Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:59:35 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Subject: "The Myth of Counter-Terrorism"
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Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 16:44:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <cp@panix.com>
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Cc: <cp@panix.com>
Subject: "The Myth of Counter-Terrorism"

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/07/gerecht.htm

>From The Atlantic, July 2001 issue:


A former senior Near East Division operative says, "The CIA probably
doesn't have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle
Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who
would volunteer to spend years of his life with shitty food and no women
in the mountains of Afghanistan. For Christ's sake, most case officers
live in the suburbs of Virginia. We don't do that kind of thing." A
younger case officer boils the problem down even further: "Operations that
include diarrhea as a way of life don't happen."

Behind-the-lines counterterrorism operations are just too dangerous for
CIA officers to participate in directly. When I was in the Directorate of
Operations, the Agency would deploy a small army of officers for a meeting
with a possibly dangerous foreigner if he couldn't be met in the safety of
a U.S. embassy or consulate. Officers still in the clandestine service say
that the Agency's risk-averse, bureaucratic nature--which mirrors, of
course, the growing physical risk-aversion of American society--has only
gotten worse.




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