dedalus_1947 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dedalus_1947) wrote2016-10-04 12:20 pm
dedalus_1947) wrote2016-10-04 12:20 pm
Entry tags:
Maggie’s Farm
I ain’t gonna work
On Maggie’s Farm no more.
Well, I wake up in the morning
Fold my hands and pray for rain,
I got a head full of ideas
That are driving me insane.
It’s a shame the way
She makes me scrub the floor.
I ain’t gonna work
On Maggie’s Farm no more.
(Maggie’s Farm: Bob Dylan – 1965)
I went to see the movie Snowden a few weeks ago. I just didn’t feel like writing or working out on my 69th birthday, and Snowden was the only film that fit my time frame. I will admit that I was a bit apprehensive about seeing another Oliver Stone movie. While admittedly he has made some fine films (Platoon, Scarface, and Wall Street), he has also directed some wacky, politically disasters (JFK, Nixon, and W). I was worried that his latest effort was going to fit into this latter genre, and go off the deep end over the topic of government surveillance and covert military force. Instead I found the story remarkably restrained. The narrative was about a naively patriotic American youth who joins the CIA and NSA, and becomes increasingly disillusioned and alarmed about the government’s secret authority and how it uses covert force and surveillance to a fight a “war against terror”. Ultimately Stone’s protagonist leaks the information to the world media and is forced to flee the country as a traitor.
Strangely, for me, the central question of the movie wasn’t about Snowden’s actions: Was he a whistle-blowing hero or a traitor? Rather, I found myself indentifying with this young man who wanted to do “the right thing” after the shock of 9/11, and I was relieved to find that Stone (as opposed to some earlier movies) was allowing the viewers to reach their own conclusions. I found myself much more interested in Snowden’s original decision to join the CIA. You see, at one time, I too interviewed for a job at the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States.
In 1975, long before September 11, 2001, in the time when our Cold War with Russia and other Communist countries still ran hot, I applied for Foreign Service with the State Department of the United States. I was finishing up my Master’s Degree in Latin American Studies at UCLA and looking for a diplomatic career in the State Department. Unable to join the Peace Corps after my undergrad graduation in 1970 because of the Draft, I enlisted in the Air Force and served until my father’s death resulted in my discharge. After teaching U.S. History at St. Bernard High School for a year and a half, I returned to college in 1973, under the GI Bill. I had always dreamed of a career in the Foreign Service, living in exotic countries and cultures, speaking Spanish or Portuguese, and traveling throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Working in embassies and consulates seemed exciting and challenging, and my experiences in teaching and studies of education in Third World countries seemed complementary to this type of service. Even my pending marriage to Kathleen Greaney seemed to fit it with these plans. Kathy spoke Spanish, and taught high school English-as-a-Second Language, but more important she would make the perfect diplomatic wife. She was smart, beautiful, and charming – everything a successful diplomat needed. By the Spring of 1975 I had made contact with the State Department and all I had to do was score high enough on the Foreign Service Examination to proceed. I didn’t. After getting over the shock of not passing the first hurdle to Foreign Service, I went to Plan B, and applied to the CIA.
After taking some graduate seminars in American Counter-Insurgency and Third World Politics in Latin America, I knew enough about the CIA to understand that James Bond-espionage was only a small part of their service. The CIA was primarily concerned with the study and analysis of social, economic, political, and military intelligence and data of countries, and I naively believed that I had done much of this for two years as a graduate student at UCLA. I also knew that all foreign embassies, and most consulates, had assigned CIA officers. I thought I could still manage a career overseas, as well as spending some time near Washington D.C., by joining the CIA. All I had to do now was apply and successfully clear their interview process.
