Do you think the CIA is necessary?

[Ardent15]

It seems to me that it's been used as a tool for killing enemies of the PTB, funding dictators and terrorists, and allowing our enemies to gain access to America (al Qaeda).

So I don't think the CIA is something America should be proud of.

[Nikki Stone1]

1. It's an intelligence operation for Wall Street

The military services have had their intelligences services from way back. The CIA created the black budgets and the shadow government.

[gateley]

2. I've always viewed them as smarmy. Without knowing anything else about GHWB,

I was horrified that a former CIA head would become POTUS. I've since learned, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

[Ardent15]

3. The Bush Crime Family has a long history with the CIA

It goes back to Grandpa Prescott, if not earlier.

[BeFree]

4. The structure is needed

But the way it has been operated (that we know of) has not been good for America. Some CIA facts:

The CIA told bush that airplanes would be used as weapons, but ....

And then bush turned around and claimed the CIA told him WMD were....

The Church Senate committee @1978 did a good job of correcting abuses but then bush 1 was made head of and it's been messed up ever since.

[immoderate]

6. Bush was head of CIA in 1976.

In 1978 he was running for president.

--imm

[EFerrari]

8. And their criminality goes back to before the Bay of Pigs in 61.

[BeFree]

11. Ford appointed him?

And Carter got caught up in the Iranian revolution. Funny how that happened, eh?

I guess the Church Committee was earlier maybe @74?

[immoderate]

14. Per wiki, Church Committee reported April of '76.

--imm

[EFerrari]

5. Torture, death squads, drug running, illegal arms sales.

:shrug:

[WeDidIt]

7. I am 100% certain the CIA is 100% necessary. n/t

[arcadian]

10. You aren't very knowledgeable about the subject of the CIA

[WeDidIt]

32. Bold assetion for somebody who has no clue who I am or what I know. n/t

[arcadian]

34. Bold assertion?

Bwahahahahaha! People who deal in absolutes are people who can't be dealt with and shouldn't be listened to.

[laughingliberal]

37. I suppose someone can say they are 100% certain but their certainty proves nothing

except their inflated belief in their own opinions which some hear seem to think should be the last word on everything. I tend to see this attitude in those who trend towards authoritarianism. Kind of a dogmatic "Father Knows Best," attitude

[tallahasseedem]

38. +1

n/t

[chemenger]

56. And if you were to tell us ...

would you then have to kill us???

:scared:

[proteus_lives]

9. The agency itself? Yes.

But the people and it's purpose should be overhauled.

[provis99]

12. Every country needs a squad of real bastards.

They do the things that need to be done that real people won't do. I just don't want the CIA to do it against us.

[EFerrari]

13. The people they do "it" to are "us" to someone. n/t

[bridgit]

15. yes

[OmahaBlueDog]

16. I think the CIA is widely misunderstood

The CIA, like every intelligence service for every nation that has had intelligence services, is called upon to engage in thuggery. They are no better and no worse than their counterparts in Britain, France, Russia, Israel, etc.

However, the CIA activities we hear about represent less than 1% of what they do or the personnel that they employ. Most CIA activities are not performed by field operatives. They are not performed by interrogators at Guantanamo. They are, in fact, performed by a large army of analysts who sit in cubicles in Langley, VA and other locales in and about DC. They look at photographs, they look at reports on movements of operatives, traffic in and out of military bases, and phone records. The look at news clippings. And, yes, they look at data developed by field spooks and interrogators and turned foreigners.

The invention of the CIA is, in today's context, a supreme irony. On 12/7/1941, the largest failure of American military intelligence prior to 9-11 (or, the largest conspiracy/cover up prior to 9-11) took place. One of the major problems (and this will be a stunner, let me tell you :sarcasm: )was that the myriad intelligence gatherers of the day didn't talk to one another. Had they done so, the attack on Pearl Harbor might have been avoided, or th attack's impact might have been greatly mitigated. FDR recognized this, and made Bill Donovan the Coordinator of Information in an attempt to take the information developed from a number of separate sources and put the pieces together. This was the roots of what soon became the OSS and later became the CIA. The irony here being that the CIA failed to put together the pieces from myriad intelligence services that would have prevented 9-11....so we formed the National Intelligence Directorate to take the information developed from a number of separate sources and put the pieces together....and so the cycle begins anew.

