I'm not buying the CIA "Purge" stories. That's just spin

[Walt Starr]

"Purging" the CIA of elements "disloyal to Bush" is an attempt to control the spin on what's actually happeneing.

What we have going on is full blown mutiny.

Watch for additional resignations and tons of whistleblowers. That's my take on the situation. Also, watch to see if Plame comes back as an issue

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. You may be quite correct.

On edit: The CIA is full of Episcopalian, Princeton-graduate, moderate Republicans. On the whole, a rather non-contraversial or idealogical bunch. This could be the ghost of Plame come back to haunt them.

[kysrsoze]

2. I certainly fucking hope so. This is insane. 6 more today alone.

[aquart]

5. SIX??????????? Holy Hannah. Source?

I'm not watching the news. Give me a link?

[kysrsoze]

9. CNN

[aquart]

3. Yes, it's a mutiny. But it was fomented to cause resignations.

The top leadership in the CIA refused to back the war. And they covered their own asses and left George's naked in the 9/11 investigation. Our George is a vengeful George.

Goss gave Murray free rein to insult the hell out of entrenched bureaucrats. Another petty-minded, short-sighted decision.

[LiberalFighter]

45. Mutiny doesn't do any good unless they...

terminate with prejudice the cause of the problem whether current or new.

[Sparkle]

4. Bush better be careful about ticking off the CIA establishment.

I know his pop was head of it but that was years ago. He's skating on thin ice over there.

[benddem]

6. Just a rumor

but word is that the Book George Tennant is shopping to publishers is going to be bad news for Condo leeza.

[mirandaod]

7. Interesting take.

If this is truly what's happening, I hope the whistles start blowing quickly.
But the purge idea fits with the ethos of the * administration - anything less than servile bowing and scraping is not tolerated, and met with revenge. It's a really stupid way to run an intelligence agency - damn the truth, just tell me what I want to hear.
We'll just have to see it play out.

[jasmeel]

8. I hadn't thought of it that way... I like that better.

That helps the * admin's ability to attack the people after they go out and tell their story.

[Walt Starr]

10. Yep, when the backlash comes they spin it as "disgruntled ex-CIA"

Because they were "purged".

[Beetwasher]

11. It's BOTH and It's NOT GOOD

There is definitely a purging and there's also a mass exoudus and it ain't good. Chaos in the CIA when we need it the most is not a good thing. We are all less safe and the danger increases with every purged employee and every resignation of a top staffer.

Who's watching all the projects on the burners? It's very easy for a flame to get out of control when you take your eye off it, even for a moment.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. We "need" the CIA about as much as we "need " hemmorhoids.

Both are useless and painful.

[Skidmore]

13. We need less what * and Poppy will replace them with.

[Beetwasher]

16. Uh Huh

Right...I take it you don't live in a bullseye?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. Every question why this country is a "bullseye"?

You might check out the history of the CIA and it's doings. Not to mention it's monumental blunders.

[Beetwasher]

21. Irrelevant

Not everyone in the CIA is Dr. Evil or one of his henchman and it's shortsighted and silly to think so...The CIA is responsible for lot's of bad stuff, but it's also an important line of defense, one that is desperately needed right now...You can be cavalier about it, but then I guess it is every individuals perogative to keep their heads up their ass...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Well, enjoy the view.

If we have to rely on the incompetant thugs at CIA to keep us safe, you better start digging your shelter now.

As for being "cavalier", I'm a helluva lot more nervous about what my own government is doing than what "the terrorists" are hatching..to get back revenge for what our government is doing.

[Beetwasher]

27. Clueless

Utterly clueless...Yes, the best thing to do is purge the CIA and throw it into chaos right when the danger is the most severe...That's okey dokey by you! If the CIA is as evil as you say, why is Bushco. getting rid of so many people? You'd think they'd hang on to everyone in that dastardly den of Dr. Evils. Why are so mant leaving the CIA? You'd think they'd be chomping at the bit to do the dirty work for their Republican overlords...What foolish and pathetic tunnel vision you have...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. Tunnel vision?

And, you seem to be incapable of seeing beyond the short term. The "terrorists" are after us because of what the thugs at CIA does, (or attempts to do).