My first encounter with the CIA was in the blue-collar city of Hawthorne, a suburb of Los Angeles, just east of the International Airport. As usual in those waning days of the Vietnam War, the Federal Building was a massive, non-descript edifice. It could have been any regular office building except for the long, winding lines waiting for passport and visa permits, and veteran services. Of course there was nothing in the government letter I received, or the building directory, indicating that there was a CIA office. I was simply to report to a room in the building. There I met a tall, handsome, 40-ish looking man in a tailored suit. His huge, mahogany desk was situated in front of a massive eagle on the wall, brandishing swords and spears in its talons. He welcomed me and reviewed a file folder containing, I supposed, my application, as I sat answering his questions. He asked about my education, military experiences, and future goals. He seemed very satisfied with my responses and he expanded on my desires to travel and live in foreign countries. He also explained that he was the first stage of the screening process, and that I would soon be contacted by mail for a secondary, more in-depth interview by agency personnel. I left the meeting feeling very optimistic. I recall another scene in connection with this first encounter with the CIA, when I called Kathy to tell her about it. Looking back now, I see an element of foreshadowing in this conversation, because Kathy’s response to my enthusiasm was oddly cool and muted. She emotionlessly stated that she was glad that I was pleased with the outcome of this first meeting with the CIA.
The follow-up letter I received from the CIA was in an ordinary, white, business envelope. The generic federal stationary invited me to two separate interviews on the same date in two rooms in a swanky hotel in Marina del Rey. I was surprised at the plainness of the letter and the proximity of the meeting to my home. All of my previous interactions with federal agencies, beginning with my registration for the draft in 1966, were in clearly designated, but hard to find addresses and buildings. This was the first time a government entity seemed to be making an effort to be convenient. Needless to say, I was very intrigued, and a little intimidated.
I dressed in a coat and tie and knocked on a numbered hotel room door at the designated time. I was greeted by black face on a stocky body, wearing a white, rolled-up, long-sleeved, white shirt, with a loosened tie, inspecting me from behind a chain-locked door.
“Can I help you?” The gravelly-voiced man said.
“Uhh”, I stammered. “I have an interview here, I think”.
“Are you Antonio Delgado”, he asked?
“Yes, sir”, I replied, feeling as if I was back at Lackland Air Force Base, addressing my Training Instructor.
“Come in and have a seat”, he said, un-securing the chain lock and opening the door. “Don’t mind the room”, he added, “ housekeeping hasn’t had a chance to come in yet.” He pointed me to a chair across from a small, circular table, and then joined me at another chair. He never referred to a file or document while he spoke. Before questioning me, he explained that I was to meet another interviewer today who represented another arm of the agency. He was a field operative tasked with determining my suitability for that aspect of the agency – data gathering. That’s how he termed spying, “data-gathering”. He then invited me to answer some open-ended questions:
“Why did you want to join the agency? What are your unique qualifications for the job? How do your previous education and job experiences help in this one?”
As I was citing and expanding on my employment history, post-graduate studies, fluency in Spanish, and military experiences as an Information Specialist, he interrupted to redirect the conversation. He explained that “field data collection” was about cultivating and sustaining personal relationships. These relationships were intimate and authentic, but they were always directed by their usefulness to The Mission. The Mission was the defeat of the current and future enemies of the United States. I have to admit that this declaration took me aback, and before I had a chance to recover my balance, he asked me the crucial question:
“Could you establish and maintain a close personal relationship with a friend or relative in a foreign country to gain information that was useful to your country, even if it put the life of that friend or relative at risk?”
I don’t recall now exactly how I answered that question, but I sensed not well. All I remember is being so thrown off by this question. I think I tried hedging at first, until I realized that I couldn’t avoid the ethical dilemma it posed. So I answered truthfully. To an enemy yes, but I couldn’t ask, manipulate, or induce a friend, relative, or loved one, to commit what they might consider a criminal or traitorous act. I clearly answered the agent’s question incorrectly, because his demeanor quickly changed. His attitude up until that moment had been business-like and efficient, and suddenly he turned friendly and talkative. He volunteered that not all CIA personnel were meant to be field agents or data collectors. The main function of the agency was analysis, which required different skills. I knew that he was metaphorically showing me the door, and pointing at my only avenue of entry into his world of government service. He amiably explained that the next interviewer would discuss this aspect of the agency and my suitability for it.
