Has The CIA Been Politicized?
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
Anonymous leakers at the CIA continue to make claims about Russia and the 2016 election. In response to demands to provide evidence, the CIA has declined to offer any, refusing to meet with Congressional intelligence committees, and refusing to issue any documents offering evidence. Instead, the CIA, communicating via leaks, simply says the equivalent of “trust us.”
Not troubled by the lack of evidence, many in the media and in the Democratic party have been repeating unsubstantiated CIA claims as fact.
Of course, as I've noted before, the history of CIA intelligence is largely a history of missing the forest for the trees. Sometimes, the failures have been spectacular.
One of the questions that immediately arises in the media in situations like these, however, is “has the CIA been politicized?”
When used in this way, the term “politicized” means that the CIA is involved in helping or hurting specific political factions (e,g., specific ideological groups, pressure groups, or presidential administrations) in order to strengthen the CIA's financial or political standing.
All Government Agencies Are Politicized
The use of the term, however, rather naïvely implies that it is possible for a government agency to not be politicized. A non-political government agency, it is assumed, acts without regard to how its actions and claims affect its political standing among powerful interests in Washington. Such an agency has never existed.
Indeed, when a government agency relies on taxpayer funding, Congressional lawmaking, and White House politics to sustain itself, it is absurd to expect that agency to somehow remain not “politicized.” That is, it's a logical impossibility to think it possible to set up a government agency that relies on government policymakers to sustain it, and then think the agency in question will not attempt to influence or curry favor with those policymakers.
This idea might seem plausible to school children in junior-high-school civics classes, but not to anyone who lives in the real world.
In fact, if we wish to ascertain whether or not an institution or organization is “politicized” we can simply ask ourselves a few questions:
- Does the organization depend on a legal monopoly to accomplish its mission? That is, does the organization benefit from a government prohibition on other organizations — especially private-sector ones — doing the same thing?
- Does the organization depend on taxpayer funding for a substantial amount of its budget?
- Was the organization created by government legislation?
- Are senior officials appointed by government policymakers (i.e., the President)?
- Does the organization engage in what would be illegal activities were it not for protective government legislation?
If the answer to any of these questions is “yes” then you are probably dealing with a politicized organization. If the answer to all of these questions is “yes” — as is the case with the CIA — then you're definitely dealing with a very politicized organization. (Other “non-political” organizations that fall well within this criteria as well include so-called “private” organizations such as …read more
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