[SDuderstadt]

17. Absolutely...n/t

[Sebastian Doyle]

45. Well, who saw that coming?

:rofl:

[SDuderstadt]

55. I doubt seriously...

that you even know what the CIA actually does, dude.

[JDPriestly]

18. Our government needs intelligence about what is going on around the world

But the CIA has not done a good job of getting that intelligence since maybe the early 1950s.

We lived in Europe for a number of years, many of them in areas very near the borders with then Czechoslovakia and Hungary. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, it became more and more evident to us that cataclysmic social change was occurring in Eastern Europe. When we returned to the U.S. we told our friends about the change we had seen, especially in Hungary. Nobody believed us.

And from what we have been able to tell, the CIA pretty much missed what was so obvious to us. Mind you, I was not paying that much attention. I just lived my life. The travel between Hungary and Austria became very frequent for people in both countries, especially for people like us with family ties across the border. The changes were so huge. We could not miss them.

Yet, either the CIA missed them or lied to the American people about them. In either case, they did not do their job.

Since that time, I have not thought highly of the CIA. I wonder whether, for a good number of years, they recruited agents based on their political views rather than on their analytic ability and understanding of other people and other cultures. Seems to me that personal political views should be of little interest. The ability to understand other people and cultures -- including art, music, not just technology and politics is more important than political viewpoint.

[Kalun D]

19. The Police Arm of the Monied Elite

Certain aspects of the CIA are necessary, like defense.

most aspects are not, like the ones that overthrow democracies and install dictators, typically to maximize private corporate profits

The CIA goes in before the military and tries to achieve these political ends before the last resort of the military. A typical example would be when Iran's democracy was overthrown and the Shah was installed in 1941. The democracy had nationalized the oil fields and the private oil companies couldn't stand it so they sent in the CIA to install dictatorship.

One interesting facet is, when the CIA does dirty work like this they do so without congressional approval. Since they get funding from congress they need covert funding for unapproved projects. The favorite way to do this is through illegal drugs. This usually happens in conjunction with war. The golden triangle in Vietnam and now the poppy fields of Afghan. The poppies were established during the war with Russia, the Mujahideen were funded by the CIA through Pakistan and that's when the Opium was started. The Taliban actually destroyed an entire years crop in the late 90's. That was one of the real reasons for our invasion of Afghan, to restore the opium, in one years time it was back up to 80% of the world total.

illicit drugs serves more than one purpose, it also oppresses in inner cities. CIA ties to drugs have long been established, Gary Webb was a primary investigative reporter who uncovered plenty of dirt and subsequently committed "suicide" with 2 gunshots.

Bush Sr's nickname "poppy" is not from being a grandfather either, he's long been at the center of the drug aspect. It's important to wall street also as $250BIL annual drug profits gets laundered there. The "war on drugs" is a joke also, all it does is eliminate the competition.

The worst aspect of the CIA is when they operate in the US. Their rules say they are only supposed to operate overseas but this is not followed. They are used to oppress Americans whenever needed. They've infiltrated all the major media and exercise control for corporate monied interests.

To say they didn't know about Pearl Harbor or 911 is a joke, most likely they not only knew but were in on both events. Only through war does the military industrial complex really start cranking up the profits. And both of these events dragged a hesitant populace into war.

It's true that most of them are at a desk. 75 percent of what they do is peddle disinformation. If a large part of your activities are illegal covert ops you have to spend a lot of time lying about them to cover it up. This has become blatantly evident with 911 and the rise of the internet. Teams of CIA disinformationalists are on almost every popular forum where 911 is discussed.

Many intelligent people believe they were behind the Kennedy assassinations. Kennedy really pissed off the banking elite when he put the Fed back on the gold standard. He also threatened to disband the CIA. Bush sr. was in the CIA at the time and there's photos of him in Dallas on that day. Many believe he was one of the shooters. Of course the first thing that happened when Johnson took office, the Fed went back off gold.

There's a club at the upper levels, you can't get into it unless they have real dirt on you, that way you can't ever turn on them. One of the ways to get dirt is to commit an assasination. It's worthy to note that Bush Jr's whereabouts are not accounted for during the time right before Kennedy jrs suspicious fatal plane crash.

[wellst0nev0ter]

20. Try Counting The Number of CIA Successes On One Hand

Seriously, have fun trying.

