Well then if it didn’t help us find him it probably wasn’t worth it then
I think you make a good case here, plus the OP points out these types of deceits have to be approved at the highest levels. So it’s not like any yahoo agent can go around faking OB/GYN exams just to get a minimal amount of intelligence.
Please don’t misrepresent what I obviously meant, which was that there was no outside oversight or review, so we actually have no idea who(if anyone) is refused. “Approved at the highest levels” doesn’t meant squat if those at “the highest levels” don’t give a shit about anything but getting the mission done, no matter the long-term consequences to others.
Right, those at the highest levels of the FBI or CIA aren’t getting paid to care about some terrorist’s feelings or who’s butthurt over an attack thwarted. Their mission is to stop criminal and terrorists from hurting and killing innocent people. Their only other consideration is staying within the law. It is Congress who passed the law ordering the FBI/CIA to take out terrorists. So unless that law specifically says that agents aren’t allowed to pose as doctors/aid workers/journalists, then I’m afraid you’ve a long hill to climb trying to demonstrate it is illegal for the agents to pose as such.
Congress would never have passed this law without fully considering the long term consequences to others. And it really is Congress’ problem, not the FBI/CIA’s. The mission is set and more lives are saved than are lost.
It seems to me your argument is based on what could be going on. Unless you have more examples of agents pretending to be doctors then we really are being speculative, perhaps even suspecting some elaborate conspiracy. YogSothoth is pointing out that the benefit in this one case outweighed the damage, and in this one case I agree that the FBI/CIA did see the greater benefit.
Consider the parents of daughters in Northern Nigeria, they see Boko Haram streaming over the hilltops attacking them. All of a sudden, a bunch of doctors/aid workers/journalists whip out Uzis and machine gun down all these terrorists. I’m just not seeing how these poor folk are going to somehow think The West deceived them and mean no goodwill.
Perhaps I’m overly cynical, but I don’t believe this for a minute.
100% agreed. The CIA vaccination program designed to catch Bin Ladin have caused irreparable harm in Pakistan, where the Taliban regularly kills polio vaccination teams and the soldiers guarding them.
I didn’t say or even come close to implying this, either. maybe if you just quoted me directly you could get something right?
You’re wrong … investigative journalism into the internal affairs of terrorist organizations is already extremely dangerous … mainly because journalists have a habit of making public everything they learn … spies however, not so much.
Seriously, why would Bruno the crime boss guard his tongue because the reporter might be an FBI agent? I would think the other way around, Bruno is going to guard his tongue because the FBI agent might be a reporter.
You proposition that criminals would be more likely to trust an FBI agent over a legitimate reporter for the reason you state is so…bizarre…that I’m not even going to argue with you about it. It qualifies as “Not Even Wrong”.
Yes, every member of Congress read all 342 pages of the US PATRIOT Act and made a careful, reasoned decision that weighed the consequences of its provisions against the unprecidented alterations to the goverment’s ability to monitor its own citizens and shield itself from previously established transparency requirements. Oh, wait, they didn’t and don’t: “We don’t read most of the bills. Do you really know what that would entail if we read every bill that we passed?”
Please turn off the television and stop forming your opinions on politics and international relations by watching Liam Neesom films on continuous loop.
But surely their continued sacrifices and the impact on public health of millions are worth it to expedite the termination of one pathetic old man in hiding. Now that we’ve eliminated bin Laden, five years on the scourage of radical militant Islam has been virtually eliminated. America, fuck yeah!
Stranger
Apparently you won’t argue about whether journalism is already dangerous or not either.
Do you have a citation stating that millions of people have refused polio vaccines strictly because one agent posed as a doctor? That doesn’t include Pakistanis who are mad about a USA military strike in their territory, or the intrinsic hatred of the West stemming from the debacle in the late 1940’s … you’re claiming millions refusing vaccines because of how we rubbed out bin Laden.
As someone who has considerable experience as being an actual journalist, this is an important distinction.
There are so many random people out there with blogs or YouTube channels calling themselves journalists (despite not having any formal qualifications or necessarily working to the same same ethical standards as professional journalists) that I don’t automatically see a problem with an undercover police officer from a major crimes investigating police force (Be they the FBI, Australian Federal Police, Scotland Yard, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police etc) from impersonating a “journalist” in the course of investigating a major and serious crime.
Journalists ask a lot of questions; it’s a natural cover in some respects, so if the police officer or agent is pretending to be from a fake (or bodgied up) newspaper/blog, then I don’t see it being a huge issue.
However, pretending to be a journalist from a respected and well-known news outlet is not cool; among other things it undermines the trust of that outlet’s actual staff to do their jobs and could have potentially far more serious repercussions down the track too.
Knock it off.
Stick to the discussion and leave the personal comments for The BBQ Pit.
[ /Moderating ]