There was a brief interval between interviews and I was sure that my first contact had spoken with the second. When he responded to my knock, the door was unchained, and he was personable and friendly. He was a tall, white guy, who also wore a long-sleeved, white shirt, but it was buttoned with a tie, and his room was completely made up. My encounter with him was casual and relaxed, more of a getting-to-know-you conversation than a job interview. He began by explaining that analysis was the visible side of the agency, involving the type of work done in doctoral programs at universities and at think tanks, like the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica. His questions centered on my academic experiences at UCLA and as a teacher at St. Bernard’s. By the time I finished talking, he simply sat back in his chair and smiled.
“You know”, he began, “listening to the way you describe teaching, you really seemed to enjoy it. You’re at the point in your life where that dimension has to be factored into your plans. What do you enjoy doing? It sounds to me like you found it in teaching.”
He never finished that thought by adding that I didn’t fit in with the CIA, but I heard the message loud and clear. And secretly, I was a little relieved.
That was my encounter with the CIA, and the end of my dreams of a career in the Foreign Service of the United States. When I told Kathy what had happened, she confessed that she was relieved. Recognizing my desire and longing for a career in the Foreign Service, she finally admitted that she had sublimated her dislike of a life in foreign countries where she would be separated from country, family, and friends. She expressed that she had fallen in love with me, agreed to marry me, and had been willing to support me in my chosen career – but she had still hoped (and prayed?) that something else might come up instead. It did. I woke up to the realities of the CIA, and by extension, the NSA. I was not CIA material. Even I realized that the second interviewer was right. I did enjoy teaching. Teaching was challenging, and mastery of this profession gave me purpose and satisfaction. The CIA needed an ethical manipulator or a think tank academician. I was suited for neither of those options. And yet, despite this new awareness, I was still dogged by a question. How had I failed the interview? I had never failed a face-to-face interview before. What had I done wrong? What had I said that made it so apparent to them? Why was I not a good fit with the CIA? I replayed my encounters with the two CIA agents over and over in my mind for months. The answer hit me a month later. The first agent had actually spelled it out at the outset, only I had missed the implication at the time. There is only one justification for what he was asking me to do as a field agent – WAR. A CIA agent has to believe that he is a soldier fighting a justifiable war against all current and future enemies of the State.
In the movie, Snowden, Stone shields his lead character by not allowing him to make an informed decision at the time of his recruitment. Instead, he creates a CIA father figure, a “silky apparatchik” played by Rhys Ifans who sees the value of recruiting this highly talented computer programmer, despite his reservations that Snowden will not be a good fit in the CIA. He seems to trust that Snowden’s naive patriotism, ambition, and eventual greed will overcome any questions or doubts about the morally ambiguous activities of the CIA and NSA. For me, this is the weakness in Stone’s tale, and although it is better than his more contrived films, it is still a preachy story of government over-reach, and its abuse of power and authority. At the same time, it does pose an important question to the viewer: what would you do in Snowden’s situation?
In my lifetime, the United States has been “at war” against Communism and Terrorism. Both enemies are more ideological than concrete, and yet the USA has sent American fighting soldiers to countries in Southeast Asia, Central America, and the Middle East because of it, and provided intelligence officers the legal cover for their covert and amoral actions. Soldiers will accomplish their missions, do their jobs, and protect their brothers-in-arms, even at the cost of their own lives. However, intelligence agents and analysts are asked to go beyond the confines of conventional warfare where only a trust and faith in a legal and perpetual state of war is their ethical refuge. An authorized war justifies almost any action – and the victors decide if it is patriotism or genocide.
There was a scene from Alan Sorkin’s popular television show, West Wing, that has stuck in my head for years. The episode was called “War Crimes”, and one of its stories concerned the United Nations wanting the President’s support for a permanent War Crimes Tribunal. The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was lobbying the President and Leo, the President’s Chief of Staff, to oppose the resolution. In the key scene Leo reminds the Air Force General that although America set up the Nuremburg and the Tokyo War Crimes Trials after WWII, the Cold War threat gave German rocket scientists and the activities of American intelligence services higher priority than the morality of their actions. At that point the General, who served as Leo’s commanding officer in Viet Nam, reminded him of a specific bombing mission in Thailand during the Vietnam War. Leo, as an Air Force Bomber pilot, believed it to be a military target, but the general reveals that the bombing of the dam was in fact a civilian target that resulted in the loss of 11 civilian casualties.
