(9:00AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
I was having an interesting discussion the other day about the CIA lying to Congress with an acquaintance. Most of the conversation revolved around my background, former military security clearance and experiences.
So, let’s discuss secrecy in our government…
As an active-duty Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialist, I held a Top Secret security clearance with access to NATO and CNWDI (Critical Nuclear Weapons Design Information). I say this so you can keep in mind the kind of information that I was supposed to have access — the operative word being “supposed”.
When the SR-71 was phased out and retired in 1990, it was the highest flying, fastest aircraft in the world. What replaced it? The F/A-117A stealth fighter. While the F/A-117A was “introduced” to the public right before the retiring of the Blackbird, it had been part of the Air Force since it’s first flight in 1983. In other words, for seven years, even most of us with Top Secret clearances didn’t know about it until the public unveiling.
I bring out this fact because the F/A-117A was an Air Force aircraft that our profession needed to have publications on in case one crashed near our base. But, we didn’t for seven years.
Now, do you, or anyone else, honestly believe that the CIA, that operates in total darkness, with a super-secret budget and under super-secret orders, wouldn’t lie to anyone and everyone, including our own government officials, even their own new Director, about what they did and under whose instructions? Give me a break!
The history of the CIA is a sordid past of illegality. To be Director of the CIA, you had to be a person who believed the end justified the means, especially when the means were illegal.
The CIA was directly involved in abuses in Vietnam and Central America. It is well documented that the CIA associated with drug lords in Central America and kept those activities from other agencies so they didn’t compromise their own connections. The “School of the America’s” graduated numerous “alumni”, who worked with our CIA, that were involved in human rights abuses.
Think I am getting into “conspiracy theory”? Think again. Remember, the Air Force kept from the people who needed to know the existence of an aircraft until the public, ie, people with no clearance, knew of it.
The fact that I was EOD is a major factor because we were supposed to know of all of the ordnance, from every country, from small arms ammunition to nuclear weapons. Did we? No.
To emphasize this point, let’s look at North Korea. A simple google turns up this information:
On October 9, 2006, the North Korean government issued an announcement that it had successfully conducted a nuclear test for the first time. Both the United States Geological Survey and Japanese seismological authorities detected an earthquake with a preliminary estimated magnitude of 4.2 in North Korea, corroborating some aspects of the North Korean claims.[2]
Right. North Korea had it’s first successful test in the year 2006! How about, I believe, for a fact, that the year 2006 was the first time they tested the nuclear weapons they had in their stockpile. Since this is 2009, they have had these nuclear weapons in their stockpile for over 20 years.
Of course there is secrecy in our government. In every aspect of it. One hand has no clue what the other is doing, even if it is legal, much less if it is illegal.
This is why President Obama doesn’t want an inquiry — he has become privy to just how much illegal stuff our government does, and, to let the cat out of the bag now opens a can of worms nobody, of either political stripe, wants made public.
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First term military, people with no “brat” history behind them or other connections who are given clearances are tested for loyalty and programmability. Used in place where they are if they don’t fit the personality profile or show themselves resistant to the programming.
Really piss them off and you’ll become the equivalent of a Star Trek red shirt, an MK Ultra experiment. Agent Orange, anthrax, swine flu. You’ll get told the canned story that “enemy” biologicals or chemicals “got loose” and be given your mandatory “vaccine” against them… I got bronchial pneumonia like clockwork for three years every spring and fall while stationed in Germany because I was taking mandatory shots against “Russian Type A Flu”, otherwise known as H1N1 SWINE FLU.
These assholes don’t give a shit about the boots on the ground even if we are highly cleared. Just look at the casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan – enlisted versus higher paid military contractor. That is what we are expected to aspire to be – contractors, working outside any system of law for more money in exchange for our souls, perhaps getting a double paycheck from “The Company” on the side. We are nothing to them in the long run unless we show them we are willing to play the game by their rules.
Good “second generation” reading on how little the Bush dynasty, the CIA and their infrastructure of wholly-owned military contractors give a crap about our country, our people and our Constitution here.
Way back in 1976 when hubby was radiochemist/hp at a nuclear plant in PA there was a funny incident. Seems the incoming shift workers were setting off the teletectors at the guard shack. All of them. So the hps went out into the parking lot to see where the contamination was coming from, found the cars in the lot were seriously hot. They called the NRC, which immediately flew in helicopters to figure out what was happening. When they got there, they set off the alarms too.
Meanwhile, back in the bowels of the lab and control room, everything appeared perfectly normal. Hubby took a swipe off a hot car and ran it through the GELI – there were some seriously nasty isotopes in there! He informed the NRC that there’s no way the plant could possibly release some of those without a total meltdown, and a total meltdown was NOT occurring. The NRC called back to D.C., found out about an hour later that China had conducted an atmospheric test a day or two before, but it had been deemed “Top Secret” and nobody was allowed to know. Which would have been fine, except that the crap was falling out all over the world and people were being paid to monitor. It’s not like this wasn’t going to be found out as a matter of course. Tell that to the Ukranians who tried to pretend nothing was wrong at Chernobyl while the Swedes were monitoring gross levels and tracking it right back to where it came from…
So the NRC let the plant management call the local fire department and they came out with a couple of tankers and hose trucks, the rest of the afternoon fun and games was to wash every car and truck in the lot, then hose the lot itself down so the runoff would go straight into the river.
Go figure.
… from my essay Secrecy and Transparency, I finally read Steven Aftergood’s paper (warning, pdf), Reducing Government Secrecy: Finding What Works, this – about the CIA in 2003:
So an agency already steeped in secrecy gained even more power to avoid oversight in 2003 — and heaven knows what else the CIA gained, including Dick Cheney being able to use them as paid assassins, if I hear right.