Reply #21: The information gathering side is fine--every country needs that [View All]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

I used to do contract translation work for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which collects published newspaper and magazine articles from around the world to monitor what people are doing and thinking in other countries. (I gave it up because their pay rates were half of the going private sector rate and because you still had to submit translations by a funky modem-based interface that required several attempts to transmit a simple one-page article.)

However, ever since reading The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence and Endless Enemies in the early 1980s, I've been opposed to the covert op side of it. The first book makes the point that "covert" operations are kept secret only from the American people. The people in the targeted country know what's going on, the so-called enemy knows what's going on, people in third countries know what's going on--only average Americans are kept in the dark, and understandably so, because some of the things that the CIA has done in the name of fighting Communism or fighting terrorism are truly despicable.

Endless Enemies documents how so many "covert" ops have been not only despicable, but stupid and counter-productive.

It all reminds me of the saying, "Don't do it if you wouldn't want to have it be the lead story on your local news."