General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I will tell you why Maddow's "Hubris" aired NOW and not back then. And you won't like it. [View all]leveymg
(36,418 posts)purpose to create a "Pearl Harbor-type event." All that one need do is allow password protected compartmentalized programs to operate with no outside accountability according to their own classified rules, remove some inner controls, and allow the system to proceed to it logical, inevitable conclusions. 9/11. The Iraq War. The Global War on Terrorism.
Operation Cyclone was originally created at Langley in the 1980s with the Saudis and Pakistanis to recruit and organize Islamic terrorists worldwide -- including cells in the U.S. -- to fight the Russians in Afghanistan (later in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, and a dozen less-known conflicts in oil-rich regions). A number of similar successor programs were spun-off and are still run by their own rules, with only the most superficial oversight.
In 2000, the Director took personal interest in one such program, after an al-Qaeda planning summit in Kuala Lumpur is attended by several CIA double-agents, but interest wanes later at the top after the President makes it clear he doesn't want to know the details, "You've covered your ass, now."
These same programs routinely allow the members of terrorist attack cells under surveillance into the country, even though some don't even have proper visas. Notification cables drafted by an FBI liaison officer at the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center (CIA/CTC) in 2000 was ordered withheld, because the program and the cover of foreign liaison agencies operating inside the U.S. would be jeopardized if every Bureau gumshoe in Minneapolis was alerted every time a program operative was let in. The program's management no longer does its own control of the terrorists - most of that is palmed off to "friendly" foreign agencies. Some are less than friendly, and themselves are the tools of other third-parties, who are delighted to see "the world's last rogue superpower" overextend itself.
There is no accountability even after the inevitable catastrophe results. Those involved in management of the programs get medals and retirement bonuses, and those with the greatest personal knowledge are appointed to the Boards of privatized intelligence and paramilitary firms and become very rich on Agency contracts. The system is so highly classified that nothing can be done publicly to anyone who runs it - it is fail-safe, designed only to protect itself. The system creates its own cover stories, including a cast of international scapegoats, villains and victims who are expendable, and the wars begin with the nation's leaders enjoying 90 percent approval. Anyone smart enough can see where this will lead, if you just do nothing.