Sunday, January 03, 2010

Spies and Modern Terrorism

WSJ: Reports how the CIA will deal with death of seven of its Agents in Afghanistan, how less security is traded off by getting real time information on the Taliban/Al Qaeda. The CIA officers that died were real heroes, but this is a new type of war, this is not the " Good Times of the Cold War", in that period both the USA and the USSR knew that there was a code, no extreme killing of other sides actual agents, not their operatives but US or USSR citizens, if they had gone on a killing spree the Cold War would have gone hotter faster, it was in their interest to allow each some leave way as to keep themselves informed and thus keep the Cold War from not getting warm. This is not to say that people didn't get killed, of course they did, but it was never policy of the USA or the USSR to wipe out the other sides Agents as this would have been a kind of nuclear option in many respects. The CIA is dealing with terrorists in the shape of the Taliban/ Al Qaeda would do not play by the rules, to them there can only be one winner, thus no rules, the CIA has to strike back hard, it has to be in some respects like the old KGB, strike terror in to those that would attack either the Agency or the USA.

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