Wednesday, March 08, 2017
Let’s
Give the CIA the Credit It Deserves
People are silhouetted as they pose with laptops in front of a
screen projected with binary code and a Central Inteligence Agency (CIA)
emblem, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina
October 29, 2014. (Photo: Reuters/Dado Ruvic/File Photo/Illustration)
For months now, our country has endured the tacit denigration of
American ingenuity. Countless statements—from elected officials, activist groups,
journalists and many others—have ignored our nation’s superb blend of dazzling
high-tech capacities and statecraft mendacities.
Fortunately, this week the news about release of illuminating CIA
documents by WikiLeaks has begun to give adequate credit where due. And not a
moment too soon. For way too long, Russia has been credited with prodigious
hacking and undermining of democracy in the United States.
Many Americans have overlooked the U.S. government’s fantastic
hacking achievements. This is most unfair and disrespectful to the dedicated
men and women of intelligence services like the CIA and NSA. Far from the
limelight, they’ve been working diligently to undermine democracy not just
overseas but also here at home.
Today, the massive new trove of CIA documents can help to put
things in perspective. Maybe now people will grasp that our nation’s
undermining of democracy is home-grown and self-actualized. It’s an insult to
the ingenious capacities of the United States of America to think that we can’t
do it ourselves.
Contrary to all the public relations work that U.S. intelligence
agencies have generously done for them, the Russians don’t even rank as peripheral
to the obstacles and prospects for American democracy. Rest assured, throughout
the long history of the United States, we haven’t needed foreigners to get the
job done.
In our current era, can Vladimir Putin take any credit for
purging huge numbers of African Americans, Latinos and other minority citizens
from the voter rolls? Of course not.
Did Putin create and maintain the barriers that prevented many
low-income people from voting on November 8? Only in his dreams.
Can the Kremlin hold a candle to the corporate-owned cable TV
channels that gave Donald Trump umpteen free hours of uninterrupted air time
for speeches at his campaign rallies? Absolutely not.
Could any Russian operation claim more than a tiny sliver of
impact compared to the handiwork of FBI Director James Comey as he boosted
Donald Trump’s prospects with a pair of gratuitous announcements about a
gratuitously re-opened probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails during the last days
of the 2016 campaign? No way.
Is Putin anything but a miniscule lightweight in any efforts to
manipulate the U.S. electorate compared to “dark money” American billionaires
like the Koch brothers? Give us a break.
And how about the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? The
Kremlin can only marvel at the way that the CIA, the NSA and the bipartisan
leadership in Washington have shredded the Fourth Amendment while claiming to
uphold it.
To sum up: The CIA’s efforts to tout Russia add up to
jaw-dropping false modesty! The humility of “deep state” leaders in Langley is
truly awesome.
Let’s get a grip. Overwhelmingly, the achievements of thwarting
democracy in America have been do-it-yourself operations. It’s about time that
we give adequate credit to the forces perpetuating this country’s
self-inflicted wounds to American democracy.
To loosely paraphrase the beloved comic-strip character Pogo,
when the subject is grievous damage to democracy at home, “We have met the
ingenuity and it is U.S.” But we’re having a terrible time recognizing
ourselves.
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to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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