You think the current CIA guys are leaving because they're too "liberal"? Since when has the CIA been a force for democracy or liberality? And, since when have they refused to the bidding of their masters? (Except the ones that the KGB or Mossad had implanted in their ever so efficient organization).

Talk about tunnel vision. The thugs are being replaced by thugs.

[Beetwasher]

34. Uhhh, When You've Got a Gun To Your Head

The short is all that matters...No one ever said the CIA was liberal except Bushco...You like putting words in people's mouths? How dishonest of you.

There's lot's of room between Liberal and Bushco. and you obviously don't have a clue about the CIA if you think they are ALL anti democratic monsters...Though if Bushco. gets their way the WILL all be...The one's that are leaving and being purged are the good guys, and yes, there were good guys in the CIA, but you're tunnel vision is so severe you seem incapable of realizing that not everyone in an intel agency is Dr. Evil. It's like you subscribe to some comic book version of reality and it's really pathetic and immature.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

42. Comic book version?

Chile, Guatamala, Honduras, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Congo, Angola, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Mozambique, Uganda, Iran, etc, etc, etc.

I'm sure that the Mafia has some decent upstanding folks in it too who love their wives and kids, pet puppies, and vote Democratic.

It's like you subscribe to Tom Clancy's idea of the heroic CIA doing swell things on our behalf. As if the "decent" moderate CIA folks have a lot of say in what our government orders them to do. When did that happen?

Why don't you list some of the really good things that those nice people have done since it became CIA?

[Beetwasher]

44. Really, Really Infantile Black and White Views of The World

will only get you derision from me. That's how Bushco. sees the world.

I never said the CIA didn't do bad things, but just like there are bad cops on every police force there are also good cops.

Maybe you trust that Bushco. is purging the CIA for the benefit of the country and it's a good thing, but you'd be a fool to do so.

Go ahead and cheer Bushcos dismantling and purging of the CIA and cheer even more when all the "evil" people he's getting rid of are replaced with Feith's, Perle's and Wolfowitz's.

How pathetically naive.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

48. You have yet to tell me about the good things the CIA has done.

Or, how a change in leadership will affect it's already rotten policies.

Your faith in the "good" people in the CIA is touching. But, you can't tell me what they've accomplished.

As for "..Bushco. is purging the CIA for the benefit of the country and it's a good thing". Now who's putting words in someone's mouth.

Sure Wolfowitz, Perle and Feith are evil monsters. But, what's going to change? What's so different about them from Dulles, Helms, Turner, McCone, Schlesinger, Woolsey or Tenet?

Please also point out to me my "black and white" view of the world.

Or will you merely resort to "naive", "without a clue", or such other well founded disputations.



Naive? Right.

[Beetwasher]

57. Indeed, Naive or Worse

Willfully ignorant...

CIA is a completely evil entity...That's a black and white view if I've ever seen one.

Tracking WMD's is a GOOD thing. Stopping weapons prolifation-GOOD. That's ALSO the CIA's job. You don't hear much about the success stories of the CIA because you're not supposed to. It means they are doing the job CORRECTLY. You only know about Valerie Plame, who was doing GOOD work tracking WMD proliferation because the guys who are about to take over the CIA outed her. That's the difference between then and now. Then, good guys did their jobs and were allowed to, now, you get outed and/or purged if you're a good guy in the CIA who's not a Bush bootlicker.

[firebee]

18. Bullshit!!!

The CIA's very useful when they're not being misguided by some policy maker's agenda. If our policy maker's would quit telling them what to look for and just react to what the CIA is finding, their's a good possibility 9/11 would've been disrupted and their's no way in hell we would've ended up in Iraq. I'm fed up with people jackin off the CIA because some people in the White House disregarded what the CIA had to offer. People in the CIA told the White House that the evidence on Iraq was screwed and people in the CIA gave warnings about the terrorist threat prior to 9/11. However, Bush and kin proceeded to run their agenda on missile defense and then they undermined the advice of CIA officials and went into Iraq.

The CIA's not the problem. The policy maker's are the problem.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. Useful for what?

They have a long and bloody history of undermining democratic governments and third world attempts at freedom (Chile, Angola, Mozambique, Congo, Cambodia, Vietnam, Guatamala, Honduras, to name a few), assasinations, funding mercenaries, etc.

As for "gathering intelligence", they did such a swell job in Cuba, on the USSR's capabilities of waging war, Greneda and it's threatening 400 Cubans, Iran, North Korea, etc.

