The CIA. What exactly do the do, or have they done that could possibly justify an annual spend of $44,000,000,000? Or, to look at it another way, what have they done which would not have been done at all, and would have worked out better if they had not existed at all?
1.Had no apparent success in infiltrating effective spies into the Soviet Union-certainly nothing has been pointed out, outside of spy novels, as some major cold war success.
2.Were on the other hand, riddled with communist spies and domestic traitors for cash
3. China-see point 1.
4.Caught flat-footed by the launch of Sputnik which had a devastating effect on American morale at the time
5.Bay of Pigs fiasco. Got the message that the Cuban people would rise up and support an American supported invasion and overthrow Castro completely wrong.
6.Caught flat-footed by the Chinese invasion of Korea
7.Caught flat footed by the Anglo/French/Israeli invasion of Egypt
8.Caught absolutely flat footed by the collapse of Communism
9.Caught flat footed by the attempted old guard coup against Gorbachev
10.Vietnam-a disaster.Cambodia a shameful tragedy-Laos a shameful tragedy
11.9/11 Unspeakable
12.Overthrew popular regimes in Latin America installing strongmen" and creating a legacy of hate for the USA.
13.Swallowed hook line and sinker made up stories about "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq
14. Welcomed an Islam fundamentalist "turncoat" with open arms who then blew himself and a whole CIA team to pieces
15.From the N.Y. Times 1996:
"The spectacle of the Central
Intelligence Agency's officers fleeing their base in northern Iraq
this month, abandoning their Kurdish agents, is but another dark chapter in the annals of C.I.A. covert operations.
From the the Bay of Pigs to the Congo, where in 1960 agents tried to put lethal bacteria on Patrice Lumumba's toothbrush, to Nicaragua, where the C.I.A. armed the contra rebels, the record has been inglorious. Presidents have generally authorized the C.I.A.'s covert actions, but the agency has simply not been very good at manipulating history." They could have added the exploding cigars for Castro and the inglorious work with the Mafia and etc.
16.Caught flat-footed as the Middle East goes up in flames.
What would be lost by shutting down the entire operation and outsourcing it to people e.g. the Israeli's, who know what they are doing, for a tenth of the price-if that ? Surely they could do no worse.
As for the President. If the budget for running the whole executive was put on hold-the estimated $250 million for the inauguration is sadly spent, grounding air force one, cutting out things like the estimated $250 million a day cost of the presidents visit to India-what would be lost....really?
Would the growth of the national debt to being now more than all previous administrations in US history, have been any higher? Would the nations business have been any less positive without the adminsitrations obsession with Obamacare-which may shortly be overturned anyway?
If President Obama was quietly pensioned off to play golf, vacation in Vail and Hawaii for the next two years and congress is left to simply and quietly work together civilly the how would that not be a better and cheaper scenario?
Hillary Clinton,who it is very, actually sadly clear should have been the nominee, if not president if there had to be a Democratic administration could carry on doing her quiet diplomacy.This without the "Cairo speech" which has turned into a disaster, and the wishy washy attitude to Iran's nuclear program. She could have, if that is the best the administration could do, have flip flopped daily on the Egyptian crisis just as well as President Obama and saved money whilst doing so.
The president can be trotted out from time to time as mourner-in-chief, for throwing out the first pitch on baseball's opening day, and for handicapping basketball games.
That should keep him busy and away from doing any more harm whilst the nation counts down the clock until the Palin administration is installed. Then we can have and a balanced budget, a vibrant economy based on production/ not speculation due to printed money, a sensible foreign policy where America reclaims her pre-eminent place in the world, and there is a return to normalcy.
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