"A Temporary Coup" -- after a brief commercial, read Salon's interview with CIA historian Thomas Powers, who wrote The Trouble with the CIA and The Failure previously for the NYRB, and herein relates a tale of terror and truly Byzantine intrigue. posted by y2karl (6 comments total)
good, vintage Thomas Powers stuff in The Atlantic here posted by matteo at 3:07 PM on June 14, 2004
In a way it reminds me of the "Night of the long knives" in 1934, the night when Hitler got rid of the Brown Shirts posted by stbalbach at 4:29 PM on June 14, 2004
Here's the article as a pdf file. I jump through hoops so you don't have to... I might trademark that phrase. posted by josephtate at 4:34 PM on June 14, 2004
Why thank you, josephtate--that is most thoughtful.
And here are the last two questions and answers from the interview:
How do you view the Bush administration in terms of dealing with this whole series of intelligence problems that have come to light?
It's a catastrophe beyond belief. Going into Afghanistan was inevitable, and in my opinion the right thing to do. But everything since then has been a horrible mistake, one that has made it more difficult to fight the war on terror, has driven away allies and diminished the degree of cooperation from a number of intelligence services and governments in the Arab world. And it promises to get worse. This was a completely unnecessary, distracting, expensive war that has isolated the United States.
It seems like there has almost never been direct acknowledgement by the White House of any policy problems.
Yes, but they've done something else which troubles me more than anything. They correctly read how the various institutions of our government could be used to stage a kind of temporary coup on a single issue: Whether or not to go to war with Iraq.
President Bush used the intelligence system as a blunt instrument, and they forced Congress to go along -- the Congress was in an almost impossible position. When the president uses the maximum power of his own office and says, "I am soberly telling you that this is necessary for the safety of the country," you gotta listen to the guy. At least once.
"Why did DCI George Tenet suddenly resign on June 3rd, only to be followed a day later by James Pavitt, the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations (DDO)?
The real reasons, contrary to the saturation spin being put out by major news outlets, have nothing to do with Tenet's role as taking the fall for alleged 9/11 and Iraqi intelligence "failures" before the upcoming presidential election.
Both resignations, perhaps soon to be followed by resignations from Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, are about the imminent and extremely messy demise of George W. Bush and his Neocon administration in a coup d'etat being executed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The coup, in the planning for at least two years, has apparently become an urgent priority as a number of deepening crises threaten a global meltdown.
Based upon recent developments, it appears that long-standing plans and preparations leading to indictments and impeachment of Bush, Cheney and even some senior cabinet members have been accelerated, possibly with the intent of removing or replacing the entire Bush regime prior to the Republican National Convention this August. " posted by troutfishing at 7:56 AM on June 15, 2004
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posted by matteo at 3:07 PM on June 14, 2004