“Why did you tell me?” a stricken Leo asked the general.
“All wars are crimes,” responded the general.
I enlisted in the Air Force at a time of war. I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to obey the orders of the president and his appointed officers. As a soldier, that oath meant that I was ready to follow orders, do my job, and support, protect, and defend my brothers-in-arms. More than anything else, it is this brotherhood that gets soldiers through a time of war. The war stops being about the big issues – fighting Facism, Communism, or Terrorism – and becomes as simple as trusting your mission and defending your brothers-in-arms. This is a fighting man’s code – faith that the mission is right, ethical, and justified, and trusting his officers in accomplishing it. Leo fulfilled his mission of bombing a civilian target with his commanding officer withholding critical information. The general believed he was justified in making this decision because the truth might have jeopardized the mission. At the same time, he was wise enough to acknowledge the moral ambiguity of war – all wars are crimes. And yet nations and governments believe they need to be fought.
I honestly don’t know how to answer the question I posed above. Luckily, I met two intelligence officers who did their jobs in screening out a young man who would not have been a good fit in the CIA. Over the years, I’ve met and gotten to know many men who did fit this type of government service. They are good and moral men who are serving their country in completion of its mission. Is Snowden a hero or traitor? I don’t know, but I disagree with Oliver Stone’s method of excusing him and blaming the cynical actions of the CIA father figure. Yes, Snowden’s actions brought to light the secret and covert actions of the NSA and CIA, but they may have jeopardized other American lives as well. Are we better off as a nation and a people for knowing the truth about the NSA’s actions? Did he betray his brothers-in-arms? I believe we all make decisions for which there are consequences. Snowden’s actions were a clear violation of his contract, his promises, and possibly, his sworn oath. These actions have consequences. I believe Snowden’s next steps will determine how he will be judged. Right now, I’ll wait.
On Maggie’s Farm no more.
Well, I wake up in the morning
Fold my hands and pray for rain,
I got a head full of ideas
That are driving me insane.
It’s a shame the way
She makes me scrub the floor.
I ain’t gonna work
On Maggie’s Farm no more.
(Maggie’s Farm: Bob Dylan – 1965)
I went to see the movie Snowden a few weeks ago. I just didn’t feel like writing or working out on my 69th birthday, and Snowden was the only film that fit my time frame. I will admit that I was a bit apprehensive about seeing another Oliver Stone movie. While admittedly he has made some fine films (Platoon, Scarface, and Wall Street), he has also directed some wacky, politically disasters (JFK, Nixon, and W). I was worried that his latest effort was going to fit into this latter genre, and go off the deep end over the topic of government surveillance and covert military force. Instead I found the story remarkably restrained. The narrative was about a naively patriotic American youth who joins the CIA and NSA, and becomes increasingly disillusioned and alarmed about the government’s secret authority and how it uses covert force and surveillance to a fight a “war against terror”. Ultimately Stone’s protagonist leaks the information to the world media and is forced to flee the country as a traitor.
Strangely, for me, the central question of the movie wasn’t about Snowden’s actions: Was he a whistle-blowing hero or a traitor? Rather, I found myself indentifying with this young man who wanted to do “the right thing” after the shock of 9/11, and I was relieved to find that Stone (as opposed to some earlier movies) was allowing the viewers to reach their own conclusions. I found myself much more interested in Snowden’s original decision to join the CIA. You see, at one time, I too interviewed for a job at the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States.
