The CIA’s Cassandras

Paid to be Ignored

by GABRIEL KOLKO
CounterPunch

".....The problem is that the U.S. government and the people who run it refuse to confront the limits of their own power realistically. That is another aspect of the official culture. Optimism is part of the national ethos since the U. S. was founded, and it does not like to hear bad news; bad news is unwelcome, and assessments that warrant much more caution on its part are not accepted, including those from the CIA. But it pays a branch of the CIA, gathered mainly around the National Intelligence Council, to produce objective assessments, and when the Council does so it consistently refuses to accept the logic of the action or analysis that follows. This expensive practice, paying people to whom one pays scant attention, is merely an overhead charge of the essential hypocrisy which is an integral part of American life and a dimension of its ethos.

Were the leaders of the American Government more realistic and less ideological and compulsive, they would cut their losses and attempt far less. It would live within its means rather than go into over 15 trillion dollars in debt and reconcile itself to the fact that it is not the hegemonic superpower that can do anything it chooses to. They would certainly take their own analysts seriously. The essential dilemma is that truth can hurt, proving that futile policies that involve great commitments are both wrong morally as well as impractical. The existing regimes in Washington have immense contradictions to resolve, and so far have not done so. They are unlikely to."