[frustrated_lefty]

25. Isn't that cheating?

Look, I am not a fan of the CIA. But, in fairness, if you have heard of their activity, is that not a failure? Their success is never even a blip on your radar? That's part of the definition of success?

I'm not defending the CIA. I'm just not sure what criterion we can use for assessing the agency?

[Hippo_Tron]

21. Keep in mind that the CIA's actions are authorized by the President

Ultimately the Bay of Pigs was Kennedy's decision as Operation Ajax and Operation PBSUCCESS were Eisenhower's decision. People act as though the CIA are to blame for these things when really it's the President that authorizes them.

So I would rephrase the question. "Should the President have an agency like the CIA and in particular its special activities division at his disposal?"

[unhappycamper]

22. The CIA has gotten exactly one thing correct since their inception in 1947.

They called the Egypt/Israeli six day war before it happened. That's it. One thing.


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qrPWpbewL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg


^^ Good read.

[frustrated_lefty]

24. It was the OSS until the mid-50s (or later?). Your point gets lost

when you make a claim which is so factually inaccurate.

[unhappycamper]

26. Wikipedia disagrees with you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cia

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers. The CIA also engages in covert activities at the request of the President of the United States.<5>

It is the successor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during World War II to coordinate espionage activities between the branches of the United States military. The 1947 National Security Act established the CIA, affording it "no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad". One year later, this mandate was expanded to include "sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures...subversion assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation movements, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world".<6>

[frustrated_lefty]

27. Interesting data, kudos.

I guess the question becomes when did the CIA acquire any degree of power? The OSS was doing dirty deeds as early as 1952, perhaps before then.

When did the CIA develop the power to run black ops and all of that spy shyte? How did it replace the OSS?

[arcadian]

35. The CIA was created in 1947

It wasn't even the OSS before the CIA it was the Central Intelligence Group.

[frustrated_lefty]

43. Ok, ok, ok

I was mistaken. Fully acknowledged and apologized for! :)

To clarify things, or at least provide some insight into the basis for the error:

"The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services

"The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)...is the successor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during World War II to coordinate espionage activities between the branches of the United States military."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency

"The OSS served as the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It discusses how the men of General William Donovan, head of the OSS collaborated with communist groups in both Europe and Asia against the Japanese and the Nazis. In Vietnam, the OSS officers worked with the liberation movement, Viet Minh."
http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/40396841/Origins-of-the-American-War-in-Vietnam-The-OSS-Role-in-Saigon-in-1945

There are similar statements made in Stanley Karnow's "Viet Nam: A History."

My passing familiarity with the subject is based entirely on studies of the history of American involvement in Viet Nam, and not on the history of the intelligence agencies involved. Based on the preceding quotes, can you see how the error was made? Fairly reputable sources state in no uncertain terms that the OSS was the predecessor to the CIA.

To clarify the issue, for those who find it interesting...and it is interesting, because this is the kind of stuff which happens behind closed doors and you don't realize the significance until 30 or 40 years later....

"OSS trained many of the leaders and personnel who formed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Their ranks included four future Directors of Central Intelligence: Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey. Ironically, however, the one OSS veteran who did the most to promote such an agency—William J. Donovan—did not make the transition to it. He had led from the front, visiting his troops and surveying the ground in England, France, Italy, Burma, China, and even Russia. General Donovan was a charismatic leader and empire builder who inspired his people, but he was also a mediocre administrator, enamored of operations but bored by procedural detail. Tales of OSS inefficiency and waste—some of them true—delighted Donovan’s critics. He had tirelessly battled bureaucratic rivals in Washington and London, but as the war drew to an end his enemies began to fear that he might actually win his campaign to create a peacetime intelligence service modeled on OSS. President Roosevelt made no promises, however, and after his death in April 1945, the incoming President, Harry S. Truman, felt no obligation to save OSS.

Victory in Europe in May 1945 allowed OSS to concentrate on Japan, but it also meant months of bureaucratic limbo for Washington headquarters. President Truman disliked Donovan. Truman mocked him in his diary, perhaps fearing that Donovan’s proposed intelligence establishment might one day be used against Americans. The mood in Congress, moreover, was running against "war agencies" like OSS. Once the victory was won, the nation and Congress wanted demobilization—fast. This obstacle alone might have blocked a presidential attempt to preserve OSS or to create a permanent peacetime intelligence agency along the lines of General Donovan’s plan.