In 1975, long before September 11, 2001, in the time when our Cold War with Russia and other Communist countries still ran hot, I applied for Foreign Service with the State Department of the United States. I was finishing up my Master’s Degree in Latin American Studies at UCLA and looking for a diplomatic career in the State Department. Unable to join the Peace Corps after my undergrad graduation in 1970 because of the Draft, I enlisted in the Air Force and served until my father’s death resulted in my discharge. After teaching U.S. History at St. Bernard High School for a year and a half, I returned to college in 1973, under the GI Bill. I had always dreamed of a career in the Foreign Service, living in exotic countries and cultures, speaking Spanish or Portuguese, and traveling throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Working in embassies and consulates seemed exciting and challenging, and my experiences in teaching and studies of education in Third World countries seemed complementary to this type of service. Even my pending marriage to Kathleen Greaney seemed to fit it with these plans. Kathy spoke Spanish, and taught high school English-as-a-Second Language, but more important she would make the perfect diplomatic wife. She was smart, beautiful, and charming – everything a successful diplomat needed. By the Spring of 1975 I had made contact with the State Department and all I had to do was score high enough on the Foreign Service Examination to proceed. I didn’t. After getting over the shock of not passing the first hurdle to Foreign Service, I went to Plan B, and applied to the CIA.
After taking some graduate seminars in American Counter-Insurgency and Third World Politics in Latin America, I knew enough about the CIA to understand that James Bond-espionage was only a small part of their service. The CIA was primarily concerned with the study and analysis of social, economic, political, and military intelligence and data of countries, and I naively believed that I had done much of this for two years as a graduate student at UCLA. I also knew that all foreign embassies, and most consulates, had assigned CIA officers. I thought I could still manage a career overseas, as well as spending some time near Washington D.C., by joining the CIA. All I had to do now was apply and successfully clear their interview process.
My first encounter with the CIA was in the blue-collar city of Hawthorne, a suburb of Los Angeles, just east of the International Airport. As usual in those waning days of the Vietnam War, the Federal Building was a massive, non-descript edifice. It could have been any regular office building except for the long, winding lines waiting for passport and visa permits, and veteran services. Of course there was nothing in the government letter I received, or the building directory, indicating that there was a CIA office. I was simply to report to a room in the building. There I met a tall, handsome, 40-ish looking man in a tailored suit. His huge, mahogany desk was situated in front of a massive eagle on the wall, brandishing swords and spears in its talons. He welcomed me and reviewed a file folder containing, I supposed, my application, as I sat answering his questions. He asked about my education, military experiences, and future goals. He seemed very satisfied with my responses and he expanded on my desires to travel and live in foreign countries. He also explained that he was the first stage of the screening process, and that I would soon be contacted by mail for a secondary, more in-depth interview by agency personnel. I left the meeting feeling very optimistic. I recall another scene in connection with this first encounter with the CIA, when I called Kathy to tell her about it. Looking back now, I see an element of foreshadowing in this conversation, because Kathy’s response to my enthusiasm was oddly cool and muted. She emotionlessly stated that she was glad that I was pleased with the outcome of this first meeting with the CIA.
The follow-up letter I received from the CIA was in an ordinary, white, business envelope. The generic federal stationary invited me to two separate interviews on the same date in two rooms in a swanky hotel in Marina del Rey. I was surprised at the plainness of the letter and the proximity of the meeting to my home. All of my previous interactions with federal agencies, beginning with my registration for the draft in 1966, were in clearly designated, but hard to find addresses and buildings. This was the first time a government entity seemed to be making an effort to be convenient. Needless to say, I was very intrigued, and a little intimidated.
I dressed in a coat and tie and knocked on a numbered hotel room door at the designated time. I was greeted by black face on a stocky body, wearing a white, rolled-up, long-sleeved, white shirt, with a loosened tie, inspecting me from behind a chain-locked door.
“Can I help you?” The gravelly-voiced man said.
“Uhh”, I stammered. “I have an interview here, I think”.
“Are you Antonio Delgado”, he asked?
“Yes, sir”, I replied, feeling as if I was back at Lackland Air Force Base, addressing my Training Instructor.
