Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
Crowbat argued the case better than I can but I want to address this particular point.

To me your argument in the paragraph above boils down to "Trust us we know what we are doing and you don't need to know...and by the way if you did you would see how good we were but we won't let you know so trust us."

After L. Paul Bremer, Rumsfeld, the spectacle of us paying the Pak Army/ISI to kill us and all the other things that have happened over these many years, I don't trust those with the facts not available to the public not to be anything but hammer headed stupid.
Carl,

A of lot truth in that argument and there is the rub. A lot of our covert and clandestine efforts are conducted by idiots who don't have a clue and their work is concealed from critics, so they have a degree of free play that won't be exposed until it is a tragic failure. On the other hand, covert and clandestine operations don't work if they're exposed, so obviously there is a tension here that can't be resolved unless we take covert and clan ops off the options list. I don't think we want to do that. There has been talk for years on pushing these paramilitary ops from the CIA to the military. I think there are pros and cons for doing that and I'm not prepared to present an informed opinion on keeping the same or switching DOD to the lead. Like you said, we have already seen what the likes of Rumfield and Wolfowitz did as DOD leaders, imagine giving them the lead for the nation's covert and clan capabilities for paramilitary operations. It really comes down to picking the right people to lead these I think more than picking the right organization.

We work best when we're not trusted and are forced to demonstrate we don't have our head up our butts. My point to Crowbat is I suspect, I certainly don't know in my current position, we're doing more than meets the public eye. A large of part I suspect is due to partners in the region not wanting their roles publicized. Is it enough? Is it the right thing? Are our objective right? I don't know.