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> the US needs a group of morally-compromised people willing to do bad things. It's tempting to think that, but do you have any evidence to support it? Look at

> the US needs a group of morally-compromised people willing to do bad things. It's tempting to think that, but do you have any evidence to support it? Look at the list of examples from the parent comment: Iran-Contra - We sold a bunch of weapons to a country that we're now apparently enemies with. The funded Contras committed a series of human rights violations and then fizzled out. Operation Condor - Thousands and thousands of innocent civilians killed, numerous South American countries still unstable and suffering the consequences of it. 28 Mordad - Maybe gave us access to oil we didn't really need. Created long-standing entirely valid resentment of the US and democracy which likely led to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, rise of theocracy in Iran, and today's current trouble with them. MKUltra - Thousands of US and Canadian citizens, many already marginalized or mentally unwell were unwittingly drugged without their consent. Harrowing accounts like "they administered LSD to a mental patient in Kentucky for 174 days" and drugging deputy U.S. marshal Wayne Ritchie" who ended up having "a bad LSD trip that culminated in his holding up the bar at gunpoint." Afterwards, the CIA admitted the entire project was essentially useless. It seems to be that any organization allowed to perform morally-compromised acts as a honeypot for the kind of people who want to perform amoral acts, which are exactly the people we should not be letting make any of these kinds of choices.

jeltz 7y ago
And there are more incidents where those came from. Helping Contras smuggle cocaine into the US. And the Bay of Pigs Invasion which basically forced Castro into an alliance with Soviet and almost started World War 3 due to the missile crisis. The CIA has done good things for the US too, but these events show that having a group of people doing bad things might not be good for the US in the short term either.
wayoutthere 7y ago
I totally agree with you. While such unethical behavior may have seemed to solve an immediate problem, they created far more problems down the road than they were worth.
davidw 7y ago
> Iran-Contra - We sold a bunch of weapons to a country that we're now apparently enemies with. The funded Contras committed a series of human rights violations and then fizzled out. Our current attorney general was involved in pardoning a bunch of the people behind this.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> Iran-Contra - We sold a bunch of weapons to a country that we're now apparently enemies with Not just now, but at the time we sold weapons to them they were an enemy; we had imposed an arms embargo on Iran and were backing Iraq’s brutally repressive regime in a war (of naked aggression aimed at territorial aggrandizement) with Iran specifically because Iran was supposedly a critical threat, and within a year of the last Iran-Contra arms transfer our military was actively engaged directly against Iran (the Tanker War.) > The funded Contras committed a series of human rights violations and then fizzled out. Funding the Contras, it is also worth noting, was specifically prohibited by Congress.

jeltz 7y ago

And there are more incidents where those came from. Helping Contras smuggle cocaine into the US. And the Bay of Pigs Invasion which basically forced Castro into an alliance with Soviet and almost started World War 3 due to the missile crisis. The CIA has done good things for the US too, but these events show that having a group of people doing bad things might not be good for the US in the short term either.

wayoutthere 7y ago

I totally agree with you. While such unethical behavior may have seemed to solve an immediate problem, they created far more problems down the road than they were worth.

davidw 7y ago

> Iran-Contra - We sold a bunch of weapons to a country that we're now apparently enemies with. The funded Contras committed a series of human rights violations and then fizzled out. Our current attorney general was involved in pardoning a bunch of the people behind this.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> Iran-Contra - We sold a bunch of weapons to a country that we're now apparently enemies with Not just now, but at the time we sold weapons to them they were an enemy; we had imposed an arms embargo on Iran and were backing Iraq’s brutally repressive regime in a war (of naked aggression aimed at territorial aggrandizement) with Iran specifically because Iran was supposedly a critical threat, and within a year of the last Iran-Contra arms transfer our military was actively engaged directly against Iran (the Tanker War.) > The funded Contras committed a series of human rights violations and then fizzled out. Funding the Contras, it is also worth noting, was specifically prohibited by Congress.