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If the intelligence community can't publicly deny that perhaps the most prolific child rapist in known history was an asset, we have serious problems. Regardle

If the intelligence community can't publicly deny that perhaps the most prolific child rapist in known history was an asset, we have serious problems. Regardless of standard policy.

wahern 7y ago
> the most prolific child rapist in known history I think maybe your cynicism is misplaced. The world is a far uglier place than your comment presumes. And relative to the kinds of people intelligence agencies must deal with sometimes, Epstein's crimes and alleged crimes probably wouldn't raise an eyebrow. (Which isn't a comment on whether they were blackmail worthy.)
- meowface 7y ago
  It all depends on what really happened. First off, he may have had no involvement with intelligence whatsoever, or beyond being interrogated after his arrest. If the intelligence agencies did set all of this up and told him to get real underaged girls (rather than actors pretending to be underaged) to blackmail people, or knew this was happening and allowed it to continue for so long, that'd actually be big. That's state-sponsored child sex trafficking and rape. But there are so many other possibilities in between that and "no involvement".
  - mrguyorama 7y ago
    We've literally toppled free governments, administered LSD to vulnerable people without their consent, and started purposeful rumors about important people being <insert bad thing here>. What makes you think the CIA wouldn't run a child sex trafficking ring for "the greater good"?
    - meowface 7y ago
      Well, for one, it's [current year], and ethical standards within the CIA seem to have shifted a little. But also, I do actually think operating a child sex trafficking ring would probably be a lot more objectionable for most intelligence handlers than toppling governments. If someone asked you right now "you have two options: topple a government and replace them with a puppet, or run a child sex trafficking ring", and you had to pick one, which would you choose? If I had to choose, I'd definitely choose the former.
      - filoeleven 7y ago
        > Well, for one, it's [current year], and ethical standards within the CIA seem to have shifted a little. The current head of the CIA is a torturer who illegally destroyed evidence. “Shifted a little” is awfully generous.
        meowface 7y ago
        Torture is heinous, of course. But, I have to admit, the torture tactics employed by the CIA in the past two decades against alleged terrorists still seem to be quite an ethical leap compared to what they used to be doing.
ta999999171 7y ago
You...don't know much about intelligence agencies, do you? Time to watch...let's see..."Scandal", "Snowden", Canadian TV show "Intelligence", Shooter...those are just the "fictional" accounts.
sokoloff 7y ago
Was Epstein an asset? No! Was Dahmer an asset? No! Was Foobar an asset? No comment. It's not in their best interest to publicly deny any assets I don't think.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  This is only a problem if the state has sanctioned mass child rape or necrophilic cannibalism. If the state did sanction those actions, we deserve to know.
  - meowface 7y ago
    If they did sanction such things, they'd never admit it. If they didn't, it does them no good to comment on this, or anything, one way or the other. There's no benefit to asking them and no benefit to answering. We know Epstein was a genuine pedophile. It's not impossible that his actions were his (and Ghislaine's) own. Maybe he was trying to blackmail people for his personal profit, or maybe blackmail wasn't part of it. Maybe he saw it as a way of sharing his "hobby" with people he liked and wanted to get to know more, partly to acquire clout and connections and partly because pedophilia was his passion and something he considered worth doing with others, just like some rich people invite other rich people to go golfing. There are so many possibilities. Maybe the above is true but he was also an intelligence asset. Maybe he was an asset but the agency/agencies involved weren't aware actual underaged people were involved and dropped him after his 2008 arrest and he then just continued for his own pleasure. Maybe he really was working for one the whole time and the people responsible thought the ends justified the means. Maybe he wasn't and essentially was trying to run his own private intelligence agency, perhaps to sell information to other intelligence agencies, and companies and people who would pay a lot for that dirt. There's no evidence of anything concrete either way. The prosecutor saying he was told to back off and that he belonged to intelligence is what really sparked all of this, but the meaning of this is still unclear. If the person who told him this wasn't lying, it definitely could mean he was an asset all along, or it could mean that intelligence agencies weren't aware of him until his arrest and realized the potential of the information he might have and promised him leniency if he informed them about every important individual involved, then stopped dealing with him after he was sentenced. If this is true, this sort of thing isn't uncommon with mass murderers - look at Sammy the Bull. The fact that he kept doing it for a decade when he got out, the unknown sources of his money, and other weird factors certainly could be seen as additional evidence of his actions being sanctioned by some sort of intelligence, but it could mean other things, too. It's all just speculation. We also honestly don't know if he was murdered or killed himself; or if he killed himself, if he was permitted or encouraged to do so or if it really was just an ordinary suicide (he'd certainly have strong motive to kill himself). Maybe the base rate of incompetence is so high in that prison that this could happen; maybe 1/3 of the other cameras weren't working then, either, and maybe a lot of guards were slacking off and faking data for years. Most people seem to jump to the most extreme version of all of these possibilities, but we have almost nothing to go on. Maybe we'll learn the answers someday, but who knows.
texasbigdata 7y ago
You want to FOIA the secret parts of the government? Lol
JabavuAdams 7y ago
Imagine being a regular forces soldier at a base in Afghanistan who discovers that an allied local commander likes to rape little boys. On base. Imagine being told that you can't do anything about it, because if you piss him off Americans will die. The world is a really, really, really shitty place for the powerless and for naive idealists. Epstein was scum, but he's not as bad as some of the people we regularly work with to uphold our system. It's depressing.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  If upholding the puppet government in Afghanistan requires allying with pederasts the US should get out. Afghanistan has never had anything worth an occupation. The only reason the US is still there is to try and wash away the stain of Vietnam. As soon as the US leaves the Taliban will take over again within a year, just like al Shahab in Somalia. Afghanistan is already lost because there's no appetite to completely remake the country; colonialism has gone out of style. There are evil men in Afghanistan raping boys and there are evil men in Washington defending allowing them to do so.
krick 7y ago
Lol, it's extremely naïve to think that this is the worst or even unusually troubling story in the list of Mossad of CIA operations.

