Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
no. It was clear from my post that I thought both adminstrations did similar things for similar, and at least vaguely proper, reasons.

FWIW, Carter did a major housecleaning too, to purge the "Vietnam" element from the Agency. Clearly a shake-up of intelligence was necessary and proper (why W didn't do one after 9/11 is still beyond me), but a number of observers credit Carter's purge (which apparently went rather overboard) with eliminating just about every spook with any experience outside of Europe & Russia, leading to dependence on the Saudis for our knowledge of the non-Israeli middle east & northern Africa. Also leading to the reliance on Saudi funding/Pakistani training of the anti-Soviet Afghan rebels. Which has worked out really well for us.

In any event, whatever one thinks of "loyalty" tests in intelligence, ruthlessly giving the chop to people leaking to the press without official sanction is clearly appropriate. I have a feeling, however, that not a lot of that goes on - I'd wager that more of the "disloyal leaks" are really just crossed lines of communication.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
You won, ok. Don't take Jon Stewart away from us, too. There's no way we're going to make it through the next four years without fake news.

Atticus recommends The West Wing.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Oddly enough, the first 2 answers I thought of in the "If only [_____] would do the right thing and put [_____] out to pasture" game were CBS and Rather.

Concur, not least because I think Novak should be in jail for publishing the Plame thing.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
In any event, whatever one thinks of "loyalty" tests in intelligence, ruthlessly giving the chop to people leaking to the press without official sanction is clearly appropriate. I have a feeling, however, that not a lot of that goes on - I'd wager that more of the "disloyal leaks" are really just crossed lines of communication.

Some of the leaking that was going on in recent months was clearly people gunning for the President, and those people have to know that they're going to lose their jobs. That's just the way it is. It's pretty sad, though, that they were able to harm the President by leaking truthful stuff about the world. Maybe tells you why they were gunning for him.

The problem is in remaking the CIA to emphasize loyalty to the President. What we need is competence, not more loyalty.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It's pretty sad, though, that they were able to harm the President by leaking truthful stuff about the world. Maybe tells you why they were gunning for him.

I think it probably says more about the nature of intelligence service. What constitutes the "truth" about the world is in large part subjective, and there are good reasons it isn't the intelligence services that decide what information should and should not be disclosed at any given time. Particularly in a time of war, and even more particularly during the sort of war we are in, which is about diplomatic, financial and covert maneouvering far more than overt military goals. In wartime I wonder if they shouldn't imprison people for stuff like that instead of firing them.

We are agreed that it seems a wretched waste to have an intelligence service and not listen to it. Though, given 9/11, it's not unreasonable to distrust and discount both the CIA's intelligence and its analysis of it. Hence my confusion about why a serious purge wasn't conducted at the beginning of '02.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
We are agreed that it seems a wretched waste to have an intelligence service and not listen to it. Though, given 9/11, it's not unreasonable to distrust and discount both the CIA's intelligence and its analysis of it. Hence my confusion about why a serious purge wasn't conducted at the beginning of '02.

I think Bush thought it would be taken as a sign of weakness and an admission that they'd screwed up on his watch. And I think he liked Tenet.

[Replaced_Texan]

Something to cross off your list of "things that have gotten worse since the 40s" (spree: article)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The problem is in remaking the CIA to emphasize loyalty to the President. What we need is competence, not more loyalty.

In related news, if you're keeping score:

Realists -8
Neocons +1

Good news for everyone who's been impressed by the success of the neocon enterprise in Iraq.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Something to cross off your list of "things that have gotten worse since the 40s" (spree: article)

I was going to come here 45 minutes ago and say "For RT, before you gloat, this is good news and, believe me, I'm happy no matter how it happens outside of abortion. However, its for kids 10-14, and back in 1940 it may have been legal for 14 year olds to be married in some states. Plus, I forget where I placed my marker, was it 1946 or the 1920s?"

Hello

ETA: Please don't spend any time looking. For the sake of argument, I'll accept 1946 and acknowledge that this is wonderful news.

[sgtclub]

At least that is what is being reported (Hi Burger) here: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=254647

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by sgtclub
At least that is what is being reported (Hi Burger) here: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=254647

Deanna Troi becomes Secretary of State. Hmmm. Less, what's the over-under on how long it takes W to ask her to type something?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

What happens when Westboro Baptist Church shows up in a small Oklahoma town to protest another church with a gay parishioner? The town rallies around its own, and tells the outsiders to get bent.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Speaking of people telling Fred Phelps to get bent:

• Former Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) has come under fire for supporting gay rights. The famously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., recently picketed the Wyoming statehouse in Cheyenne, in part because Simpson is honorary chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition and signed the group's "Cody Statement" for tolerance.
  
  In a news release, the WBC said the idea was "to picket the funeral of [gay]-enabler Alan Simpson," calling the Cody Statement "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell." In addition, it blasted "Simpson's signature with out-of-the-closet . . . Michael Huffington's," a reference to the former GOP congressman and Senate candidate from California and the ex- of former California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington.
  
  WBC pastor Fred W. Phelps asked the Cody City Council for permission to erect a monument in Cheyene with the biblical admonition against homosexuality on it.
  
  Simpson, apparently not having changed much since leaving Washington, wrote Phelps a response.
  
  "I just wanted to alert you to the fact that some dizzy-ass is sending out mailings and e-mails from the Westboro Baptist Church -- and using your name!" Simpson said in his letter. "I'm certain that you would not want this to continue or some less-alert citizen might think that you, yourself had done it.
  
  We know that is surely not the case, because you are a God-fearing Christian person filled to the brim with forbearance, tolerance and love -- and this other goofy homophobe nut must be someone totally opposite."
  
  "Quite Sincerely, Al Simpson."

link

[Tyrone Slothrop]

At this rate, it'll be on to Iran in no time.

• "It's clear that our expectations for them are way above their concept of duty and performance," said Lt. Col. Justin Gubler, commander of the First Battalion of the Army's 503rd Infantry, garrisoned at a camp called Combat Outpost near downtown Ramadi. "The Iraqi police are clearly intimidated to the point where they don't want to come to work."
  
  Colonel Gubler said things had gotten so bad that when the Americans attacked Falluja, the Ramadi police were told not to come to work "just so we could differentiate them" from revenge-minded insurgents posing as police officers, he said. A sure way to know a car is packed with a suicide bomb, he added, is when the Iraqi police refuse to inspect the vehicle. "Somehow, they know."
  
  The American troops get regular warnings about the Iraqi police before driving their armored Humvees into the dangerous streets of Ramadi. In the briefing for the mission to visit Al Farouk substation, for example, a young lieutenant told soldiers that it is "game on" if an Iraqi policeman pulls out a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. "If an IP shoots, we shoot back," he said.
  
  Not that soldiers need the advice: one week ago an Iraqi policeman - or an impostor with a police uniform and car - wounded 15 troops riding in an open-backed seven-ton truck just outside the main gate of Combat Outpost. The bomber had been directing traffic at an intersection near the base for about 20 minutes, his police car parked nearby. After spying the truck, he hopped in and detonated his bomb.
  
  From his experience, Colonel Gubler said, the Iraqi National Guardsmen in the region are only slightly better, though one Iraqi National Guard officer he knew stood out: the lieutenant colonel in charge of a national guard battalion near Falluja, 30 miles east of Ramadi. That commander, Colonel Gubler said, "was very good, but he was captured in Falluja and his head was cut off." He said he believed that the commander's subordinates had probably been complicit in the murder, committed in August.

link here

[Adder]

Originally posted by Not Me
You can't resurect a dead US soldier.

Thankfully you can resurect dead Iraqis.

So we got that goin' for us.