Prime Time Thread

BEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

Sorry I meant…BEEEEEEEEES!

This really isnt a good time to be working for the CIA. I wonder how they are doing on recruiting.The CIA had no proof linking Saddam to 9/11, so Cheney Rove and Libby cooked it up.Valerie Plame (CIA agent) is outted by Cheney Robe and Libby because her firm was close to finding out the links were false.CIA gets thrown under the bus by Bush claiming they gave him bad intelligence. (evidence which was cooked up by team BushCo.)CIA agents seem to have been involved, along with private contractors, in torture.Pelosi and Bob Graham both now say the CIA lied to them.So the CIA is used, abused, lashes out, gets outed, gets accused of lying. Just what is going on over there?They are everyone’s favorite punching bag. Do they diserve it, or are they always getting the short end of the stick?

they deserve it

Ashby,Though I have no empirical data to back it up, my gut tells me the CIA has earned most of the abuse heaped on them.These people are career spooks.Being honest and forthright just ain’t in their nature.

No possible way they deserve all of this; they’re getting hit from all sides. Or do people think that their very existence is suspect?QT

Those of us who lived thru the 60′s & 70′s may have a lower opinion of the CIA than you young’uns…

Im well aware of what went on during the 60′s and 70′s with regards to the CIA. I am deffinantly skeptical of them, but at the same time I am objective enough to ask, do they diserve it or not.Is their very existence suspect? Possibly. The last decade doesn’t seem to be filled with CIA success stories. Maybe we just aren’t hearing about their successes. But something tells me if there was any huge successes to boast about it would have be done already.

looks like they are finally asking the “Why?” on KO anyway…I think gypsy is right, they do read the goddamn awesome blog.

Let me preface this by saying that I am no conspiracy theorist. Just a skeptic when it comes to the CIA.It is logical that if they felt it was in the best interest of the agency (and therefore, in their minds, in the best interests of the U.S.), that most CIA personnel would without any hesitation lie to members of Congress, the President, and to anyone else they they needed to.

Wolf Tone-”It is logical that if they felt it was in the best interest of the agency (and therefore, in their minds, in the best interests of the U.S.), that most CIA personnel would without any hesitation lie to members of Congress, the President, and to anyone else they they needed to.”Occam’s razor-”When multiple competing hypotheses are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities. It is in this sense that Occam’s razor is usually understood.”To straightforwardly summarize the principle as it is most commonly understood, “The simplest explanation for a phenomenon is most likely the correct explanation.”So your explanation is that the agency, meaning MOST CIA personel,all 16,000 to 18,000, without a second thought, would lie to Congress, the President or anyone else. This would mean then, that they lie about everything. If not, then they would have to know what issues to lie about that would become important in the future. That’s quite a gift to be able to know that, by the way.Or, its just Pelosi that’s full of crap.Which do you think Occam’s Razor would say is the correct answer?

R&T -Nice straw man there cowboy.Perhaps you are not aware of the compartmentalization used in classsified operations. It is always a very small number of people involved in any given operation. The number of people needed to be involved in a lie on any given operation would seldom exceed six and usually be something more like 4. If you think that any given person at the CIA has any earthly idea what anyone but their immediate colleagues are doing you are delusional.To claim that all 16,000 to 18,000 CIA employees would have to be in on a lie is a straw man that works only when you are talking to people that know nothing about how classified material is handled.The Gentleman that was Chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Committee has corroborated Pelosi’s story. He says he was told exactly the same things she says she was told and that the CIA was definitely lying to congress.The UltraLiars® here are the criminal conspirators that implemented the PNAC plan to invade Iraq by torturing people into claiming that Iraq was involved with 9-11 when everyone knew they were not. Cheney is on ice that is getting thinner as I type. These criminals are going to get fucked.Stop using Nancy as a diversion from the real crime. It is not working and will not work. We are not a stupid as the Dick™ is counting on. He is now the number one target of criminal conspiracy investigation. Rumsfeld will be next.Try again.

Well…we know that Pelosi isn’t full on crap on this issue as her version is in accord with Bob Graham’s and is bolstered by the cover letter that went with the released memos, which said, in effect, that the CIA wasn’t vouching for the timelines or info included in the briefings. Pelosi’s account has remained consistent.So….that sort of leaves the probability of employees of the CIA not being completely truthful to Pelosi.When the other possibilities are eliminated, then what remains, no matter how improbable (to you, not to those of us who have seen it before) must be the truth.Adding – we also know that misinformation was when given to Powell for his UN presentation, and former CIA employees have said that BushCo cherry-picked the intel & looked for the CIA to support what they WANTED the intel to be & Chalabi’s stories on what was going on.I don’t happen to like Nancy Pelosi and, frankly, I don’t think it much matters what she did or didn’t know. She wasn’t calling the shots, she wasn’t “the decider”, and she didn’t order anyone tortured. But, in this case, she seems to have truth on her side. And the CIA does not.

very nicely said ceu–I am not a fan of Nancy’s either. Having said that, unless and until the info is known, I will go with what she has said.Panetta’s cover letter stated very clearly that the info was done from memory and may not be correct.