The White House’s Bureau of the Budget drafted liquidation plans for OSS and other war agencies, but initially the Bureau assumed that the termination could be stretched over weeks or months so OSS could preserve its most valuable assets. OSS and the Budget Bureau were to have less time than they expected. In late August, the White House suddenly ordered that OSS be closed as soon as possible. Bureau staffers had already conceived the idea of giving the Research and Analysis Branch to the State Department as “a going concern.” The imminent dissolution of OSS meant that something now had to be done quickly about the rest of the office. In response, a Budget Bureau staffer decided that the War Department should receive the remainder of OSS “for salvage and liquidation.” The War Department, it was decided, might even continue to operate the SI and X-2 Branches (and their overseas networks) for another year or so.

The Budget Bureau’s plan for intelligence reorganization went to President Truman on 4 September 1945. Donovan protested the plan, but the President ignored him, telling the Bureau to proceed with “the dissolution of Donovan’s outfit even if Donovan did not like it.” Bureau staffers soon had the requisite papers ready for the President’s signature. Executive Order 9621 on 20 September dissolved OSS as of 1 October 1945, sending R&A to the Department of State and everything else to the War Department. The Executive Order also directed the Secretary of War to liquidate OSS activities “whenever he deems it compatible with the national interest.” That same day, President Truman sent a letter of appreciation to General Donovan. The transfer of R&A to State, wrote the President, marked “the beginning of the development of a coordinated system of foreign intelligence within the permanent framework of the Government.” The President also implicitly affirmed that the War Department would continue to operate certain OSS components providing “services of a military nature the need for which will continue for some time.”

Due to an oversight in the drafting of EO 9621, Donovan had just ten days to dismantle his sprawling agency. He was too busy to do much about saving the components of OSS bound for the War Department. Donovan microfilmed his office files and bade farewell to his troops at a 28 September rally in a converted skating rink down the hill from his headquarters at 2430 E Street, NW:

We have come to the end of an unusual experiment. This experiment was to determine whether a group of Americans constituting a cross section of racial origins, of abilities, temperaments and talents could meet and risk an encounter with the long-established and well-trained enemy organizations…. You can go with the assurance that you have made a beginning in showing the people of America that only by decisions of national policy based upon accurate information can we have the chance of a peace that will endure.

OSS expired on 1 October 1945. Fortunately, Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy had saved the SI and X-2 Branches as the nucleus of a peacetime intelligence service. McCloy was a friend of Donovan’s, and he interpreted the President’s directive as broadly as possible in ordering OSS’s Deputy Director for Intelligence, Brig. Gen. John Magruder, to preserve SI and X-2 “as a going operation” in a new office that McCloy dubbed the “Strategic Services Unit” (SSU). Secretary of War Robert Patterson confirmed this directive and ordered Magruder to “preserve as a unit such of these functions and facilities as are valuable for permanent peacetime purposes.”

Within two years the President and the Congress found a new home for the personnel and assets saved in SSU under Col. William W. Quinn. They went to a new organization called the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) until the National Security Act of 1947 turned CIG into the Central Intelligence Agency, to perform many of the missions that General Donovan had advocated for his proposed peacetime intelligence service. Although CIA differed from OSS in important ways (which is why Truman endorsed it and not OSS), Donovan and his office deserve credit as forefathers of the Agency. Without Donovan’s tireless advocacy of a modern intelligence service—and the record built by OSS during the war—the Truman administration would have taken longer to create the new intelligence establishment that the President wanted and might not have done this task as well.

The US military in recent years has formally honored its own debt to OSS. In creating the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in 1987, the Pentagon consciously looked back to the OSS model of inter-service cooperation and success in unconventional warfare. USSOCOM in a sense represented a fulfillment of Donovan’s original hope that all-arms special operations would become an integral part of US warfighting doctrine and a key supplement to regular combat planning and operations. Special Operations Command personnel, like their CIA counterparts, regard Donovan and OSS to be true ancestors in spirit and deed. They wear the insignia to prove this heritage; USSOCOM’s shoulder patch is a gold lance-head on a black field, and it was modeled on a patch worn unofficially in OSS."
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/oss/art10.htm

Note to the mods---this last quote exceeds the 4 paragraph limit, but the text is in the public domain and, I think, is not subject to copyright law when properly attributed.

