It seems that every time I watch PBS FRONTLINE's "The Dark Side" about the dark, behind the scenes, basically criminal political infighting in the run-up to the Invasion, I seem to come across something new.
As it turns out, one of my PBS stations is playing it right now--just watching it again, reviewing how they left the CIA hanging in Afghanistan for a whole month waiting for military support which was witheld by Rumsfeld merely because he was jealous that he hadn't been given control of the operation (yet) and began to basically destroy the CIA organization by forcing it to report relatively false estimates, and how they screwed over, controlled/manipulated (forcing him to give up his professional ethics), used and took down CIA Director George Tenet, and how they used this to undermine the already not-too-popular (within the Administration) Secretary of State, General Colin Powell (who himself therefore had to face, and alas choose wrongly, between his own professional ethics and being the "team player" he is--for all the good it did him in the end). And how this all fits into bringing about the pull-out of Afghanistan before we'd finished the job... Where was Condo? She failed to do her job, conveniently for her comrades. Yet they slipped up on the "16 words". Then through it all, there's Cheney's
network of "loyal" subversive operatives being appointed to powerful positions in key government departments across the board--in essence subverting control over the entire government far beyond what is reasonable and proper--so as to be able to go around any and all safeguards that might prevent successfully pressing the "case" for 9/11. And the Plame debacle...
Certainly not intended as any sort of complete summary, just a few notes on the show... It is simply and deeply disturbing... If anyone in the country ever trusted these deceptive, facist, charlatans before they see this documentary, it's simply irrational, verging on insanity, if they still do after. How much more harm will we suffer as a consequence of the dirty games they play (tossing aside any sense of ethics while hiding everything behind a veil of secrecy)? Will we ever be able to restore the "professional culture" within our government? Is there no honesty, integrity and ethics left in Washington?
Each time I watch it, I get more details I seem to have missed the first time (and this my third time). Primarily I just wanted to bring it up again in case anyone missed it or might want to review it again.
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