Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan apparently spearheaded a campaign to delegitimize Obama's candidate for the next Director of Central Intelligence, and it looks like it worked. John Brennan won't be our next DCI unless Obama really grows a pair and brings himself to push Brennan's appointment anyway.
From the sounds of it, Brennan would make a good replacement for Hayden. He's a career CIA man with extensive knowledge of both the culture and major languages of the Middle East. On top of that, he's no fan of torture, but neither is he dovish about making stubborn captives and targets speak when lives are on the line. Seemed like a very competent and non-political choice, who will now be replaced by a political appointee so that Obama can regain some brownie points with these people.
I agree that torture is a serious issue, and that it can almost never be justified. However, waterboarding falls into that territory that remains up for grabs. As a Christian, I recognize that the church has traditionally considered it torture. It was even authorized for the Spanish Inquisition as la tortura de agua, one of the few forms of torture authorized to be used on suspects. However, as currently practiced, it is generally safe, and there is a certain inherent "the ends justify the means" factor in intelligence work with regard to extracting information from people who are probably foreign agents. As long as the interrogation methods don't rise to the level of undeniable torture, ie present a high risk or certitude of injury or death, it may be best to look away so long as the work of our agents is generally fruitful.
All in all, it looks like these two self-proclaimed civil libertarians have done a bang up job of ruining the shot of Obama transferring the CIA into the hands of a competent DCI. Even the night watchman state needs agencies like the CIA today, as modern life has made it impossible for governments to simply pretend that all they have to do is station the legions aggresively along the border and posture for war against other armies. One of these days civil libertarians are going to have to make peace with that just as conservatives had to make peace with the fact that having a real standing army capable of more than parading while the militia prepares to fill its ranks was a necessary adaption to changes in the world in the 19th century.
From the sounds of it, Brennan would make a good replacement for Hayden. He's a career CIA man with extensive knowledge of both the culture and major languages of the Middle East. On top of that, he's no fan of torture, but neither is he dovish about making stubborn captives and targets speak when lives are on the line. Seemed like a very competent and non-political choice, who will now be replaced by a political appointee so that Obama can regain some brownie points with these people.
I agree that torture is a serious issue, and that it can almost never be justified. However, waterboarding falls into that territory that remains up for grabs. As a Christian, I recognize that the church has traditionally considered it torture. It was even authorized for the Spanish Inquisition as la tortura de agua, one of the few forms of torture authorized to be used on suspects. However, as currently practiced, it is generally safe, and there is a certain inherent "the ends justify the means" factor in intelligence work with regard to extracting information from people who are probably foreign agents. As long as the interrogation methods don't rise to the level of undeniable torture, ie present a high risk or certitude of injury or death, it may be best to look away so long as the work of our agents is generally fruitful.
All in all, it looks like these two self-proclaimed civil libertarians have done a bang up job of ruining the shot of Obama transferring the CIA into the hands of a competent DCI. Even the night watchman state needs agencies like the CIA today, as modern life has made it impossible for governments to simply pretend that all they have to do is station the legions aggresively along the border and posture for war against other armies. One of these days civil libertarians are going to have to make peace with that just as conservatives had to make peace with the fact that having a real standing army capable of more than parading while the militia prepares to fill its ranks was a necessary adaption to changes in the world in the 19th century.
The really bizarre thing to come out of my piece was the way some bloggers (on the left and the right) seemed to react by assuming that I was anti-blogger in general. It seems that many self-proclaimed intellectuals can't grasp the distinction between restraint and repression.
I was arguing that when a man has done nothing wrong, has broken no laws and there's nothing to indicate that he will in future, there is simply no reason whatsoever to use your influence as a columnist to thwart his career aspirations.
Even their whining about his opinions (which was all their reports of him consisted of) was rendered moot by the fact that he had publicly refuted his earlier opinions. Is it utterly inconceivable that the man could have a change of heart, especially in view of the fact that he was never an avid interrogation/rendition advocate in the first place?
These columnists have become so bloated with their own sense of self-importance that they've completely lost sight of basic human restraint. All I was suggesting was that before people like Sullivan "declare war" on the President Elect, vainly shouting "yes we can", they should stop and ask him "should I?"
In this case, he shouldn't have. It was a non-story about a man who had done nothing but serve his country legitimately for 25 years. But because Obama and his team seem to think Sullivan's and Greenwald's views represent majority mindset, Brennan's days were numbered. And he knew it.
Back in the day, an editor who had a hit-piece handed to him similar to Greenwald's and Sullivans would have seen to it that it never saw the light of day. There are no more editors in this society, so the columnists will have to try to exercise a little common sense. I don't ask them to do anything they don't demand from public officials.
I couldn't entirely fault you if you were. The behavior of a lot of major bloggers is pretty atrocious because they hold themselves out to be upstart journalists, and then are guilt of blatant hypocrisy in cases like this. Sullivan has been an insufferable jackass ever since I first heard about him and what people were saying about him. That he had a respectable journalism career before becoming a full-time blogger is probably a good sign of the sort of thing that was tearing down the profession. Not that it was a terribly honorable one, but certain bloggers sure seem content to take it to new lows.