So, the Senate Intelligence Committee endorsed the nomination of General Michael Hayden to CIA chief today by a 12-3 vote. To their eternal credit, Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Russ Feingold both voted no.
So many pixels have been spilled on the unacceptability of this nominee, based on his involvement in the wiretapping scandal, that I hardly need to add mine. Suffice it to say, however, that if the Dems can retake either chamber of Congress and actually press for investigations of the illegal wiretapping, the nomination of a known defiler of the Constitution by his equally Constitutionally-challenged superior will go down as one of the watermarks of this administration’s imperial hubris.
More important to me at this time, however, is the treasonous nature of this nomination. That’s a strong word, indeed, but I can’t think of any other that would be appropriate.
The CIA is an institution with such low morale at this point that it has become a laughingstock. And the reasons for this low morale are abundantly clear, and can be vividly seen in James Risen’s book State of War.
In the CIA we have an institution that failed–whatever the other factors–to prevent 9/11, and then could not infiltrate Al-Qaeda well enough to locate Bin Laden. That was a big enough blow.
But then this criminal administration decided that it was going to invade Iraq and ignore Al-Qaeda, come hell or high water, using trumped up rationales. And then, to add insult to injury, they laid the blame for their own lies on the CIA.
When various members of the CIA rose up or left in protest, Bush chose to houseclean the agency by ridding it of Democrats with the nomination of Porter Goss. And then, as if morale couldn’t get any worse, the chief of the CIA then resigned in the wake of a (possibly gay) prostitute scandal at the Watergate hotel.
And now the last straw: Bush has nominated a military man to head the CIA–at a time when tensions between the Pentagon and the CIA could not be more pronounced.
In typical fashion, the Bush Administration has chosen intimidation over cooperation, in a move that can only be described as the biggest public “Fuck You” from one government organization to another in recent memory.
And if history is any judge, the effect on CIA morale will be terribly destructive. People with institutional knowledge will quit. Bright young talent will not join. And the NSA and Pentagon, which have shown themselves to be not only inept but also criminally indifferent on the issue of Constitutional rights, will take over more and more of the intelligence apparatus. By Design.
There is no other word for this than TREASON.
Because any fool knows that the phrase “The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves” is a joke–not a guidebook. And when you’re dealing with people who use the phrase as a management motto, you’re not dealing with incompetent, bumbling, even malevolent idiots; you’re dealing with intentionally vindicative and destructive people doing their utmost to damage and debilitate part of the apparatus that maintains our national security.
It’s treason, plain and simple.
available in orange.
Yes, but when treason succeeds none dare call it treason.
Right now we are in the hands of an expanding and corrupt dictatorship.
I just wonder what’s really at stake for these people? What do they really believe in? They worship at the altar of the Profit God.
Hard to believe it would ever happen. The explanation is not overly complex–though it is not particularly good news. The Bush people are looking ahead to the next world war–the war for oil–that they are going to launch. (Actually, they have already launched it, that is what Iraq is about.) The war will either be lost or won. (It will be lost, but they can’t figure that out.) At the end of the war, the world situation will be totally different–unpredictable from today’s perspective–that they can figure out.
Thus, the deep, long-range, multi-contingency intellegence gathering and analysis which have always been one part of the CIA’s activities are no longer needed. In corporate down-sizing fashion, these functions are to be shed. The CIA activities to be kept–black ops, and electronic intelligence–can be moved over to the Pentagon and put under control of military–battlefield–intelligence.
All US foreign policy is, or soon will be, military policy. For example, not much notice has been taken, but Condi’s State Department is already operating as a subservient propaganda wing of Defense.
At the end of the war the US will have neither diplomatic nor intelligence capabilities. The Bush people do not think they will be needed. You are right, this is treasonable.
who voted for Hayden here at my own blog; there’s really no need to crosspost it here and push other diaries down the scroll, but it’s deeply disturbing that the Senate Dems are selling us out once again.
There are also four treasonous democrats who voted in favor of this nomination. If, if the democrats gain control of congress in the mid terms, the fact that a majority of the democrats on this commitee gave this nominee a pass, doesn’t bode well for our hopes that they will call for investigations.