“Come in and have a seat”, he said, un-securing the chain lock and opening the door. “Don’t mind the room”, he added, “ housekeeping hasn’t had a chance to come in yet.” He pointed me to a chair across from a small, circular table, and then joined me at another chair. He never referred to a file or document while he spoke. Before questioning me, he explained that I was to meet another interviewer today who represented another arm of the agency. He was a field operative tasked with determining my suitability for that aspect of the agency – data gathering. That’s how he termed spying, “data-gathering”. He then invited me to answer some open-ended questions:
“Why did you want to join the agency? What are your unique qualifications for the job? How do your previous education and job experiences help in this one?”
As I was citing and expanding on my employment history, post-graduate studies, fluency in Spanish, and military experiences as an Information Specialist, he interrupted to redirect the conversation. He explained that “field data collection” was about cultivating and sustaining personal relationships. These relationships were intimate and authentic, but they were always directed by their usefulness to The Mission. The Mission was the defeat of the current and future enemies of the United States. I have to admit that this declaration took me aback, and before I had a chance to recover my balance, he asked me the crucial question:
“Could you establish and maintain a close personal relationship with a friend or relative in a foreign country to gain information that was useful to your country, even if it put the life of that friend or relative at risk?”
I don’t recall now exactly how I answered that question, but I sensed not well. All I remember is being so thrown off by this question. I think I tried hedging at first, until I realized that I couldn’t avoid the ethical dilemma it posed. So I answered truthfully. To an enemy yes, but I couldn’t ask, manipulate, or induce a friend, relative, or loved one, to commit what they might consider a criminal or traitorous act. I clearly answered the agent’s question incorrectly, because his demeanor quickly changed. His attitude up until that moment had been business-like and efficient, and suddenly he turned friendly and talkative. He volunteered that not all CIA personnel were meant to be field agents or data collectors. The main function of the agency was analysis, which required different skills. I knew that he was metaphorically showing me the door, and pointing at my only avenue of entry into his world of government service. He amiably explained that the next interviewer would discuss this aspect of the agency and my suitability for it.
There was a brief interval between interviews and I was sure that my first contact had spoken with the second. When he responded to my knock, the door was unchained, and he was personable and friendly. He was a tall, white guy, who also wore a long-sleeved, white shirt, but it was buttoned with a tie, and his room was completely made up. My encounter with him was casual and relaxed, more of a getting-to-know-you conversation than a job interview. He began by explaining that analysis was the visible side of the agency, involving the type of work done in doctoral programs at universities and at think tanks, like the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica. His questions centered on my academic experiences at UCLA and as a teacher at St. Bernard’s. By the time I finished talking, he simply sat back in his chair and smiled.
“You know”, he began, “listening to the way you describe teaching, you really seemed to enjoy it. You’re at the point in your life where that dimension has to be factored into your plans. What do you enjoy doing? It sounds to me like you found it in teaching.”
He never finished that thought by adding that I didn’t fit in with the CIA, but I heard the message loud and clear. And secretly, I was a little relieved.
That was my encounter with the CIA, and the end of my dreams of a career in the Foreign Service of the United States. When I told Kathy what had happened, she confessed that she was relieved. Recognizing my desire and longing for a career in the Foreign Service, she finally admitted that she had sublimated her dislike of a life in foreign countries where she would be separated from country, family, and friends. She expressed that she had fallen in love with me, agreed to marry me, and had been willing to support me in my chosen career – but she had still hoped (and prayed?) that something else might come up instead. It did. I woke up to the realities of the CIA, and by extension, the NSA. I was not CIA material. Even I realized that the second interviewer was right. I did enjoy teaching. Teaching was challenging, and mastery of this profession gave me purpose and satisfaction. The CIA needed an ethical manipulator or a think tank academician. I was suited for neither of those options. And yet, despite this new awareness, I was still dogged by a question. How had I failed the interview? I had never failed a face-to-face interview before. What had I done wrong? What had I said that made it so apparent to them? Why was I not a good fit with the CIA? I replayed my encounters with the two CIA agents over and over in my mind for months. The answer hit me a month later. The first agent had actually spelled it out at the outset, only I had missed the implication at the time. There is only one justification for what he was asking me to do as a field agent – WAR. A CIA agent has to believe that he is a soldier fighting a justifiable war against all current and future enemies of the State.
