Spent a couple of hours this morning reading the NY Times stories about the CIA torture report. Its an amazing tale. After reading it I was astonished by the chutzpah of the CIA, and also was left wondering, What the hell do we need this agency for? What has it done for us that justifies not only its huge cost but also the damage it does to our standing around the world? Lets look at the record: The CIA failed in the 1940s to predict that the Soviet Union would get The Bomb. It was the principal architect of the ridiculous Bay of Pigs invasion. It failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. It failed to prevent 9/11 and other, lesser terrorist attacks. It failed to predict the chaos that would follow the Iraq invasion. It failed to predict the Arab Spring and its aftermath. It failed to predict the rebellion in Syria and the rise of ISIS resulting from it. It failed to predict the Chechen uprising and Russias brutal suppression of it. It failed to predict Putins invasion of Ukraine. The CIA likes to project an image of itself as super-competent and super-effective, and this image is fostered by novels and movies. But looking back over its history since Cold War days, I feel like Im watching a bunch of not overly bright frat boys playing at being spies. A more in-depth look at the CIAs fiascoes: salon/2013/08/24/decades_of_failures_why_the_cia_keeps_blowing_it/
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 16:23:54 +0000
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