A bunch of bumbling, murderous, goons.

[firebee]

26. Only when misguided

Like I said.. these things only happened when they were misguided by jackass policy maker's. How come these kind of things never happened during the Clinton years? You didn't hear about the CIA screwing with Central America or Africa. That's because Clinton's administration didn't misguide them and misuse them for their own gains. Again... The CIA wouldn't be a problem if "POLICY MAKER'S" didn't abuse the CIA.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

49. Kennedy, LBJ, Carter?

Jackass policy makers?

[Carl Brennan]

15. The CIA is probably the biggest threat to democracy we have

They control the media, they fix elections, they spread drugs among the populace to control them as well as turn select elements into criminals. They derail political campaigns and, IMO, are behind the killing of numerous liberal politicans in the past.

They are little more than a Gestapo. In fact J. Edgar Hoover, of all people, warned against this.


The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.
J. Edgar Hoover

[Beetwasher]

17. Parts Of It, Yes

There are (were :shrug:) also some very serious and good patriots with the agency...We are less safe because of this, that's a fact...

[Carl Brennan]

31. I agree there are numerous good patriots. But we've seen

good people enable bad policy and bad people so often. Irwin Rommel was not a member of the Nazi Party and yet he served it well. He was purged, "suicided".

IMO the CIA is a case of the cure being worse than the disease. It should never been formed in the first place. It was formed by a sleaze parade of Right-Wing whack jobs that were linked to organized crime. It was never about protecting the US; it was about destroying democracy. Nothing the CIA has done was to promote democracy. THEY create chaos, war, etc. to keep the profits flowing in and to justify their existence.

I'm pretty strong minded about this. The CIA needs to be brought under the control of Congress and if that cannot be done then it needs to be shitcanned.


BTW. I used to feel the same way you do and respect your opinion. You naturally are concerned about the security of the country. I think that terrorism is a tool of the CIA and Al Qaeda an asset to further terrorism.

[Beetwasher]

35. What You Say May Be True

To a certain extent, and I would love to see the CIA under control of the congress, that however does not mean that what's happening now shouldn't scare the living shit out of anyone who's paying attention. This is BUSHCO. remaking the CIA in their own image. Dismantling it from the top down and getting rid of any moderating, non-political influence. As bad as you thought the CIA was before, it still had people like Valerie Plame who was tracking WMD's and also it's share of Richard Clarke's. They will be gone and replaced with Perle's, Feith's and Wolfowitz's.

Here's Josh Marshall's take:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

"If you think this is just a Washington squabble or political debating point you'd be mistaken. Because your lives, and those of your families and friends, may very well be on the line."

[Carl Brennan]

41. Again you have a good point. That could happen, but

also what is happening is that there is a mutiny going on and this, by its very nature, weakens BushCo's control IMO. My belief is that blind loyalty is usually accompanied by ineptness, reactionaryism, faith based foolishness. Unlike Nazi Germany the US has a vocal if not vociferous large section of the population fighting against the machine. Bush simply will not be able to ratchet down the control much tighter without alienating even more people.

By nearly any reality based measure the CIA is little more than organized crime.

I don't think that the moderates in the CIA were doing much good from the inside, they were just treading water as their frustration grew. The orders came from Bush. The more good people leave and tell their story the more the public will question the actions of the CIA. I've always thought that 90% of the battle is simply getting the public informed.

Here is what Hoover had to say about the CIA:


http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-riebling052802.asp

....At the close of World War II, longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wanted a worldwide spy service under his sole authority. He insisted that a geographical division in duties was unworkable, even dangerous. But when he saw that a creation of CIA was inevitable, Hoover did a one-eighty. If the new agency were given any domestic-security functions, he argued, it would become a "Gestapo".

The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.
J. Edgar Hoover

[Beetwasher]

43. I Understand What You're Saying, But You Paint W/ Too Broad A Brush

An agency like the CIA has a LOT of autonomy. They were NOT all taking their orders from Bush, as a matter of fact, that's why they're being purged. There is a certain amount of what's referred to as inertia in these agencies and a whole lot of the agency is actually controlled internally by the Op Heads (these are the guys that are leaving). They direct their assets in the field and make the day to day decisions and read they daily reports and put the pieces together etc.