In the movie, Snowden, Stone shields his lead character by not allowing him to make an informed decision at the time of his recruitment. Instead, he creates a CIA father figure, a “silky apparatchik” played by Rhys Ifans who sees the value of recruiting this highly talented computer programmer, despite his reservations that Snowden will not be a good fit in the CIA. He seems to trust that Snowden’s naive patriotism, ambition, and eventual greed will overcome any questions or doubts about the morally ambiguous activities of the CIA and NSA. For me, this is the weakness in Stone’s tale, and although it is better than his more contrived films, it is still a preachy story of government over-reach, and its abuse of power and authority. At the same time, it does pose an important question to the viewer: what would you do in Snowden’s situation?
In my lifetime, the United States has been “at war” against Communism and Terrorism. Both enemies are more ideological than concrete, and yet the USA has sent American fighting soldiers to countries in Southeast Asia, Central America, and the Middle East because of it, and provided intelligence officers the legal cover for their covert and amoral actions. Soldiers will accomplish their missions, do their jobs, and protect their brothers-in-arms, even at the cost of their own lives. However, intelligence agents and analysts are asked to go beyond the confines of conventional warfare where only a trust and faith in a legal and perpetual state of war is their ethical refuge. An authorized war justifies almost any action – and the victors decide if it is patriotism or genocide.
There was a scene from Alan Sorkin’s popular television show, West Wing, that has stuck in my head for years. The episode was called “War Crimes”, and one of its stories concerned the United Nations wanting the President’s support for a permanent War Crimes Tribunal. The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was lobbying the President and Leo, the President’s Chief of Staff, to oppose the resolution. In the key scene Leo reminds the Air Force General that although America set up the Nuremburg and the Tokyo War Crimes Trials after WWII, the Cold War threat gave German rocket scientists and the activities of American intelligence services higher priority than the morality of their actions. At that point the General, who served as Leo’s commanding officer in Viet Nam, reminded him of a specific bombing mission in Thailand during the Vietnam War. Leo, as an Air Force Bomber pilot, believed it to be a military target, but the general reveals that the bombing of the dam was in fact a civilian target that resulted in the loss of 11 civilian casualties.
“Why did you tell me?” a stricken Leo asked the general.
“All wars are crimes,” responded the general.
I enlisted in the Air Force at a time of war. I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to obey the orders of the president and his appointed officers. As a soldier, that oath meant that I was ready to follow orders, do my job, and support, protect, and defend my brothers-in-arms. More than anything else, it is this brotherhood that gets soldiers through a time of war. The war stops being about the big issues – fighting Facism, Communism, or Terrorism – and becomes as simple as trusting your mission and defending your brothers-in-arms. This is a fighting man’s code – faith that the mission is right, ethical, and justified, and trusting his officers in accomplishing it. Leo fulfilled his mission of bombing a civilian target with his commanding officer withholding critical information. The general believed he was justified in making this decision because the truth might have jeopardized the mission. At the same time, he was wise enough to acknowledge the moral ambiguity of war – all wars are crimes. And yet nations and governments believe they need to be fought.
I honestly don’t know how to answer the question I posed above. Luckily, I met two intelligence officers who did their jobs in screening out a young man who would not have been a good fit in the CIA. Over the years, I’ve met and gotten to know many men who did fit this type of government service. They are good and moral men who are serving their country in completion of its mission. Is Snowden a hero or traitor? I don’t know, but I disagree with Oliver Stone’s method of excusing him and blaming the cynical actions of the CIA father figure. Yes, Snowden’s actions brought to light the secret and covert actions of the NSA and CIA, but they may have jeopardized other American lives as well. Are we better off as a nation and a people for knowing the truth about the NSA’s actions? Did he betray his brothers-in-arms? I believe we all make decisions for which there are consequences. Snowden’s actions were a clear violation of his contract, his promises, and possibly, his sworn oath. These actions have consequences. I believe Snowden’s next steps will determine how he will be judged. Right now, I’ll wait.
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