Monday, March 05, 2007
Crying Wolf
While much was made of the bogus intelligence used to justify destroying Iraq, little attention has been paid to the intelligence bureaucracy that depends for its livelihood on crying wolf.
As author Christopher Simpson documents in his book Blowback, the CIA--since its inception under President Truman--has deliberately falsified reports of threats to America and its allies in order to bolster its budgets as well as enhance its prestige relative to the Pentagon or Department of State. Wild exagerrations and fantasies fabricated by former top-level Nazi war criminals--then on the CIA payroll--ensured American policy during the Cold War was driven more by fear than fact.
The practice of using phony intelligence--then and now--serves to prop up a bloated military budget that keeps the war industry fat at the expense of our health, education, and social security. Millions of innocents have died in this game, thousands of them Americans.
As author Christopher Simpson documents in his book Blowback, the CIA--since its inception under President Truman--has deliberately falsified reports of threats to America and its allies in order to bolster its budgets as well as enhance its prestige relative to the Pentagon or Department of State. Wild exagerrations and fantasies fabricated by former top-level Nazi war criminals--then on the CIA payroll--ensured American policy during the Cold War was driven more by fear than fact.
The practice of using phony intelligence--then and now--serves to prop up a bloated military budget that keeps the war industry fat at the expense of our health, education, and social security. Millions of innocents have died in this game, thousands of them Americans.