If the intelligence community can't publicly deny that perhaps the most prolific child rapist in known history was an asset, we have serious problems. Regardless of standard policy.

wahern 7y ago

> the most prolific child rapist in known history I think maybe your cynicism is misplaced. The world is a far uglier place than your comment presumes. And relative to the kinds of people intelligence agencies must deal with sometimes, Epstein's crimes and alleged crimes probably wouldn't raise an eyebrow. (Which isn't a comment on whether they were blackmail worthy.)

meowface 7y ago
It all depends on what really happened. First off, he may have had no involvement with intelligence whatsoever, or beyond being interrogated after his arrest. If the intelligence agencies did set all of this up and told him to get real underaged girls (rather than actors pretending to be underaged) to blackmail people, or knew this was happening and allowed it to continue for so long, that'd actually be big. That's state-sponsored child sex trafficking and rape. But there are so many other possibilities in between that and "no involvement".
- mrguyorama 7y ago
  We've literally toppled free governments, administered LSD to vulnerable people without their consent, and started purposeful rumors about important people being <insert bad thing here>. What makes you think the CIA wouldn't run a child sex trafficking ring for "the greater good"?
  - meowface 7y ago
    Well, for one, it's [current year], and ethical standards within the CIA seem to have shifted a little. But also, I do actually think operating a child sex trafficking ring would probably be a lot more objectionable for most intelligence handlers than toppling governments. If someone asked you right now "you have two options: topple a government and replace them with a puppet, or run a child sex trafficking ring", and you had to pick one, which would you choose? If I had to choose, I'd definitely choose the former.
    - filoeleven 7y ago
      > Well, for one, it's [current year], and ethical standards within the CIA seem to have shifted a little. The current head of the CIA is a torturer who illegally destroyed evidence. “Shifted a little” is awfully generous.
      - meowface 7y ago
        Torture is heinous, of course. But, I have to admit, the torture tactics employed by the CIA in the past two decades against alleged terrorists still seem to be quite an ethical leap compared to what they used to be doing.

ta999999171 7y ago

You...don't know much about intelligence agencies, do you? Time to watch...let's see..."Scandal", "Snowden", Canadian TV show "Intelligence", Shooter...those are just the "fictional" accounts.

sokoloff 7y ago

Was Epstein an asset? No! Was Dahmer an asset? No! Was Foobar an asset? No comment. It's not in their best interest to publicly deny any assets I don't think.

