CIA: Failure of Intelligence?

How craven of liberal politicians and members of the media to decry the failure of our intelligence establishment to avoid the Sept. 11 catastrophe. Any informed American concerned about the increase in terrorist assaults against the U.S. worldwide knows the CIA has not been the same since the Democrats’ congressional purges of the 1970s. Cheered on by the media, which have carped about Chile and Salvador Allende for decades, to the point that young adults know more about that than they know the voting record of their own congressmen, they drove out some of our best agents, gutted budgets and allowed the names of agents worldwide to be published. They school-marmed a highly effective agency of national security into fecklessness, sowing a bitter harvest of misery for Americans on their own soil.

Bill Denton

Pasadena

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In view of the terrible terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, it is good to review some sinister aspects of our foreign policy. It is almost certain that Bin Laden has had his hand in these actions, and it is a fact that the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan have been providing him with a safe haven and facilities for training a large number of professional terrorists who inflicted many losses on America.

The same Taliban soldiers were trained and supplied with weapons by American agents under President Reagan; in fact, Reagan called them “freedom fighters.” Just because someone is anti-Communist or anti-whomever we don’t like, it is not a reason to support him. The enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. This type of reasoning led to support of Hitler by German industrialists in the 1930s and to the elimination of democracy in Chile in more recent times, all in the name of anti-communism.

Marcel Gawartin

Los Angeles

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Rather than preventing terrorist attacks against the U.S., the CIA incites them (“Rethink the CIA,” editorial, Sept. 16). It trained Osama bin Laden. With its long history of murders, overthrown governments, election tampering and clandestine dealings with the worst of the torturers and brutes, the CIA has created 100,000 terrorists and sympathizers for every terrorist it has apprehended. Rethink the CIA, indeed: Abolish it.

Russ Jones

Manhattan Beach

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Your editorial noted that a 1995 Clinton-era regulation forbade employing foreigners to penetrate terrorist groups that were suspected of human rights violations and also required disclosure of agents’ identities to Washington. It’s the same mentality that is against police using criminals as informers and protecting their identities. No wonder the CIA has turned so heavily to electronic surveillance--to the extent that there are now only about 800 agents in the field from the 20,000-person CIA department.

Jack Casson

Claremont

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After all the condemnations of the last few days we must again note the failure of our FBI and CIA and our other intelligence agencies. The World Trade Center attack was an operation that must have required planning in several parts of the world. Where was our vaunted ability to monitor and intercept communications of all sorts? It is fine to condemn Bin Laden and others of his ilk, but we must also recognize our own failures.

Henry Kaplan

Los Angeles

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Am I wrong to believe that after we support these people (Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden, etc.) they, in turn, attack us? What’s going to happen with the individuals we train and arm closer to the States (drug wars in Central and South America)?

Brian T. Lynk

Whittier