I just don't buy the whole "The CIA is the epitomy of evil" rhetoric. Yes, a lot of it is bad, but a lot of it isn't and believe it or not, they've done a lot of good to that you don't hear about.

Hoover had good PERSONAL reason to call the CIA a potential gestapo because HE wanted that pie TOO and they wouldn't let him have it. That wall that existed for a long time keeping the CIA out of domestic issues is coming down because of what's happening w/ this purge/exodus.

I just don't think things are as simple as some paint them; CIA is EVIL therefore it's a good thing it's being demolished by Bushco. This is NOT good and Bushcos intentions are VILE.

As far as this being a mutiny, that's a nice thought, however, with what authority and under what agency will these mutinous employees be acting under? They leave the CIA in supposed mutiny and do what exactly, with whose resources and what staff and what organization and under whose direction? What ship will they sieze control over? A mutiny suggests taking control of a vessel, outside of the CIA they have NO VESSEL, so what good is this "mutiny"?

[Carl Brennan]

47. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

You cannot excuse the big crime committed by an organizaton for the good some members of an organization perform. The CIA never should have been created. No Founding Father would have permitted it because it undermines thoroughly the whole idea of open government. From its inception it conducted some very depraved operations: MKULTRA is one of the sickest.

The CIA is about as absolute in its power as any government agency ever has been. You simply have to look at the history to understand this. It was the way it was created and the writing of its charter, one paragraph in that charter turns it into an absolute power by granting the CIA the option of taking things into their own hands when there is ambiguity about the legal aspects of an operation. This, in essence, gave the CIA the power to formulate and execute policy. A job they did with relish.

You seem to be concerned more about national security and that's a legitimate concern, but there are plenty of ways of maintaining security without stripping away representative government. Hell, the country did just that for most of its history. If, on the other hand, we determine that democracy cannot be maintained, which it definitely cannot be with a CIA in operation, then let's call this country what it is and quite faking it.

[Beetwasher]

58. Sorry, But You Have to Work W/ What You Got

and maybe the CIA needed to be reworked or remade, but now is not the time and these are not the people to do it...

Who said anything about having to strip away representative gov't for security? Oh, you did, not me, and guess what? That's EXACTLY what this purge is all about.

This is making the country less secure. As much as you and others hate the CIA, people like Valerie Plame WERE keeping us safer. Now they are not and there will be decidedly LESS people like Plame now and more people like the one's that OUTED her.

[Carl Brennan]

61. Government power without accountability means no democracy.

The CIA is unaccountable to the Public will. It is what it is because of the 1947 NSA Act that created it. This Act needs to be shitcanned or the CIA charter modified to make it accountable. I have no personal animus toward the CIA and I have stated that I beleive numerous people within the CIA and Intelligence Community are decent, brave people. What needs to happen is that the CIA, as we know it, must be changed--brought under the control of the Legislative Branch--or abolished if that cannot be done, or shitcan the Constitution.

Fundamentally we must answer the question: Can we have national security without the CIA, or a CIA under the control of the Legislature? If we conclude that we cannot have security without the CIA then we are no longer a Republic and need to get over the illusion that we are. I beleive we can have national security without the CIA.

[zeek]

62. The CIA is accoutable

As part of the intelligence community they are subject to congressional oversight. The days of a freewheeling wild west style organization with no rules and accountable to no one are over.

[Carl Brennan]

63. Welcome. But I will need some examples and sources

from you to believe that.
Thanks in advance.

[Beetwasher]

64. A Different Argument For A Different Time

We can have NO national security at all without a CIA NOW. That's the point. The people who WERE doing the actual security are NOW being removed from the CIA. It's very simple really. There WERE good people in the CIA protecting us from terrorists. They are now leaving or being purged and replaced w/ incompetent political appointees and Bush lackeys.

I guess you would prefer NOTHING to SOMETHING at a time when our security is MOST threatened. Do you honestly believe Bushco. is about to rebuild the CIA or our intel agencies with any degree of accountability to any except Bush? As bad as things may have been before, they will NOW be decidedly worse. I really don't understand what your beef is or how you can fail to see that. :shrug:

I get it, you don't like the CIA. Guess what? You will like it even less now. Is that a GOOD thing as far as your concerned? Perhaps we should have NO agency that effectively fights terrorists?