“This letter presents the most thoroughinformation we have on dates, locations, and names of allMembers of Congress who were briefed by the CIA on enhancedinterrogation techniques. This information, however, is drawnfrom the past files of the CIA and represents MFRs completed atthe time and notes that summarized the best recollections ofthose individuals. In the end, you and the Committee will haveto determine whether this information is an accurate summary ofwhat actually happened. We can make the MFRs available at CIA for staff review.”This is part of the cover letter. Read the Docs here

Red herrings aside, I will clarify:First, It’s merely my belief that CIA personnel would lie. As stated earlier, I have no empirical data with which to back that belief up.Second, the CIA personnel to whom I am referring are those specifically assigned to brief members of Congress, the President, and key administration officials.I doubt seriously that, say, someone working in the CIA’s secretarial pool would automatically lie.Then again, they wouldn’t be briefing members of Congress or the President either, now would they?

Myst–I love Eddie Izzard!! Thanks for posting!

The CIA is loaded with neocon plants. Most of the people there are of the extremem right wing mentality and many are direct friends of the Bush family from when H.W. was CIA Director. People he liked were promoted by his appointees when he was President. Clinton would not have undone much, if any, of the right wing bias in the CIA so W would have inherited a CIA predisposed to do whatever he required. The CIA has a well deserved reputation for not letting laws get in the way. I would not trust a word they say about anything.

Keith Olbermann outdid himself tonight. A really outstanding show. I think his shows are always excellent and it is difficult if not impossible to find anything to criticize. Tonights WTF!?! was up there with his tribute to his Mom and his rant on Prop 8.Laffy has it here.Keith is a real class act.

It was deffinantly a good show. Deffinantly made the guy running the rumor look like a complete jackass too.

Well, when your whole existence a based on secrecy, I can see where the line between doing your job and flat-out lying gets blurred.I, too, like my women like I like my coffee.

Silly-”Nice straw man there cowboy”"To claim that all 16,000 to 18,000 CIA employees would have to be in on a lie is a straw man…”I’ll take 1/2 credit, since I did not communicate well what I meant.I said “So your explanation is that the agency, meaning MOST CIA personel,all 16,000 to 18,000, without a second thought, would lie to Congress, the President or anyone else.”I did not mean that all would be in on the same lie, that would be most highly unlikely. I meant that it is highly unlikely that all 16,000 to 18,000 would without a second thought be ready to lie to Congress and the President. I do not believe that 16,000 CIA agents are ready to lie to anybody, up to and including Congress and the President. Lying to Congress and the President would be a serious crime. I don’t believe that most of the 16,000 would “without a second thought” lie like that. I just don’t.

Here’s your handy dandy guide for tracking all the Republican lies about detentions and torture.1. We didn’t waterboard anybody. Wrong.2. Waterboarding isn’t torture. Wrong.3. We didn’t break the law. Wrong. Title 18 of the U.S. Code, the UCMJ, the Geneva Convention….Even Reagan threw cops in jail for waterboarding prisoners.4. The purpose of the torture was to prevent terror attacks. Nope. Several sources have established that the purpose was to prove a link between Iraq and terrorism in time for the 2002 elections.5. The torture program actually did stop attacks, including a plot against LA. Already debunked.6. Stopping the torture program puts us at risk. Wrong. Why did the Bush gang stop it in 2004, then?7. Pelosi knew about the whole thing. Nope. That was already shot down by the CIA and by other lawmakers who were also briefed. Also, the CIA itself lied about the briefings on the interrogations.8. Pelosi could have stopped the torture program. Wrong: the Bush gang made clear time after time that they intended to ignore any Congressional input with respect to any issue which, in their view, impinged on national security. And she didn’t know anyway.9. The torture program is justified under the doctrine of protecting sources and methods. Even Bob Barr shot that one down.10. Cheney’s effort to defend torture is on the same moral level as Gore’s effort to combat global warming. Um, yeah.11. Stopping the torture means we’re not supporting our troops. Nope. Actually the torture program itself is endangering our troops, as our generals confirmed.12. Talking about this torture program makes America look bad and fosters terrorism. No, lying and concealing makes us look bad.13. The torture proved the Iraq-terror link. Nope. The guys who stated that, under torture, later admitted they lied – just before one mysteriously died in prison.14. Those Guantanamo prisoners are the worst of the worst. Um, no. Most were grabbed off the street by bounty hunters who had no idea who they were grabbing – if there were evidence against them, Bush would have taken them to court.15. There isn’t any exculpatory evidence against these guys. Wrong – Bush illegally hid it.16. The Gitmo prisoners must stay there because bringing them into the U.S. is too dangerous. Nope. You know how many really dangerous prisoners we already have?And most of these lies, by Republicans who worked for the Bush Administration, were debunked by…. Republicans who worked for the Bush Administration.And this is just what we’ve caught them at, since the grownups took over in January.When a group of people tells you one proven lie on a topic, you start to disbelieve them just a bit. But sixteen, and counting?More at http://hellodollyllama.blogspot.com/

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