Monday, December 23, 2013

 
roger gathman 12.22.13 at 6:52 pm

32 – the lunatic thing about the arguments concerning intelligence is that we simply ignore the fact that, as far as we know, it is the intelligence agencies that make us more vulnerable, not the whistleblowers. Did Edward Snowden provide arms to Osama bin Laden in the 80s? Did he distribute pamphlets to jihadis explaining how easy it would be to strike a superpower in its own territory (see Coll’s Ghost Wars for details)? Did Snowden recommend that the Blind Mullah Omar get a visa to the U,S. – which it looks like some Cia man in Sudan did? Did Edward Snowden set up a network to shuffle “black” money and arms around the world, as was done in the Iran contra days? Or, even moving up to the present day, did Snowden “accidentally” lose sight of Osama bin Laden, by then more valuable as a bogeyman/threat, after Tora Bora? Did Snowden participate in the Kunduz airlift in 2001, which nobody has ever truly investigated, and which basically restored the Taliban fighters to their old bases in Pakistan? Any objective view of the past fifty years would show that not only have american intelligence forces systematically violated human rights and collaborated in mass murder and torture – bad things – in such places as Indonesia and Guatamala, but that they have left America more vulnerable, and have produced situations where the increase of U.S. military forces to cope – with the subsequent toll in paying for that shit, which of course may be the point – is made much more likely. Between the “threat” posed by Snowden and the threat posed by the normal operations of the NSA and CIA, the rational choice is to go with Snowden and abolish the NSA and CIA. Of course, the latter won’t happen, but definitely Snowden’s revelations, in as much as they curb intelligence agencies, make us safer.

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