When the CIA Admits to Doing Something Bad, It's Best to Denounce the Secrecy of the NSA

The United States of God Damn has had an abundance of Spookeries for many a long year, sixteen of which -- the last I heard -- are supposed to report to the "DNI," one General James Clapper, Head Spook and Liar.

These reporting Spookeries are said to include the CIA and the NSA, both of which are tasked with surveillance and clandestine operations abroad. Neither, whatever else they do, are supposed to target Americans or conduct operations on the Sacred Soil of the Homeland (I'm sure it sounded better in the original German), but according to the occasional revelation from various whistleblowers and others, sometimes they do.

Bad Agencies!

Well, lately -- very lately -- the CIA (the Spookery that's been mighty silent and on the sidelines during the whole Summer Sharkfest featuring the NSA) has been *coming clean* about operations it engaged in when time was. Such as the Mossedegh overthrow in Iran in 1953 which became the precipitating -- if not the proximate -- cause of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 which led to the, shall we say, tense relations between Iran and the USofGD ever since. Oh. The CIA now, 60 years later, admits what's been known for decades. What about Guatamala while we're at it? Indonesia? Vietnam? Korea? The undermining and dissolution of the Soviet Union? Laos -- don't even get me started -- and so on? Hm?



So. What?

And what did I just read today? The CIA admits it knew of Iraq's deployment of chemical weapons (they say it was Sarin, but who knows) against the Iranians during the unpleasantness between them and that, erm, the USofGD had some role in said unpleasantness...

Yes? And?

This is bullshit. Basically, the CIA is "admitting" to things Americans should have known about for decades or generations, in other words, well-known and deplorable activities of the Agency that have in their own way caused more grief than if the CIA had never been involved, indeed than if it had never existed.

And what happens?

As soon as these "admissions" and "revelations" hit the news, blame is cast on the NSA for its lies and secrecy. I'm just astonished that people can be so gullible, so easily manipulated, so vulnerable to propaganda operations such as we've been subject to all summer long.

Look, the truth is the Spookeries all lie, they all deceive, and they're all out of control. The problem with DNI Clapper is not that he's a LIAR!!!!™ (lying is part of his job description, after all), it's that he's ineffective. There is no control whatever from his end -- as supposed herd-rider on the Spooks -- and they're running wild.

Hello?

Hello? Anybody home?

No, everybody's apparently out at the beach screaming about SHARKS!!!!™

doG knows what the CIA is actually doing these days, but if the Disasters that are Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and so many other failed neo-colonial operations are any indication, reining in Langley should long ago have been made priority number one, but look, all eyes are compelled to pay attention to the NSA without regard to the CIA, and without the least regard to the overweening nature of domestic surveillance in Our Own Sweet Land.

So long as attention is ALL on NSA misdeeds or potentials for mischief, all the rest of the Spookeries and the Surveillance/Police State is off the hook -- at least for as long as this Summer Shark and Missing White Boy story lasts -- to do what they wilt.

This is one reason why I am not at all looking forward to After Labor Day, for whatever the other Spookeries have been up to during this Summer of (NSA) Sharks -- and it's looking more and more like "shaping the battlefield" for a all-out Mid-East Blood-fest, throwing the whole region into lingering and perhaps permanent chaos for the purpose of seizing once and for all the energy resources of the region and pitting one group of civilians against another for all time so as to maintain control -- it isn't pretty.

"But they're spying on meeeeee!!!!! Don't you understand!!!!?" Yes, I know that you and I are being surveilled,  and that a shitload of agencies and outfits, both public and private, are spying on us, and they've been doing it for years and years. You're just finding this out? Really? You wouldn't have known if Young Snowden hadn't offloaded a bunch of (what so far appears to be) internal training material onto Greenwald and the Guardian? Really?  You did not understand you were being spied upon by dozens of agencies and interests? You'd be shocked to know how much pure data there is on every one of us, and how easily available almost all of it is to any interested individual or agency -- with the right "keys." It's been this way for quite a long time now, and the expansion of the Surveillance/Police State has been reported extensively for just as long. You're just finding out?

I guess you didn't know there were sharks in the water, either, until you found out about it one summer because of that Shark movie.

"But it's the NSA!!!!!™ Don't you UNDERSTANDDDD!!!!!™"

And so it goes, round and round and round, in an endless loop, until something else comes along, and then this story will be dropped -- as if it had never been -- and we'll be on another looping roller coaster of induced fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Why this happens over and over again needs more probing than it gets. Until we get off this roller coaster of fear and hysteria and OUTRAGE!!!!™ at things great and small that are being done to us, we won't truly be able to do anything about them. The continuing round of Shark Stories are means of inducing helplessness and submission and compliance.

And they work.

But that will be a topic for another essay and another day.