Booger,

You are, of course, quite right about the CIA. Of course you can criticize it. Of course you should criticize it. Doing so is what distinguishes what WE are from what THEY were. Freedom is being able to speak your mind, democracy is when the government listens. I forget where I heard that, but I like it.

Remember that the CIA does what the Congress and the Administration fund it to do. During the Cold War, the use of surrogates was a common technique, employed by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Quite effective, actually. Look at what the Soviet surrogate did to the US in Vietnam, and what the Afghan one did for the US to the Soviets.

While some may find this technique distasteful, it is a standard operating procedure in great power politics which goes back many, many years. The French employed it effectively against the British in North America a few years back.

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Eudaimonia