Let's just close the CIA, okay?

THIS must give our enemies THE biggest kick in the pants, don't you think? The New York Times is writing all about it, too, of course.........can't wait for details, apparently. I'm thinking that this might be just the reason why Bush/Cheney couldn't go to congress with whatever this thing was because Congress has leaked to the Times before. Rich at Mullings.com has a good take on this whole thing, too...make sure you read it HERE.

Let's LET IT ALL HANG OUT! Let's tell EVERYONE all our spy business in public, right? That's really GOOD for America! (NOT) (are we NUTS?)
Here's the new information....click HERE to learn that this plan was apparently regarding capturing and killing Al Qaeda operatives. And to learn that the initiative hadn't become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it. Will we be closing ideas which could keep us safe down now, too?

Lots of CIA stories lately.....lots of attacks on them. Great for the morale of all those fine men and women who put their lives on the line, isn't it? Well, no problem......drive by a college some time soon and tell me how many you'd think would or COULD do the work after the guys who're being insulted now QUIT (and many are). No, don't...it'll make you sick. I heard a man in the FBI, twenty years ago on CSPAN, say they get ZERO applicants from the Ivy League Colleges anymore, where they'd got ALL their good applicants in the past. He also said you can't find a kid who'll pass a lie detector test to the satisfaction of our spy agencies... ("have you stolen?" "Have you done drugs?") It's worse today. And Democrats playing politics isn't helping.
Also, it's very dangerous to indoctrinate kids against your country like so many of our schools do. Other countries don't do that, did you know that? It's only the American left which has taken us down this slippery slope...........

Don't jump to conclusions that I want anything illegal done by the CIA...If there's a perception of a problem, however......let's take care of it in private, we don't really NEED to have islamists and other terrorists know how weak our left is making us, DO WE?; Not that I trust congress anymore not to leak or do the work competently, but let them do SOMETHING with integrity and dignity. LET THEM AND THE NEW YORK TIMES ERR ON OUR SIDE, PLEASE, just ONCE?

z (mustang, the poster worked perfectly, thanks)

Some "Good Intelligence" here.........

Security Before Politics
By Porter J. Goss
Saturday, April 25, 2009

Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now.

A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaida. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a onetime briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.

Today, I am slack jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as
"waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that: The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed thatthe CIA was holding and interrogating high value terrorists. We understood what the CIA was doing. We gave the CIA our bipartisan support. We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities. On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaida. I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues.

They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately tothe committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.

Circuses are not new in Washington, and I can see preparations being made for tents from the Capitol straight down Pennsylvania Avenue. The CIA has been pulled into the center ring
before. The result this time will be the same: a hollowed out service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear that in the years to come this refrain will be heard again: once a threat or God forbid, another successful attack captures our attention and sends the pendulum swinging back. There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous show: President Obama.

Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been done. It is certainly not trust that is fostered when intelligence officers are told one day "I have your back" only to
learn a day later that a knife is being held to it. After the events of this week, morale at the CIA has been shaken to its foundation. We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability to maintain secrecy as a reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist. The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain
conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of
beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.

Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to nonstate actors but is, regrettably, the only question this
administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are
lost. The days of fortress America are gone. We are the world's superpower. We can sit on our hands or we can become engaged to improve global human conditions. The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good intelligence. We can sit on our hands or we can become engaged to improve global human conditions. The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good intelligence. Trading security for
partisan political popularity will ensure that our secrets are not secret and that our intelligence is destined to fail us.

The writer, a Republican, was director of the CIA from
September 2004 to May 2006 and was chairman of the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004.

Z: So now what, folks? Just fear mongering? Just A REPUBLICAN, so what could HE KNOW? No, I didn't think so, either. So, NOW WHAT?

z