> when I have friends somewhere specific doing something specific, it is difficult to read the absolute statements I see sometimes.
>
Columbia is more than the Gem of the Ocean <s>
I think people confuse "covert" with "evil". As a card-carrying member of the "Shoot the officers" cadre I have always believed the world is better served by intelligent covert operations than carpet-bombing or shipping arms to rice farmers so they can die for the commissars.
I know the proposed alternative is complete non-intervention in the affairs of other nations. That would be interesting, historically unique, and morally bankrupt.
Covert action in 1954 in SE Asia could, I believe, have lead to an outcome much more acceptable to the Vietnamese and American people and the process would have had much less impact on the lives of the majority of people - who have no interest in political issues but are just trying to get on with their lives. "Heaven is high, and the Emperor is far away"
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
