Year of the Spy

[pberq]

Here's a good look at what we can expect from the revamped CIA. Bush knows most of what he wants to do will never be approved by Americans, so here's the answer: have the CIA do it in secret:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/year_of_the_spy.php

<snip>
But a vast expansion of the CIA, combined with the ongoing explosion in the U.S. Special Forces command at the Defense Department, means that American foreign policy will have unprecedented ability to conduct covert operations worldwide, on the president's whim. Assassinate Iranian scientists? Go ahead. Support paramilitary rebels in the Ukraine? Sure. Secretly arm and deploy Syrian dissidents? Go for it.

That doesn't even begin to cover the domestic possibility for covert activities, given the effective merger between the CIA and the FBI begun by the Patriot Act and pushed hard by the 9/11 Commission.

[Coryoth]

1. The CIA is a mess

Currently the CIA is in chaos. Given the dissent over the new director, the general unwillingness to follow the newer guidelines, and the large number of experienced senior staff who have resigned in the last 6 months, I don't think the CIA is going to be all that capable for a while.

[indigobusiness]

2. The whole culture of secrecy and disinfo is a mess.

It's time for an era of honesty, candor, and truth...damn the torpedoes.

No way it could be as costly.

[bhikkhu]

3. The problem with spies...

dimwitted ones are not much use. That rules out most neo-con loyalists. Intelligence does not breed loyalty, given the "facts on the ground", as they stand. Its possible, in spite of all good intentions for a globally effective spy network, that we are at the beginnings of a long decline. Urgent conditions without practical remedy.