Here I go ?
I ask you for the bonafides of your son and nephew - who it appears you have held out as some sort of (current) "
authorities" with respect to this downsizing thing - and your response is to cite some article that has nothing whatsoever to do with matter ?
Seriously ?
Getoutahere ....
I did not like Odom, but he was GOOD.
Now, you're just tossing me
softballs .... but thanks anyways
Billy O., whatever else one might want to say about him, did at least have the 'nards to speak up and not pull any punches when he saw things going off the rails:
Reagan’s NSA chief speaks out
Retired general asks, What’s wrong with cutting and running?
By Corey Pein
Some would have you believe that only terrorists and San Francisco liberals want the U.S. out of Iraq. Retired Lt. Gen. William Odom proves otherwise. Odom ran the National Security Agency — a major employer here in Augusta — for three years under President Ronald Reagan. Now he is a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. He is also an outspoken opponent of the invasion of Iraq and the “war on terrorism,” which he derides as “a slogan” that made Al Qaeda “far more effective.” The Metro Spirit interviewed him recently.
Metro Spirit: What are your feelings on the NSA’s program of warrantless wiretapping of American citizens?
William Odom: It didn’t happen under my watch. And I’m still puzzled why somebody hasn’t tried to impeach the president for doing it. Any conservative in the United States who values his life [ought to be outraged]. In fact, the South seceded in defense of minority rights — why the hell have they forgotten them now? Ben Franklin said, “somebody who values security over liberty deserves neither.”
MS: What do you say to people, and there are plenty here in Augusta, who say that cutting and running from Iraq is traitorous act?
WO: Well, just tell ‘em they’re full of ****. They're traitors. You know what lemmings are? Yeah, they’re lemmings. We went to war for our enemies’ best interests. You ask those people why it makes sense that we went to war to advance the interests of Iran and Al Qaeda.
MS: Will the Democrat-controlled Congress change anything?
WO: No, not much. I think that what’s gonna change the course is that we’re losing the war. It’s not the Congress that’s changing things. I’ve never seen much spine on the part of the Democrats. What’s gonna change it, if anything, is that [Defense Secretary nominee Robert] Gates has thought that we have a ridiculous policy toward Iran, because they’re going to get nuclear weapons anyway. He has never thought the war made any sense.
MS: Do you think President Bush wants to invade Iran?
WO: The prime minister of Israel was here begging him [Bush] to do it. People down there in Augusta, they’re just being led around by the snout. I grew up in East Tennessee. I know what Georgians are like. I’m a redneck, and there are a lot of stupid rednecks. You can quote me saying that. Ask ‘em if they know that the United States is one of the greatest supporters of terrorism in the globe. I’m all for my terrorists, I’m just against their terrorists.
MS: So you think the Israel lobby, as you put it, was the reason we invaded Iraq?
WO: The religious right here pushed it. I don’t think the oil issue has much to do with it. Your enemies will sell you oil. Do we need to own a country to get oil from it? As much as [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez hates us, he gives us oil. The oil issue by and large is a red herring. Ask those guys after what we’ve done in Iraq, if anybody who’s gonna run Iraq is gonna be pro-American. The Iranians have been telling the Shiites, “Do what the Americans tell you.” Do you know why? Because the American democracy program was gonna put Shiites in charge. There are more Shiites in the country. Now they can kill off the Sunnis.
MS: It’s been said that Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile whose bogus intelligence helped build American support for war, was an Iranian agent. Do you think so?
WO: Of course he’s working for Iran. He’d work for anybody against anybody else. You got all those hardliners in Augusta who are suckers for any kinda city slicker. They’re suckers for this criminal banker from Jordan.
MS: You say the Iranians will get nukes no matter what we do.
WO: Just like North Korea got ‘em.
MS: So, then, what should we do? Should we pressure Israel to disarm its nuclear weapons?
WO: I don’t care whether they disarm or not. Why don’t you ask Israel to give up their weapons if the Iranians will give ‘em up, too? The Iraq war has made Israel much less secure. Al Qaeda can operate in Iraq now. How stupid can you be? The crowd I don’t know what to do about is the religious right who believe in the Book of Revelations. They used to tell me the Earth was flat. There must be some smart rednecks down there. It’s time for them to stand up.
Pretty smart feller in a lot of ways IMHO ...
You could read the "Puzzle Palace" as well.
I understand that it was a highly popular book over there at "Never Say Anything" ....
I can imagine that it was, given the compartmentalization that tends to occur within intel activities, and the level of ignorance that operating in such a manner breeds within the ranks ....
More "open source" junk written by a dude who got mad when he did not get promoted.
When he didn't get promoted
where ?
Apparently, NSA didn't consider it all that "open source" - given the fact that lobbied within the Reagan and obtained a E.O. that allowed them to go back and reclassify some of Bamford's previously declassified source materials that were obtained under FOIA .... (first time that had ever been done apparently)
Interestingly, some of the stuff in that book was just declassified. Makes that dude look stupid.
Point out the discrepancy with declassified materials - otherwise ST*U .....
But then, it is OPEN SOURCE. What else could you expect?
From the spooks ?
.... lies, disinformation, misdirection .... ?
Please understand you are talking to someone who generally views
discrediting statements from those in (
or formerly in) the intel community with a very high degree of skepticism .... for
very good reasons.
It's become much more broadly known at this point in our history that government generally, and intel agencies in particular, have
lied, do
lie, and will likely in the future,
lie .... misinform, misdirect, etc. .... to the citizens of this nation ....
It's also a lot more well-known the
depths of depravity that some in positions of power will sink to in terms of what they will do in the name "liberty" and "freedom" ....
Also understand that the above is not a blanket condemnation of everyone who works in government, or in the intelligence agencies ....
There are good people .... from my perspective, I often know them when they step up to the plate, often at great personal risk to their own life or liberty, to expose whatever the current
insanity of the moment is, that is going in within the halls of power .... stuff like:
Operation Northwoods (proposal by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff for
false-flag terrorist attacks within the US to gen up support for invading Cuba)
Operation Mongoose (another operation that included
false-flag terrorist attacks)
Project MKULTRA (a covert,
illegal CIA
human experimentation program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence)
I could go on and on ..... an exhaustive list of this kind of
criminal or
treasonous activities would be pretty long ..... and that doesn't take into account all the records that Helms (or others at any of alphabet-soup groups) have destroyed .... stuff we'll never know the full truth of .....
And folks wonder why some might have doubts about the full truth of 9/11 ..... or distrust their government ... it goes back to Billy O's statement:
Ask ‘em if they know that the United States is one of the greatest supporters of terrorism in the globe. I’m all for my terrorists, I’m just against their terrorists.
Yeah, we
know .....
because the USG been doing it to us, the citizens of this country, for a long, long time ....
We get it.