[Carl Brennan]

67. You ignored the complexity of my statement. You can protect national

security and preserve democracy.

Your claim:

"We can have NO national security at all without a CIA NOW."

It needs, at minimum, as I've said a # of times, to be controlled, reformed, etc. That's it.

[rndmprsn]

14. part purge...part mutiny

either way it aint good..that said, i could not expect CIA agents of good conscience to stand by and not speak up or resist to what they know is wrong.

i feel a tidal wave of leaks about plame, 9/11 and the PNAC/neo-con infection of the govt to start coming out soon.

if it wasn't so serious i'd say pop up some pop-corn and watch the fireworks @ the CIA, repup civil-war and i suspect the state dept sometime soon too

[Cat Atomic]

19. Maybe. Or maybe they want to pull another Iraq-style invasion, and

have learned their lesson about reality-based CIA beauracrats. Kind of cleaning house ahead of some new bullshit offensive.

[donhakman]

22. mutiny?

[oly]

25. During the Cold War, the CIA was quite political -- CIA supported

the political effort. Over-estimations of Soviet power was common place -- so politions could push the latest arms boondoggle and curb domestic change. Fear worked then, as well as it does today. Repugs and DINO's were successful with this strategy after the 60's. You remember the 60's, when some folks demanded and obtained changes and, in doing so, blew the minds of the establishment folks. This time around, and with much more RW power, Bush wants to entrench the terror war for much the same reasons. Kind of like taking an "MS Word brain program" and doing a mass change of Communism to Terrorism in the collective mind of many people. This time the domestic target is the 20th century changes including the 60's changes -- that piss off the ruling elites and boggle the minds of fundies.

[Oilwellian]

28. Correction

The CIA's "Team B" supports the political agenda.

Dating Back to Watergate

Though one cost of corrupting U.S. intelligence can now be counted in the growing U.S. death toll in Iraq, the origins of the current problem can be traced back to the mid-1970s, when conservatives were engaged in fierce rear-guard defenses after the twin debacles of the Vietnam War and Watergate. In 1974, after Republican President Richard Nixon was driven from office over the Watergate political-spying scandal, the Republicans suffered heavy losses in congressional races. The next year, the U.S. –backed government in South Vietnam fell.

At this crucial juncture, a group of influential conservatives coalesced around a strategy of accusing the CIA’s analytical division of growing soft on communism. These conservatives – led by the likes of Richard Pipes, Paul Nitze, William Van Cleave, Max Kampelman, Eugene Rostow, Elmo Zumwalt and Richard Allen – claimed that the CIA’s Soviet analysts were ignoring Moscow’s aggressive strategy for world domination. This political assault put in play one of the CIA’s founding principles – objective analysis.

Since its creation in 1947, the CIA had taken pride in maintaining an analytical division that stayed above the political fray. The CIA analysts – confident if not arrogant about their intellectual skills – prided themselves in bringing unwanted news to the president’s door. Those reports included an analysis of Soviet missile strength that contradicted John F. Kennedy’s “missile gap” rhetoric or the debunking of Lyndon Johnson’s assumptions about the effectiveness of bombing in Vietnam. While the CIA’s operational division got itself into trouble with risky schemes, the analytical division maintained a fairly good record of scholarship and objectivity.

But that tradition came under attack in 1976 when conservative outsiders demanded and got access to the CIA’s strategic intelligence on the Soviet Union. Their goal was to contest the analytical division’s assessments of Soviet capabilities and intentions. The conservatives saw the CIA’s tempered analysis of Soviet behavior as the underpinning of then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s strategy of détente, the gradual normalizing of relations with the Soviet Union. Détente was, in effect, a plan to negotiate an end to the Cold War or at least its most dangerous elements.

This CIA view of a tamer Soviet Union had enemies inside Gerald Ford’s administration. Hard-liners, such as William J. Casey, John Connally, Clare Booth Luce and Edward Teller, sat on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Another young hard-liner, Dick Cheney, was Ford’s chief of staff. Donald Rumsfeld was then – as he is today – the secretary of defense.

Team B

The concept of a conservative counter-analysis, which became known as “Team B,” had been opposed by the previous CIA director, William Colby, as in inappropriate intrusion into the integrity of the CIA’s analytical product. But the new CIA director, a politically ambitious George H.W. Bush, was ready to acquiesce to the right-wing pressure.

