READERS’ RESPONSES
When I read this terrifying history of the Central Intelligence Agency you laid out in your column it left me wondering how we allowed and still allow this to go on today through two presidential administrations from two different parties and allegedly two different ideologies. (CONVENIENTLY INVISIBLE AMERICA – Issue: 12/17/14) It makes one also wonder how much of the paranoid ranting of people like Oliver Stone is not possible. It makes you look deeper once again into the assassination of President Kennedy and how many conflicts we have been dragged into beyond Viet Nam and Iraq that have brought misery upon other countries and eventually our own.
I know it is what you tell us constantly, this being doomed to repeat history we are unaware of, but I think that is where we become victims of the kind of politics we are handed by both the politicians themselves and the cable news and the blogosphere and the constant voices that sell us the same old thing over and over and we take for granted that someone competent is running things, when something as obvious as the CIA can continue to be run in this way.
It is hard to believe we are always a force for good in this world when you know the truth, but people refuse to accept it. Thank you for at least trying.
—Gabrielle T.
Not too much to argue with here, Sir James, and MUCH too much to agree with—tragically. Just one small detail worth mentioning: CIA isn’t always taxpayer funded. Sometimes they have bake sales … well, it’s not cake or cookies they are selling; it’s heroin. Here’s the brief from Wikipedia: “In order to provide covert funds for the Kuomintang (KMT) forces loyal to General Chiang Kai-shek, who were fighting the Chinese communists under Mao Zedong, the CIA helped the KMT smuggle opium from China and Burma to Bangkok, Thailand, by providing airplanes owned by one of their front businesses, Air America.” Of course this continued right up through the Vietnam war and into the ’70s. I believe weapons & armaments also showed up on the bake sale table.
So glad you didn’t throw in with Cheney. I have a mind to waterboard him. Or maybe just thottle him with my naked hands.
—Vincent Czyz
Bad news—no one is outraged by any of this. Well, except maybe Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi and a handful of other Dems who, as we’re just finding out, knew all about the shit when it was originally going down and had no problem. Pretty sweet—$40 million spent to find out shit they all knew about already. Our over-drugged, under-educated society doesn’t care about any of this…unless you interrupted Dancing With The Stars with it.
—Ken Eustace
Not bad dude, but you miss a salient point. The Geneva Convention was designed for nation-states to conduct their hostilities in a civilized fashion. ISIL and AQ do not represent a nation or a government. They are terror cells much in the vein of the IRA and therefore do not fall under Geneva protections. If a few of these bad guys get some water dripped on them…so be it.
Our problem is we have to weigh the consequences of defending our nation against enemies who know they cannot defeat us in conventional warfare so they must try to destroy us either using guerrilla tactics or destroying us from within. Both of those unconventional methods of warfare require unconventional responses. For instance, you capture Haji on the battlefield after he was observed dealing with AQ higher ups. You bring him in for questioning and he doesn’t talk. You know based on who he was dealing with prior to capture that he WILL have vital intel. So after begging and pleading and even promising him ice cream for dessert he doesn’t talk…what do you do? Do you just say, “Screw it, he was tougher than us and now we let him go,” or do you up the ante and help him discover his will to talk?
You see, you sit up there in your comfy home unaffected by all of this but still seem that you need to criticize actions you do not understand. Enhanced interrogation works, it is NOT torture. To quote the dude from The Hangover, “But did you die?” You see, we “Baptize the terrorists with the water of freedom” and they lop your head off, place it on a fencepost and then put the video of it all on YouTube. Do not EVER compare our actions.
Remember, it was a nice “baptizing” session that enabled KSM to find his inner stool pigeon which in turn gave us Jose Padilla, the guy the Syrians whacked two weeks ago along with other timely pertinent information. It works, it may be ugly but it works.
Oh and if this isn’t “who we are” then are we a bunch of murderers who kill from 10,000 from a drone? Yes, that’s right, we decry the evil waterboarding but yet have no problem that the Child President is sending armed drones all over the globe like it is his personal “Model Airplane Flying Club.” Hypocrisy much?
Peace,
—Bill Roberts
In a word: brilliant! (JE SUI CHARLIE – Issue: 1/14/15) Though I still think choosing Bush over Gore was one of the best things you could ever have done and you should have zero regrets. Long live Juvenal! (my first introduction at 17 to delicious satire). Though maybe Rabelais would be more appropriate in this context…
—Elizabeth Vengen Esq.
JC,
You are way off on this one: “Trust me, Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck are more genuinely motivated by their faith than al Qaeda”…Except they don’t cut innocent people’s heads off and shoot human beings in the head…They believe fervently in Jesus Christ…Love, tolerance and respect for all human life.
—Donald Brown Jr.
Another really good one, man. Your writing has really grown over the years. You should be submitting stuff like this and the last one I commented on to major places.
Really good work, bro.
—Bo Blaze
You can tell when James Campion has been hit in the solar plexus. You can tell when James Campion puts down the satire meter and the joke stick and the apathy card and gets real. You can tell what James Campion truly cares about and what it means to him to be threatened as an intelligent, emotional human being. You can tell when the things that are truly close to James Campion’s soul have been injured. Yeah, you can really, really tell what is important to James Campion when he writes something like this.
—Sarah Bergeron
Almost brought me to tears with this one.
—Dan Bern
Do yourself no favors and “like” this idiot at www.facebook.com/jc.author
James Campion is the Managing Editor of The Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of “Deep Tank Jersey”, “Fear No Art”, “Trailing Jesus”, “Midnight For Cinderella” and “Y”.
