Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» CIA agents risk their lives and som die as they seek intelligence information to provide to the president. PET attacks the CIA. How dare he?
CIA agents risk their lives and som die as they seek intelligence information to provide to the president. PET attacks the CIA. How dare he?
At Langley, Virginia there is wall that honors the fallen CIA agents. They appear as stars. Even in death they are shrouded in secrecy. You would think a President-Elect would be grateful for their service. You would think so, wouldn't you?
@RosieG -- I understand your dislike of Der Pumpkinfuhrer and I agree that his cavalier attitudes towards intelligence briefings is problematic.
However, your recent line of questions criticizing Pumpkinhead has taken a tone of deification of the US national security state. This, in my view, is a misguided view.
Yes, SOME CIA agents risk their lives. Many more sit behind desks looking at documents, watching visual media, listening to phone calls, and so forth.
Meanwhile, there are solid reasons that the work product of the national security state should be taken with some skepticism. The CIA and its sister institutions are bureaucratic political institutions. What they do and what they report is subject to the same political pressures and human failings which influence any other large bureacratic institution.
The record of the US national security state is, at best, mixed.
I am not "grateful" for the CIA agents who planned the Bay of Pigs Invasion, or who helped "cook" the intelligence on Iraq in the early 2000s to provide PR cover for the US invasion. I am not "grateful" to the ones who agreed to participate in, or oversee, torture. I am not "grateful" to the ones who spied on American citizens with little justification and zero remorse.
So, while I wish Der Pumpkinfuhrer would take his obligation to listen to his intelligence briefings more seriously, I don't expect him to be reflexively grateful, either.
OldSchoolTheSKOSlives 