep State video game of compartmentalizing and operating outside public view. Reach a certain level and whole new worlds open up.

Posted by York Harding 2022-10-08 11:37|| 2022-10-08 11:37|| Front Page Top

#6 Everyone in Latin America hates us because of the CIA
The rest of the world distrusts us because of the CIA
We have a massive drug problem in the us because of them
And they’ve been dead wrong on so many intelligence failures

Does that answer your question?
I hate them

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2022-10-08 12:18|| 2022-10-08 12:18|| Front Page Top

#7 Who cares about the CIA's successes? They don't represent our interests. That's reason enough for them to be disbanded.

"Even if Russia was trying to swing the election, we try to swing their elections, our CIA is doing s**t all the time, we're out there trying to manipulate governments," Bonifield said.

Posted by Spike the Hairy6811 2022-10-08 12:43|| 2022-10-08 12:43|| Front Page Top

#8 Ref #6: Then you also "hate" the Deep State SPOD.

Or have I made an incorrect assessment ?

Posted by Besoeker 2022-10-08 12:57|| 2022-10-08 12:57|| Front Page Top

#9 Loathe and despise Besoeker
Loathe and despise
They tried to kill me twice in Angola and hung me out to dry in Rhodesia
I slept with a Colt under my pillow for years because they outed me to a hostile country

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2022-10-08 14:08|| 2022-10-08 14:08|| Front Page Top

#10 /\ If he were yet with us today, Lt. Col. Ron Reid-Daly would probably share your sentiments SPOD. I for one, salute your service.

Posted by Besoeker 2022-10-08 14:22|| 2022-10-08 14:22|| Front Page Top

#11
Oh don't we love those faaarm boys 🎵
The farm boys the farm boys 🎶

They make everything easy peasy!

Oh don't we love those faaarm boys 🎵
The farm boys the farm boys 🎶

Cigarette smoking man all wheezy! 🎵

Oh don't we love those faaarm boys 🎵
The farm boys the farm boys 🎶

It's not all MASINT and parcheesi! 🎵

Posted by Dron66046 2022-10-08 14:45|| 2022-10-08 14:45|| Front Page Top

#12 Given what I have read so far, y'all make this pretty hard not to post a comment that does not make the response threshold as:

I've read so many, this site is about to go out of business.... really - The Culinary Institute of America --- has nothing to do with this situation... /sarc off

Posted by Bill Phusotch4496 2022-10-08 20:12|| 2022-10-08 20:12|| Front Page Top

#13 It's never BEEN a business. It's Fred's Labor of Love. If you don't like it, feel free to start your own and disappear from here, oh Anonymous One? Nobody's stopping you

Posted by Frank G 2022-10-08 20:28|| 2022-10-08 20:28|| Front Page Top

#14 because they outed me to a hostile country

The great unwashed Americans?

Wait...so you no longer sleep on a Colt?

Posted by Skidmark 2022-10-08 20:46|| 2022-10-08 20:46|| Front Page Top

#15 #6 Everyone in Latin America hates us because of the CIA
The rest of the world distrusts us because of the CIA

They feel the same way about Mossad but in most cases because they blame everything bad that happens on those two groups evidence or not. Hollywood makes it worse as the CIA has been the secret villain in nearly every spy movie since the Cold War ended (and a large number before).

CIA is in the awkward position of being unable to scream their accomplishments.

Just trying to be fair here, I'm still a bit biter that they missed the fall of the Soviet Union.

Posted by ruprecht 2022-10-08 21:56|| 2022-10-08 21:56|| Front Page Top

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