The Republican/Neocon Undermining of the CIA

[JHB]

Below is a clip from the latest article by investigative reporter Robert Parry, on the history of the politicization of the analysis side of the CIA (as opposed to the covert operations side, which has ALWAYS been political...).

Makes a good companion to Ray McGovern's recent article ( http://www.tompaine.com/articles/corrupted_intelligence.php ) and a bookend to another Parry article on the subject, from 1997 at the start of Tenet's tenure ( http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story43.html ).

See also the post on poor National Guard re-enlistment rates in LBN.
The notion that Republicans are good for national security is in the same boat as the idea they're they party of fiscal responsibility: full of holes and sinking fast!


The CIA's DI Disgrace
By Robert Parry
July 13, 2004

To understand why the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Intelligence – or DI – failed so miserably to analyze the evidence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, one has to look back almost a quarter century to when ideological conservatives decided to deconstruct the DI’s tradition of objective analysis.

In the heady days after Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980, conservatives took dead aim at the CIA’s analytical division for not agreeing with the Right’s preferred assessment that the Soviet Union was a rising superpower with both the capability and intent to overwhelm the United States militarily. The incoming Reagan administration wanted an alarmist assessment of the Soviet Union to justify a major arms buildup.

But the CIA analysts didn’t buy into the Right’s theory of Moscow as a 10-foot tall ogre directing world terrorism, planning a first-strike nuclear attack and provoking conflict in Central America and the Third World to isolate and ultimately defeat the United States. The CIA’s view of the Soviet Union was of a difficult enemy, but one with weaknesses, vulnerabilities and limited ambitions – a nuanced view that would not fit with the new era’s “Evil Empire” rhetoric.
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full article: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/071304.html

[shoelace414]

1. Why are repub's thought to be strong on defense?

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. Same reason as Fiscally Responsible...................

Marketing.

[JHB]

4. They put your money where their mouth is

They're always full of unconditional praise for the armed forces (as opposed to Democrats who occasionaly try to fix abuses), and they never met a defense appropriations bill they couldn't add more pork to.

[burythehatchet]

2. Its no coincidence that this CIA transformation into a KGB like org

began under one GHWB

[Joy Anne]

5. fascinating article

I had a fuzzy idea that this is what happened, but here's the proof in detail. This modus operandi--have a theory or an opinion and then root around for bits of evidence to try to support it--seems to pervade Republican "thinking" in all areas these days.

[JHB]

6. He doesn't even go into Team B...

...which was the opening shot in this exercise.

"Team B" was an exercise approved by (surprise!) DCI George HW Bush in 1976, pitting the CIA's internal analysts agains "outside experts" (the proto-neocons. In fact, Wolfowitz himself was one of the people on Team B).

In some technical areas (like missile range & accuracy) it was of some use, but Team B's strategic analysis was a paranoid's wet dream of Soviet supremacy. (In reality, even the CIA analysts overestimated Soviet capabilities; Team B's assessment was just on crack.)

As you might have expected, Team B's "analysis" was leaked to conservative circles, and provided the hair-'em-scare-'em "objective" justification for the Reagan arms buildup, ditching arms control treaties, and taking covert action in Central America.

That pattern sound familiar?

[bobthedrummer]

7. I will never forget that real Nazis were given identities as Americans

and were part of the foundation of our national security community in 1947, just a couple of years before I was born-a 7th generation American whose USMC father fought against military imperialism and Nazis during WWII.

These real Nazis brought families, friends, lovers, even social networks with them. There were enclaves of "ex-Nazis" in the USA ostensibly battling godless communism in the Cold War. Many were war criminals sentenced to death at Nuremberg.

Some became prominent Americans.:puke::grr:

These real Nazis found an American political base within the RW of the Republican Party. The evolution of this treason is evident today imho.

Want links?
Ratlines: The CIA and the Nazis
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/ratlines.htm

Russ Bellant "Old Nazi Networks in US"
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/political-science/fascism/bellant/bellant.pt1

Operation PAPERCLIP
http://infoage.org/paperclip.html

http://www.dc.peachnet.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/experiment/paperclip.html

This is how and why we got to PNAC imho, the Nazi influence coupled with organized crime-corruption at its worse--truly evil and politically based in the RW of the Republican Party:grr::argh:

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

[JHB]

8. More refs on Parry's site

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/051601a.html

for starters, and/or just google on consortiumnews.com for "Nazis" and "CIA".

[bobthedrummer]

9. The Nazis always had powerful American "cousins"-swastika admirers

enablers, and (most of all) "business" partners.

Corporate Traitors
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/waryearsp5.html

President Clinton's administration prosecuted Nazis
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/hr071498/holtzman.html

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/hr071498/maloney.html

Wiesenthal makes last push to catch Nazis
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,1218337,00.html

The American cousins are toast now-they have names that can't be hidden behind the abuse of the national security classification system--also a part of the international "intelligence failure" imho.

[JHB]

10. Afternoon kick

:kick:

[bobthedrummer]

11. Double kick.

:dem::kick: