I think that’s what I said. He was the best (least bad) president since Carter, I think there’s no question of that. He was also responsible for amping up the drone war, among numerous other evil policies. He made the world a worse place, but by virtue of the bar being set so fucking low, he was also the best president the US has had since the 70’s.
ETA: America has two right wing parties. They both worship at the feet of banks and corporations, they both carry water for the 1%, they both treat the rest of the world’s nations as their own private doormat. One of those parties thinks that women belong in the kitchen and brown people belong far away or behind bars, thinks gays are icky, torture is cool as long as we do it to other people, and thinks global warming is a left wing conspiracy. The other party takes the opposite stance on those issues, and also thinks that sometimes a little tiny bit of regulation of the free market is called for.
That’s where I come from when I say that Obama is the best president the US has had in 40+ years. Compared to Reagan, Bush, and Bush, he’s marvellous. He’s not quite as right wing as Clinton (either one), and he managed to serve 8 years without horndogging the interns, so he beats Bill Clinton by a mile on the personal integrity front. That’s not to say he was any less lawful evil than nearly every other president the US has had since the start of the Cold War.
What is the CIA’s mission, exactly? If it is to yield intelligence, they suck at it. The mess in Iraq set the world back by decades. If the mission is destabilizing foreign governments, torture and assassination, then yes, it is wholly unnecessary. The CIA is the worst of the American government and it’s only the total lack of scrutiny that allows them to still exist.
The US has been toppling governments and installing puppet regimes all over the world for most of the 20th century. Sometimes it was done with the pseudo justification that the regime they were kicking out was friendly with the Soviets, and the enemy of our enemy must be someone we should hold close to our bosom even if he’s a murderous dictator. Sometimes it was done with no real justification other than that a powerful US corporation wanted the existing government out because they wanted a better deal for resource extraction or tariffs or whatever.
The CIA has been America’s trigger man for all of these assassinations and coups ever since its founding. It is responsible for more destabilization, more civil wars, more terrorism, more murder and more death worldwide than any other government entity in the US and possibly in the entire world.
Al Qaeda would not exist if not for the US meddling in Afghanistan and the Middle East. America is responsible for the existence of 90% of the terrorists that have made the news this century. The world would be far better off if America had gone back to isolationism and neutrality after World War II. The world and America would be far better off, far more peaceful, and far safer if the CIA had never existed.
Not sure about that, it would just have left the way open for the Soviet Union to install more of their bunch of puppets and murderers who were no better.
USA should have decided from the start that their stronger economy and democracy, if used properly, were far more effective political tools than CIA. Take Vietnam where Hi Chi Minh used to admire USA. The whole bloody war was unnecessary, USA could have supported Vietnamese independence from France and offered free trade and a tiny bit of the Marshall aid and he would have dumped his Soviet contacts instantly.
Sounds like a good season plot for Berlin Station: former head of a black site is arrested in Germany, and Daniel Miller needs Hector’s help one more time to carry out his mission, with the Verfassungsschutz now the full-blown adversary. And as the series progresses, Daniel wonders if he is doing the right thing.
I admit it, I only want this because I like Rhys Ifan’s performance.
Yes a good point, although some might argue about the efficacy and whether they want a government agency above the law.
What I thought was interesting was that the guy she tortured was believed to be number 3 in AQ at the time. He is no longer believed to be a senior figure in AQ. So some dumb schlub got waterboarded 83x because the CIA isnt very good at what it does. I believe Abu Zubayda is suing right now. Good luck with that Abu!