Consultant32452 7y ago
This is only a problem if the state has sanctioned mass child rape or necrophilic cannibalism. If the state did sanction those actions, we deserve to know.
- meowface 7y ago
  If they did sanction such things, they'd never admit it. If they didn't, it does them no good to comment on this, or anything, one way or the other. There's no benefit to asking them and no benefit to answering. We know Epstein was a genuine pedophile. It's not impossible that his actions were his (and Ghislaine's) own. Maybe he was trying to blackmail people for his personal profit, or maybe blackmail wasn't part of it. Maybe he saw it as a way of sharing his "hobby" with people he liked and wanted to get to know more, partly to acquire clout and connections and partly because pedophilia was his passion and something he considered worth doing with others, just like some rich people invite other rich people to go golfing. There are so many possibilities. Maybe the above is true but he was also an intelligence asset. Maybe he was an asset but the agency/agencies involved weren't aware actual underaged people were involved and dropped him after his 2008 arrest and he then just continued for his own pleasure. Maybe he really was working for one the whole time and the people responsible thought the ends justified the means. Maybe he wasn't and essentially was trying to run his own private intelligence agency, perhaps to sell information to other intelligence agencies, and companies and people who would pay a lot for that dirt. There's no evidence of anything concrete either way. The prosecutor saying he was told to back off and that he belonged to intelligence is what really sparked all of this, but the meaning of this is still unclear. If the person who told him this wasn't lying, it definitely could mean he was an asset all along, or it could mean that intelligence agencies weren't aware of him until his arrest and realized the potential of the information he might have and promised him leniency if he informed them about every important individual involved, then stopped dealing with him after he was sentenced. If this is true, this sort of thing isn't uncommon with mass murderers - look at Sammy the Bull. The fact that he kept doing it for a decade when he got out, the unknown sources of his money, and other weird factors certainly could be seen as additional evidence of his actions being sanctioned by some sort of intelligence, but it could mean other things, too. It's all just speculation. We also honestly don't know if he was murdered or killed himself; or if he killed himself, if he was permitted or encouraged to do so or if it really was just an ordinary suicide (he'd certainly have strong motive to kill himself). Maybe the base rate of incompetence is so high in that prison that this could happen; maybe 1/3 of the other cameras weren't working then, either, and maybe a lot of guards were slacking off and faking data for years. Most people seem to jump to the most extreme version of all of these possibilities, but we have almost nothing to go on. Maybe we'll learn the answers someday, but who knows.

texasbigdata 7y ago

You want to FOIA the secret parts of the government? Lol

JabavuAdams 7y ago

Imagine being a regular forces soldier at a base in Afghanistan who discovers that an allied local commander likes to rape little boys. On base. Imagine being told that you can't do anything about it, because if you piss him off Americans will die. The world is a really, really, really shitty place for the powerless and for naive idealists. Epstein was scum, but he's not as bad as some of the people we regularly work with to uphold our system. It's depressing.

barry-cotter 7y ago
If upholding the puppet government in Afghanistan requires allying with pederasts the US should get out. Afghanistan has never had anything worth an occupation. The only reason the US is still there is to try and wash away the stain of Vietnam. As soon as the US leaves the Taliban will take over again within a year, just like al Shahab in Somalia. Afghanistan is already lost because there's no appetite to completely remake the country; colonialism has gone out of style. There are evil men in Afghanistan raping boys and there are evil men in Washington defending allowing them to do so.

krick 7y ago

Lol, it's extremely naïve to think that this is the worst or even unusually troubling story in the list of Mossad of CIA operations.