CIA plans to purge its agency
Sources say White House has ordered new chief to eliminate officers who were disloyal to Bush
By Knut Royce Washington Bureau
November 14, 2004
[INDENT]“The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president’s agenda.”
[/INDENT]
If this comes to pass as implied, will this count pressure on agents to keep to the party line?
Damned whining liberals. It’s not what you think.
Not that I agree with what I just said. But I have just summarized the rest of the thread for you.
-Joe
The idea that thr CIA is a “hotbed of liberals” is so screwy that is makes my head hurt! :smack:
I think that the real question is whether it’s real or not. Put me down in the skeptical camp. Not that I put it beyond the Bush Administration, but I simply don’t believe that you could purge an entire organization of people of the wrong party overnight without anyone saying boo. Even the clandestine officers might eventually start to talk if they were suddenly dismissed without explanation, and they could likely do so without comprimising classified or secret information. As for the people in analysis that are known public names that aren’t in the clandestine section just won’t go without a fight. This would obviously backfire a lot on the Bush Administration. I just don’t think that they are that stupid.
Christ, I hope it’s not true. It’s not like this admin didn’t already get misled by intel biased to their political desires… If this purge actually happens then suddenly there will be incontravertable intel that every country in the UN except Britain has WMDs.
Ummmm … Iraq?
Yes, they are that stupid. Easily.
Yeah, 'cause ever since the Nixon White House used CIA agents to spy on U.S. citizens (to say nothing of the perception that the CIA created the wars in Central America and Africa), liberals have just been beating down the doors at Langley to get into the CIA.
I could see “disloyal to the president” as a belief held by the neo-cons, but if they actually believe that the CIA is overrun with “liberals” then they have not the wit to run a Cobb County school board much less the most powerful nation in the world.
(Of course, so far we have nothing more than a single op-ed piece with a bunch of unidentified sources, so this could easily be another typical case of the “outs” bad-mouthing the survivors at the standard “reorganization” that accompanies any change of leadership.)
Could be.
Then again, it seems to me that “liberal” is coming more and more to mean “not neocon”.
-Joe, the liberal senator from Mississippi
Could be.
Then again, it seems to me that “liberal” is coming more and more to mean “not neocon”.
-Joe, the most liberal senator from Mississippi
That’s it, I think. Goss is going to bring in his own people. As long as they’re competent, no big deal.
A post so brilliant it had to be done twice.
I thought we couldn’t post more than once in 60 seconds? Hmm…
-Joe, skilled at crashing stuff
And why is this surprising? They have been doing the same to Justice for 4 years, and that is as much of a hotbed of pinkos as the CIA. For entry level positions, applications have been screened by political appointees rather than the old policy of using career employees.
The CIA and Justice Dept are liberal pinkos??? What the hell is this? The return of McCarthyism? I guess if the CIA is Commie, GWB better investigate his father too - George Herbert Walker Bush was head of the CIA for a while, wasn’t he? This may just be disgruntling (if that’s even a word) by the outs, but at this point nothing surprises me anymore.
Will we ever get that CIA report that Congress has been asking for for months?
Screeninng administrators and staff for their political beliefs? Hmmm, sounds familiar. Where have I heard of that kind of thing being done elsewhere?
Oh, yeah. Soviet Russia.
Well, I bet the new guys’ loyalty to the Grand Ol’ Party is gonna be OUTSTANDING.
Sounds like the neo-cons, a bunch of former Trotskyites, are showing their true color – Soviet red. All hail the Motherland … I mean, Homeland!
Here is a rather lengthy Washington Post story about the shaeup. I think there’s defintely a purge happening, but the rationale for it is not so clear.
Since September 11th, it seems that anyone who disagrees with Bush and his administration is seen as being “disloyal” or unamerican. I find this attitude very distressing and it seems that things are going to go from bad to worse. I hope I am wong but I currently have zero faith in this administration and don’t see anything that encourages me to re-evaluate my position.
Who knows if this is true, but let’s think about it for a minute. Supposing there were CIA officials who were openly disloyal to the Administration-- ie, unwilling to implement the administrations policies. Why on earth would anyone expect this Administration or any other Administration to keep these folks on board?
Good god, did we elect George W. Bush or Richard Nixon?