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10/12/2004: Juan Cole has a couple good posts today....
What does Dick Cheney do when the intel analysts don't tell him what he wants to hear? He has a fit and tries to bully the analyst into telling him what he wants to hear:
It is Cheney's display of anger at the CIA findings that is disturbing here. How long has this been going on? Cheney even went to visit the CIA headquarters in Langley at one point before the war. Was he growling at the analysts and trying to make them say what he wanted them to say? In the intelligence business, an analyst who tells politicians what they want to hear rather than the truth is called a "weasel." How many CIA analysts were turned into weasels by Cheney's bluster and implied threats? Why would the US electorate want a man in office who is so out of touch with reality that he "blows up" when someone speaks the truth around him?And Cole reprints the email of a correspondent who knows whereof he speaks:
David K. Moore writes:Yep. Knowing a little history fills me with such confidence that the bAdministration is doing the right thing." I have to bring something up about the analogy to the Red Army Faction. I was in college in Germany 75-76, when Baader and Meinhoff were killed (or committed suicide). What happened to Germany due to their actions is a cautionary tale for America. Part of their philosophy was to create a fascist government backlash through oppression, which in turn would lead to the fall of the Federal German Republic. Quite a miscalculation, seeing as how Germans have a history of putting up with oppression--think of the saying Zucht und Ordnung.[emphasis added --LRC]
The government passed the law Gefahr in Verzug, which gave them the right to search, detain and seize for being a "threat in the making." Sound familiar? Germans had to register with the local police where they worked and lived. Quite a few laws like this were passed but, interestingly, the terrorists never violated them. They created false names and registered under them. They also had the help of the East German Stasi. I lived in Berlin and people are unaware Germans could get off the subway in East Berlin. The third largest Turkish population was West Berlin and you could always spot the illegals coming in through the subway. Kind of like how the Mexicans keep infiltrating unchecked.
One last analogy is the personal information the Germans collected. They had the world's largest computer dedicated to tracking down the RAF. Information on their favorite cars, cigarettes, etc., were kept and run against other people buying these products.
In other words, I experienced the PATRIOT Act in the original 1970s German version."
Len on 10.12.04 @ 12:31 PM CST
