CBS’s 48 HOURS Presents ‘The Spymasters– CIA in the Crosshairs’ Tonight
CBS’s 48 HOURS Presents ‘The Spymasters – CIA in the Crosshairs’ the program aired between 8 and 10 PM on May 21, 2016. (Central Standard Time) South Dakota, USA
You might call it a chronology of what the CIA has been doing ever since the Clinton administration. Former CIA director Leon Panetta did a lot of the talking throughout the program. It covered pretty much everything the CIA has been doing since he was at the controls as CIA director for President Bill Clinton. He made it a point to speak in memory and honor of those CIA members who were killed by a suicide bomber, all at one time in Afghanistan. They were supposed to be having a meeting with a local. He turned out to be the enemy instead of an informer that was hired by the CIA to report on what Al Qaeda was up to in Afghanistan.
There was mention about the CIA having a chance to kill Osama bin Laden. At that time in Afghanistan, but he slipped away. Information turned out to be faulty, which is one of the prime things covered during this program. Poor information and faulty distribution of the information that was good. The purpose of the show raises many questions? The main one would be. Have we learned anything from our past mistakes in the way we operated in the past?. The CIA took airplanes loaded with cash to Afghanistan to buy the allegiance of the many tribal lords that were in power all over the country. There has never been any time in history when a country has been able to purchase the allegiance of anyone, not to shoot back. Even paid spies end up being counterspy most of the time.
Every attempt was made to stop Osama bin Laden while he was in Afghanistan, but that simply was not about to happen. Not even with the different warlords being on the payroll of the CIA. He escaped and made his way into Pakistan and had a very nice life, while his followers continued to cause turmoil and terrorists activities in many different places around the globe. Pakistan allowed Osama bin Laden to live there like a tourist, Pakistan was supposed to be one of our friends in the region. Al Qaeda was not very large in numbers, but from the way we went about doing things, we actually helped to strengthen their numbers .
The biggest foreign-policy blunder in the history of the world was briefly mentioned. That was about the Bush Administration and their fanatical quest to invade Iraq. The “cake walk” invasion of Iraq got all of our power concentrated in the wrong place. It turned out not to be a “slam dunk,” While we were fighting in Iraq, Al Qaeda continued to grow in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our blunders actually emboldened them. Those countries are almost under complete control of terrorist groups. ISIS is now what we have biggest concern with and how do we go about keeping them from attacking all over the world, which is what their master plan is.
One main point of this program that I saw and think should be considered very important is the lack of coordination between our different law enforcement and security agencies in this country. Years ago, the FBI would not share information with the CIA, when they tried to share info about the 9/11 bombers the CIA didn’t even want to see it.. The CIA was supposed to inform the Defense Department and the White House about any activities worldwide that are a threat to security of the United States. 9/11 may have been averted!
Before 9/11 happened. The FBI had all the information they needed about the two main terrorists involved in the 9/11 attack. They tried to give this information to the CIA. The CIA didn’t listen to them. From hearing the different CIA directors talk they all had trouble communicating with the Defense Department and the State Department, intelligence still had to get to the White House. Each department seemed to be acting alone through the worst nation fermenting times in our history. The maddening part is, they thought they were nation building!
The president of the United States, it don’t matter if he has a hotline with God or not. There is no way he has the knowledge to run this country by himself, like a ‘lone cowboy’, with the idea that it’s ‘my way or the highway’. The president has to have his ears open and his eyes, he has to be ready to receive any information that is brought to him through proper channels when the security of the United States is involved.
Towards the end of this program, they talked about two unfortunate and dumb decisions that were made at the White House. Decisions about the legal issue of torturing terrorist captives and should they have legal rights? This came about, for the simple reason one of the terrorists that was captured was born in the United States. Much talk was made about torturing captives. The CIA outsourced those activities of torture to other people in other countries to be carried out. What does that make this country look like? We are above torturing but will hire someone else to do it for us that makes us OK. We have brought ourselves down to the same level as the terrorists almost. One former CIA director made the comment if the next president wants to do waterboarding. He better bring his own bucket.
At the end of the program. Everyone seemed to reach the same simple consensus, bombing and killing is something that we will have to learn to live with from now on. Do we? As long as people are full of hate and are willing to commit suicide, we can expect suicide bombers to be killing people all over this world. If we all stay in the same level of thought, we all think along the same line we all will keep on killing people.
If it is all right in our own minds, it surely will continue. Some stupid foreign-policy blunders have brought the world into this ‘so called ‘endless era of terrorism that we are now entering. The massive brainpower that can develop all of these weapons to kill people around the world without having to be involved in the killing ourselves, outside of the one that pushes the button. We can all sleep well I guess.
There surely must be some way that can be devised by all the brains and computers in this world that aren’t full of hatred to come up with a solution to this massive problem. There must be a whole lot more people with hearts full of love, than hearts full of hate. This should create a worldwide debate until the problem is solved
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