No, an ad hominen attack is a fallacious argument where one party attacks another's character to challenge their argument. The only opinion I wrote about the CIA's character was that they generally contribute to the public good, even if they are not perfect (no one is):

> there is, however, no doubt that they have also made contributions to the public good. I am merely pointing out that the CIA is not a purely altruistic and infallible source.

The rest were just facts that are in the public domain already, not opinions or personal attacks.

If you are being asked to take someone's or an organization's word on something, their credibility is a reasonable thing to address, so that's why the post is relevant.

Your post, however, comes across as attacking the argument with insult without substantiation.

No matter what you're replying to, personal attacks like this are not OK on Hacker News.

"Idiot" in Greek means one who is idiosyncratic in his ways and opinion. Basically, one who isn't using common sense. What's wrong with saying that?

The guidelines have made this crystal clear:

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Well, "idiot" has rich, historic semantic content that I think fit really well for the occasion. It's not my fault that it's a blacklisted word according to the book of HackerNews Ethics.