> the idea that the professionals to whom we give vast sums to be excellent at lying, cheating, stealing, killing, and betrayal - spies, in other words - should be given a sort of "Mister Magoo" benefit of the doubt when lots of people die -- that's, for me these days, the more extraordinary claim.

That's where we differ. They're Mr. Magoo with money in my opinion. How many brilliant exploits have they ever had? Even their wins are, like, "we sponsored some death squads who killed the opposition and eventually the anti-communist guy won due to having overwhelming resources".

The CIA is called 'the company' in DC and it's apparently a super-corporate environment. I've worked in corporate. It's stupid. A big part of the stupid is the local ideology, which is a multiplier effect on the general 'none of us is as dumb as all of us' effect, and I could probably go a long ways with you critiquing the CIA's default and unspoken ideology. But I still think 'organizational stupid' is such an absolute..