More on Team B:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/102203.html

[starroute]

38. Thanks for posting -- this is useful

I've seen Team B mentioned as the point where the Neocons (Pipes, Perle, Wolfowitz) first got into positions of influence, and also as involving Daniel O. Graham (CIA deputy director, 1973-74; DIA director, 1974-76; then advisor to Reagan and Star Wars advocate) -- but I've never known the whole story.

It's clear that this is where the entire sorry process of politicizing intelligence began. It's odd that people still recall Jerry Ford more or less fondly, considering how many terrible things trace back to his administration.

[annabanana]

39. Thank you for the team B info......

People who think that the CIA consists solely of underhanded uberthugs don't understand the Washington thicket at all.

[JHB]

40. Team B WASN"T the CIA...

...It was the 1970s RW hawks and proto-neocons (including Wolfowitz himself) making the very same claim that * is now: that the analysts are all out-of touch liberals, etc., so "Team B" was a set of outside analysts brought in for an "outside perspective". On some technical subjects (i.e., missile accuracy) they did have some improvements, but the strategic team conjured up the standard RW wet dream of Soviet Supermen just itching to invade and take us over unless we "threw money" at the Pentagon and its contractors. Not surprisingly, it was leaked to the conservative community and provided the rationale for the Reagan arms bulidup.

In other word, "Team B" is the sort of people * wants to put in now.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

46. The CIA was rotten prior to the '70s under Dems and Repugs.

1953 Iran : CIA and MI-6 engineered the overthrow of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh's budding democracy in Iran and reinstalled the Shah.

1957 Guatamala: Overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman and installation of a military dictatorship. The CIA advised usage of things like axes, hammers, screwdrivers, in assasinations.

1958: Indonesia: Flew arms to rightwing generals to overthrow Sukarno. Supplied them with B-26 bombers.

1959 to the present: Assasination attempts, crop burning, bombings, and the Bay of Pigs.

1968 - '76: Chile: Advice and financing to the military junta that later installed Pinochet and his policy of "disappearances" and murder.

And many more.

[oly]

60. "Correction" of what? n/t

[ElectroPrincess]

29. I hope you're right on this one Walt ... you've made a good case :-)

[Doohickie]

30. Walt, I came to this site to dispute your assertion

that *'s "Ribbon-gate" would affect the election. I think, however, that in this case, you are 123% correct.

They will mass under the Rebel Leader (Tenet) and launch an assault on the Death Star.

[Walt Starr]

36. I never made that assertion

In fact, I asserted it probably wouldn't mean a lot to the elction, but was something I had to go all the way to a resolution on.

:D

BTW, I hope I'm reading this one correctly.

[Doohickie]

51. You may have not made that assertion as such,

but you did seem to think proving Ribbon-gate was awfully important to the election at the time. At least that's the way I remember it.

But even if I remember it wrong, the point is, I think you are absolutely reading this one correctly.

[Gold Metal Flake]

33. I do hope the DNC is reaching out to receptive former CIA employees.

The Party needs intel, and certainly needs lessens on developing and utilizing intel. They also need a better understanding of where the skeletons are. Sadly, as we saw during the election, the DNC can have all sorts of info (the * admin destroying the anti-terror systems prior to 9/11) and refusing to use it effectively or at all.

[deadparrot]

37. I hope you're right...

if these resignations were the agents' choice, by their own will, I would feel a lot better, maybe a little hopeful.

The idea of purging all dissenters creeps me out, and reeks of fascism.

[chookie]

50. Justin Raimondo addressed this today

Compares it to the periodic purges in the totalitarian governments in the Soviet Union and Maoist China.

