Our International Relations: Give Us Back Rule of Law

There is a lot to be said for ethical and moral behavior. The agents whose job it is to keep us safe need it to happen again. Torture is making the CIA's role impossible. An agency trying to uphold our country as a great, estimable country needs that country to be what they're supposed to present.

The cretin in chief has made this a country that internationally fails to win over even our allies. Illegal behavior and torture make us a pariah. The CIA can't change that, its agents are asking us to go back to our traditional posture and return to being the country they should, and can, protect.

A week after 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney warned that for America to defend itself from future attacks, it would need to work "the dark side" and get involved in a "mean, nasty, dangerous, dirty business."

But as tales from the dark side continue to emerge concerning CIA kidnappings and harsh interrogation methods, former U.S. intelligence leaders are asking whether America should begin imposing standards of morality for agents to follow.

Two former senior CIA officers raised the question separately in recent speeches in Dallas, saying the agency's credibility has been compromised by the political slanting of intelligence and the treatment of prisoners in legally and morally
dubious ways.

"Intelligence is vital in the war on terror," said James Olson, the CIA officer in residence at Texas A&M's Bush School of Government and Public Service. But, he asked an audience at the World Affairs Council of Dallas-Fort Worth, "How far are you willing to have us go? ... To what extent are you prepared to redefine or to stretch the moral limits? Are you prepared to fight this war dirty?"

The answers to "these difficult questions will go a long way toward defining who we are as a people, what kind of country we are, and also how we're perceived around the world. We need to get it right," Mr. Olson said.
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Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA senior analyst who presented the daily intelligence briefing for President Bush's father, former President George Bush, told the Dallas Democratic Forum that the agency was designed to provide the government with politically unvarnished information about significant developments abroad.

By putting intelligence above political agendas, he said, the president was
assured of getting the most accurate picture possible as he made crucial decisions. "Think of what an asset, what an indispensable tool, that is for any president making sensible decisions," he said.

But since the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, Mr. McGovern said, political motives have encroached on the CIA's mission, rendering its product questionable. "This president has frittered that [asset] away," he said.
(snip)
"You have this very perceptible loosening of the things that make us different as a
country: the rule of law," Mr. McGovern said.

A clearer code of morality would help agents and their managers know when to stand up and say no to illegal orders, the former intelligence officials said.

"Nobody has the guts to do that anymore," Mr. McGovern said. "You get these guys in who salute the president instead of remembering that they are sworn to protect the Constitution – not the president."

We may not always expect CIA agents to ask for the Rule of Law to be firm and irrefutable. It is their role to work for our best interests. Those best interests include a firmly established rule of law. It makes their job possible, and it makes the U.S. defensible.