Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Gattigap
The North also stayed for generations and conducted Reconstruction, so I'm not sure this is the historical analogue you really want.

Boer war it is then.

Hello

PS Someone or other here will be SCREAMING names at me when they figure out what the British did to win

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Boer war it is then.

Hello

PS Someone or other here will be SCREAMING names at me when they figure out what the British did to win

Right. But this strategy will help us little with the large number of people who view us as imperialists. And the British at that time didn't have to worry about Boers flying airplanes into their buildings. It's a different world. Hello.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by bilmore
Think "ant trap".

We're sending ads to the Netherlands later this week with special flight deals.

When that's done, we've got the bulk ad buys that Putin is helping to fund.

At some point, Allah is going to be looking around and saying "uh, guys. . . . . guys?"

A lonely gawd (pbtf) is a harmless gawd.

Godammit. A while back, it was bees. Now it's ants. Quit shifting your entomolgical paradiggum. Stay on message.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter

before we levelled their homes.

Homes can be rebuilt. You can't resurect a dead US soldier. You need to think less about homes and more about dead US soldiers. US soldiers are all that protects your ass.

[ilikenewsocks]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm beginning to think I'm not nearly as fucked up as some people have led me to believe.

Board motto!

[Hank Chinaski]

What is with the flags? Is it just a week after veteran's day they stay, or did someone kick?

[Gattigap]

Newsday tells us that Porter Goss has been commanded by the WH to eradicate CIA officers who were disloyal to Bush by leaking shit over the past several years.

Though many agree that reforms are necessary, some are aghast at the apparent decision of Goss' staff, imported from Congress, to walk the halls with machetes. Perhaps they've done a calculation that if the size of the organization is (say) 20,000, and 10% are both disloyal to Bush and inclined to talk to the press, then killing off about 200 will work to pacify the rest of the organization.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Newsday tells us that Porter Goss has been commanded by the WH to eradicate CIA officers who were disloyal to Bush by leaking shit over the past several years.

Though many agree that reforms are necessary, some are aghast at the apparent decision of Goss' staff, imported from Congress, to walk the halls with machetes. Perhaps they've done a calculation that if the size of the organization is (say) 20,000, and 10% are both disloyal to Bush and inclined to talk to the press, then killing off about 200 will work to pacify the rest of the organization.

This happended under Clinton as well:

Senior managers of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI) -- the arm of the Agency responsible for analysis -- held an unusual emergency meeting with their analysts on the afternoon of 1 July, just before the start of a long holiday weekend. The purpose of the meeting was to announce plans for a complete reorganization of the Central Intelligence Agency.
[...]

By April 1994, Administration displeasure with CIA had turned into indignation. Faced with a growing number of foreign policy debacles, Clinton officials -- notably several on the staff of the White House and National Security Council -- grew increasingly furious at CIA intelligence assessments which suggested that Administration policy in North Korea, Somalia, Bosnia, China, and Russia was in trouble. Administration officials started to argue that CIA was not providing them with "the proper support." Some officials implied that if CIA had done a better job analyzing the world, Mr. Clinton’s foreign policy would not be in trouble.
[...]

In private meetings with other senior DI officials, MacEachin -- who is said to have claimed that he is acting on behalf of Director Woolsey -- laid down the real objectives of his reorganization plan:


Consolidating and institutionalizing changes already made.


..."purging the culture of the 1980s" at the CIA. ...


Assuring that CIA briefings coincide with Administration policy and cannot lead policy makers to accuse the Agency of "disloyalty." MacEachin was quoted as having actually said in a recent meeting with senior CIA officials: "Analysts must recognize that if they give a briefing which deviates too much from official policy, they may be accused by Clinton Administration officials of being disloyal."...

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=429

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
This happended under Clinton as well:

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=429

Most of us perceive a difference between reforming the CIA to make it work better, and reforming the CIA to make it more loyal to the President. At the peril of speaking for Gattigap, I don't think he has a problem with trying to make the CIA work better. I'm betting he does have an issue with the people in the Administration who think the prime failing of the CIA in recent years is its failure to toe the Administration's line sufficiently. They were already doing too much of that.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Most of us perceive a difference between reforming the CIA to make it work better, and reforming the CIA to make it more loyal to the President. At the peril of speaking for Gattigap, I don't think he has a problem with trying to make the CIA work better. I'm betting he does have an issue with the people in the Administration who think the prime failing of the CIA in recent years is its failure to toe the Administration's line sufficiently. They were already doing too much of that.

Well what do you make of this:

• Assuring that CIA briefings coincide with Administration policy and cannot lead policy makers to accuse the Agency of "disloyalty." MacEachin was quoted as having actually said in a recent meeting with senior CIA officials: "Analysts must recognize that if they give a briefing which deviates too much from official policy, they may be accused by Clinton Administration officials of being disloyal."...

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Well what do you make of this:

• Assuring that CIA briefings coincide with Administration policy and cannot lead policy makers to accuse the Agency of "disloyalty." MacEachin was quoted as having actually said in a recent meeting with senior CIA officials: "Analysts must recognize that if they give a briefing which deviates too much from official policy, they may be accused by Clinton Administration officials of being disloyal."...

Are you arguing that Clinton did it, so it must be OK? Give me a break.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Most of us perceive a difference between reforming the CIA to make it work better, and reforming the CIA to make it more loyal to the President. At the peril of speaking for Gattigap, I don't think he has a problem with trying to make the CIA work better. I'm betting he does have an issue with the people in the Administration who think the prime failing of the CIA in recent years is its failure to toe the Administration's line sufficiently. They were already doing too much of that.

Yes.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Are you arguing that Clinton did it, so it must be OK? Give me a break.

I thought the point was that since you guys take everything Bush does as a hard deviation from the norm, we need some way of checking. Since there has only been one other President in the internet age, the only sanity check is the Clinton administration. Thus, we check your conspiracies against Clinton's actions- as long as they don't involve dirtying dresses or selling secrets to the Chinese, similar actions in the Clinton administration imply that maybe the policy isn't so strange. The same point has been made wrt keeping hecklers away, as you may recall.

[Gattigap]

Hoosiers to be saved from the stain of sexual interstate scandal.

• John Hostettler, the Congressman representing the 8th district of Indiana, has been convinced by local religious groups to introduce legislation in the House that would change the name of an Interstate 69 extension to a more moral sounding number.
  
  There are plans to extend the interstate from Indianapolis through southwestern Indiana all the way through Texas into Mexico in the coming years. While most believe this highway will be good for the state’s economy, religious conservatives believe “I-69” sounds too risqué and want to change the interstate’s number.
  
  Hostettler, a proponent of the interstate extension, agrees. “Every time I have been out in the public with an ‘I-69’ button on my lapel, teenagers point and snicker at it. I have had many ask me if they can have my button. I believe it is time to change the name of the highway. It is the moral thing to do.”
  
  ....
  
  “Naming the road I-63 not only follows numbering guidelines, it doesn’t have the sexual undertones that I-69 has,” says Hostettler, “It is a win-win situation.”

What's more, think of the public safety benefits! Studies have well-documented the dangers of cell-phone use while driving. Those dismayed by the earlier challenges in recruiting participants for this study can now be comforted by the fact that this problem will soon be moot.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I thought the point was that since you guys take everything Bush does as a hard deviation from the norm, we need some way of checking.

No one said that. What Gatti said -- I believe -- is that the idea of "reforming" the CIA by sacking people who aren't loyal to the President is a Bad Idea.