Walt -- I think he would agree that there is open mutiny from skilled experts who value facts, and purges are coming from the folk who like their "evidence" cherry-picked

Here's a excerpt, especially chosen because there is a lot of discussion on this thread of the "ambivalence" of the CIA -- a subject addressed in some detail in this essay:

"To my leftist and libertarian readers, this talk of the CIA as the good guys – the guardians of our security, and our last and best line of defense – seems counterintuitive, and strange coming from a professed libertarian critic of foreign intervention. Yet the reality is that the CIA, as a body of professionals charged with understanding the world, has acted as a brake on the aggressive and expansionist instincts of the world-conquerors in the Pentagon. The evolution of the CIA ranks' opposition to the neoconservatives' dreams of empire is a function, to some degree, of their job description: they, after all, have to know what they are talking about. They deal in hard facts, not high-falutin' theory: data, not dreams – which is why, like Scheuer, they see the worldwide Islamist insurgency as a response to American policies, not an attack on the right of American women to vote, drive, and walk about unveiled. It's also why they knew the Iraq war was a major mistake, and fought it to the bitter end, allying themselves with high-ranking military leaders and the diplomatic community in a last ditch effort to keep us out of Iraq. "

The rest is at
http://antiwar.com/justin/

[chookie]

52. Oh, and by the way, here's something else the purge is intended to do

People who are experts about such matters, and who do not have their heads stuck so far up their beloved Emperor's ass that they see nothing at all -- think that there WILL be a detonation of a primitive nuclear device within the USA.

I concur. Like Scheuer, I have tried to *understand* Osama bin Laden. He's a pretty interesting enemy! He's awful darned smart -- but his intellect is clouded by flaws of ego. If he was REALLY smart, he'd sit back and let Bush destroy America all by himself. However, Osama, although he is a brilliant strategist thinker, has a flair for the dramatic, and may desire to use a nuclear device within the US for the sheer thrill of ego that he pulled it off. I am not good enough of a chess player to anticipate how a second attack will play out, and if Osama is *planning* for it; maybe Scheuer has an idea of what might be the intended result of such a move....

But here's the point I wish to make: they are purging the CIA in anticipation of a nuclear device being detonated within the US -- because it will be absolutely CRITICAL for them to conceal the origins of the nuclear material. Why? Because if was obtained *after* the fall of the Soviet Union, in the late 80s, when George the First *****FAILED**** to help Russia -- to secure its nuclear materials. My dear friends -- nuclear materials were sitting around unsecured everywhere, just like the notorious explosives cache in Iraq of recent headlines. Scientists and security guards had no money for food -- so they sold their shit off back in the late 80s, and they didn't care to whom. Former President Richard Nixon WARNED George the First that his **first priority*** MUST be securing those nuclear materials, because, he said, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the whole global security strategy changed -- the threat of the future was going to be small bands of highly mobile highly motivated terrorist groups. Nixon saw all this shit coming our way twenty years ago....

But George the First did NOTHING!!! Was it incompetence? Or part of a plan? I have been asking myself that question for many years.

Anyway -- the American people must NEVER find out these materials were bought from the Russians, because George the First failed to secure them. They're going to instruct Wolf Blitzer to tell us some other wacky story about where they got if from -- from the next guy on their "To Destroy" list.

Having said that -- please forward my mail to Guantanamo....

[amandabeech]

66. Yours, and a lot of other people's I imagine.

Have any idea of the targets. Inquiring minds want to know where not to spend the hollidays.

[auburngrad82]

53. I heard on NPR that they were leaving because Goff's staff was

arrogant and refused to work with the people at the CIA. The story was about how Goff's staff, who have no intelligence experience at all, are alienating the intelligence experts and how these experts have opted to leave rather than being treated poorly by Goff and his people.

This is dangerous to our national security if there is any truth to it.

Arrogance over security.

Sounds like the GOP all right.

[AnIndependentTexan]

54. actually I knew this was coming

and guess what the military will be next!

[bobbieinok]

59. didn't they start purging the military shortly after W's 'inauguration'?

and radically reorganize the chain of command

Hitler and the Nazis did this.....they got rid of the military leaders who questioned their goals...

[pacalo]

55. I agree that it's mutiny.

Goss & his top aides are all from Capitol Hill - they didn't get their jobs at the CIA by climbing up the ladder of experience. They can't afford to lose ANY of the most qualified agents.

Goss has said himself that he's not qualified to be an EMPLOYEE of the CIA, much less RUN it. What a mess.

[desi826]

56. Which just shows we are less safe

because Bush cares more that no one will turn him in, than our safety.
Funny, all conventional sources said that it would be the Generals that will turn on him first. It was thought that they would rebel over the unnecessary loss of life in Iraq.
Des

[ailsagirl]

65. You could be right...

it could be a diversionary tactic-- these goons are so good at that.

Trying to divert us from voter fraud, I suspect.