MORE CIA WORRIES - AT 7:09 A.M. ET:  Related to the story just below is the fear of many in the CIA that their work will be compromised by restrictions and public scrutiny.  No doubt they recall that, in the 1970s, liberals in Congress went off on one of their morality campaigns and decimated the CIA, leaving it unprepared to deal with the problems of the next three decades.  From
The Washington Post:

Battered by recriminations over waterboarding and other harsh techniques sanctioned by the Bush administration, the CIA is girding itself for more public scrutiny and is questioning whether agency personnel can conduct interrogations effectively under rules set out for the U.S. military, according to senior intelligence officials.

Harsh interrogations were only one part of its clandestine activities against al-Qaeda and other enemies, and agency members are worried that other operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan will come under review, the officials said.

And...

The agency's defensiveness in part reflects a conviction that it is being forced to take the blame for actions approved by elected officials that have since fallen into disfavor. Former CIA director Michael V. Hayden said in an interview that CIA managers and operations officers have again been put "in a horrible position." Hayden recalled an officer asking, "Will I be in trouble five years from now for what I agree to do today?"

And...

Another intelligence official, who also asked not to be identified, said waterboarding and other harsh techniques "were meant to get hardened terrorists to a point where they were willing to answer questions." That capability, the official said, "is now gone."

COMMENT:  Great way to conduct national security, ay?  Imagine if we'd fought World War II under current conditions.

What we must finally realize is that there's an element in the Democratic Party that either doesn't care if we win or lose the war on terror, or would prefer that we lost.  It'll teach us a lesson, these people reason.  It's all our fault.  In some cases there are members of Congress, like David Obey of Wisconsin, who were in Congress during Vietnam and revel in doing the same damage now that they did then.  But the press simply will not confront this reality.  It's like the British press of the 1930s, more wary of those, like Winston Churchill, who were trying to save Britain than those who were selling her out.

May 19, 2009