America was shocked the learn that the intelligence community was running clandestine operations against terrorists, including assassination attempts. Yes, the news media and a good portion of the public recoiled in surprise that the clandestine services were running clandestine operations. This is what passes for news.
Now, surely, there were some sticky points, some of the centering around our former Vice President, Dick Cheney, and allegations he was running assassination teams out of his office. Of course, the same man that mistakenly shot his friend in the face at a duck shoot, discovered that forming the hit teams is one thing, actually killing terrorists on their home turf is quite another. But that is another matter left perhaps for another time.
Or not. It is tough to assassinate people. It is not how it looks in the movies, where easy plots and knuckle dragging super heroes have convinced a gullible public that most crises could be resolved in an hour and a half. It is not how it looks in the movies, either, where a team of stalwart Americans infiltrate enemy terrain, hard and demanding terrain, where they successfully annihilate their quarry, before drifting back into the waiting copters.
Let’s face it, in most places where terrorists hide, it is tough to get there by car, yet alone by mountain paths and jungle trails. It is tough to find the Terrorist Cave among the other 95,000 caves in half a dozen mountain ranges. It is tough to get the locals to give up the people that they either revere or who scare hell out of them. It ain’t easy.
Nevertheless, clandestine services do tend to practice clandestine operations. And clandestine operations, in order to remain clandestine, have to be…secret. Keeping secrets in congress is difficult on a good day. Congress people will blab for any number of reasons, not the least of which is self-aggrandizement and some form of measured gain. They will talk it up, blow secrets, and otherwise piss on the clandestine parade.
So why on earth would most clandestine services feel comfortable, releasing secrets, strategies, and dangerous tactics into the hands of a very leaky congress? They don’t like to. And sometimes they don’t. Which in turn prompts the calls for more rigorous congressional oversight. Rigorous congressional oversight can mean any number of things. It can mean anything from having a clue where the government expenditures are being allocated to using the information as fodder to do an agitprop theatrical drama, playing to whatever base.
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Sometimes the regard for those in the clandestine operations is negligible. A good news story is well worth the trade of a couple, few lives. Later on the jingo dance of support the troops will more than compensate for the loose lips that can jeopardize an operation.
Of course this is all a matter of perspective. It is also a matter of balance. On one hand, a clandestine service without responsible–notice the term responsible–oversight, can shape shift easily from a guardian of our democracy to a fascist sub-service loyal to those who run it. Doubtful, maybe, but it has happened before. There are places in the world where the secret service is the pillar upon which draconian governments rest their anti-human laurels. Can we say Iran?
But then there is the other side. You blow the cover of the clandestine service and your jeopardize its people and you risk the success of the operation. If you become over saturated with self-righteous indignation, you pull away the layers of the onion that reveal the mechanism for all to see. There are some elements of government that simply shouldn’t be all that transparent. Yes, idealistic as you may be, there are any number of aspects and operations that shouldn’t be aired on some mindless news show.
As for our congress, let’s get real. While some are responsible individuals with intellect, tact and a reasonable concern for the well being over the country over their own personal gain, there are a fair number that border on buffoonery. If you don’t believe me, just listen to them. Far too many are has been Rotarians–sorry Rotarians–who can’t keep an illicit sex affair a secret, yet alone a clandestine operation. Some can’t keep their own avarice and corruption from being exposed. Some believe that dinosaurs roamed the earth with humankind some 6,000 years ago. Some are jingoistic fools in bad haircuts, who only open their mouths to change feet.
So here, perhaps, is the oversight. These fair souls may pose the guiding light for intelligence operations we can’t always get right on a good day. Or, sometimes, at all.
But under the age old adage, be careful what you wish for, let’s not get too carried away. Otherwise, someone who can’t either keep his head out of his ass or his dick in his pants, will be deciding the fate of clandestine operations. Yes, there has to be oversight, but anything like the now lauded by truly diasterious Stansfield Turner/Frank Church era may not be all that advisable. Not with the barbarians at the gates.