Thanks to the folks who corrected me on my factual inaccuracy. Reading up on this has been informative and fun.

-edited to bold a quote which seems insightful for 1945. It sounds like an officer saying "I don't care who you are, who you sleep with, or the color of your skin...my only interest is in what you can do." Maybe that's reading too much into it?

[frustrated_lefty]

23. Yes, it is necessary. A source of pride, no.

[Echo In Light]

28. Fuck no

[JonLP24]

29. No

I will add that I think they have been counter productive.

[Mopar151]

30. You can look it up

Wikipedia Ted Shackley and Richard Secord. From Secord's page, follow the link to Chip Tatum's website.

I don't know how much of this to beleive, but it ain't good.

Folks may also find Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" segment on Laos interesting.

[Wizard777]

31. Absolutely! When they do their job properly. You don't really notice anything. It's smooth sailing.

But when you thrown a, ahem, monkey wrench into their works. You get stuff like 9/11 and Iraq.

[laughingliberal]

40. I think even when we don't notice anything the CIA is often engaged in activities I think are wrong

...such as the destabilization of left leaning governments in Central and South America for the purpose of installing right wing neoliberal dictators.

[protocol rv]

33. Yes

It's needed to aquire intelligence, and it has a very good website with the CIA Factbook.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tallahasseedem]

39. Absolutely.

Obviously there needs to be some overhaul, but they're necessary.

[laughingliberal]

41. There probably is a need for a centralized intelligence gathering agency but I think

they need strong oversight from Congress and I think they don't have that. Many times, I believe, they are operating, effectively, as a shadow government with no oversight and little accountability.

[Raksha]

42. Some kind of secret service may be necessary, but not this fascist criminal CIA.

If it's at all possible, we should scrap it and start over.

[Maat]

44. No.

If it must exist, it should only gather information - no operatives illegally breaching the borders of sovereign nations and no assassinations or torture.

I bitterly resent the secret budgets and the illegal, immoral activities which I, as a taxpayer, am forced to fund.

[Sebastian Doyle]

46. Intelligence is necessary.

A gang of criminal thugs, loyal only to the Wall Street elite, who CREATE the problems, rather than solve them, is absolutely NOT necessary. And that has been the true purpose of the CIA since the Bush Crime Family and their associates created it. It's no coincidence that Allen Dulles was the attorney who kept Prescott Bush out of prison for funding Hitler and profiting from concentration camp labor, and then became director of the CIA.

[Canuckistanian]

47. The CIA is only as good as the president it serves, ultimately

The CIA has long been the the personal tool of the head of the Executive.

Of course, there are those who say that the CIA has a "mandate" of their own, but in the end, funding and management are VERY dependent on the current President.

But if the President is essentially weak or apathetic, then they DO tend to create their OWN agenda. That usually doesn't happen.

I would imagine that if the CIA were abolished tomorrow, any one of a dozen different "alphabet soup" intelligence agencies would rush in to fill the void.

[bemildred]

48. A national disaster since it's inception, what have they not fucked up? nt

[hunter]

49. No. I think our government should do everything in the open, even spy stuff.

Hi guys, here's a picture of your "top secret" facility, and here's a picture of the robot that took it. We're posting it all on the internet. Smile next time, and have a nice day.

If our intelligence agencies had to do everything in the open they'd get more useful and accurate information, and they wouldn't be able to do the dirty stuff that always comes back to burn us.

[tabasco]

50. Oh, hell yes.

But only for LEGAL intelligence gathering.

[lunatica]

51. Who oversees the CIA?

As long as they're not held accountable and don't need to answer to anyone they can and will be a rogue organization.

[EFerrari]

53. In theory, Dennis Blair does as Director of National Intelligence.

In theory. On the other hand, his own record is pretty horrible.

ETA: Link to a post I made this weekend. This isn't going to go well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8129271&mesg_id=8130735

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

52. America should be proud it's very own group of bumbling thugs and killers

And, give them praise for all the graveyards they've helped fill over the years all over the world spreading "democracy". Not to mention their achievements in torture, rape, and drug smuggling.

[Greyhound]

54. SOME of the functions they fulfill are necessary, but the organization itself should be completely

destroyed and all those connected with it banned from any governmental position even remotely related to "intelligence".