Dear Log,
«When Eichmann was captured[,] the CIA combed files it had captured from the Nazis to find information that might be useful to the Israeli prosecution. The results caused near panic among the CIA's leadership because, unknown to the junior staff who had looked through the files, a few of Eichmann's accomplices being investigated had been CIA "assets".[...] The new documents make clear the great irony behind the US recruitment of ex-Nazis: for all the moral compromises involved, it was a complete failure in intelligence terms. The Nazis were terrible spies.»
--"Why Israel's capture of Eichmann caused panic at the CIA"
The US government's goon squad falls again and again into the same trap, something I call the Tom Clancy Fallacy: the idea that if something is shady (or blatantly illegal, or hamfistedly intrigue-ridden, or shockingly immoral), then it must be worthwhile, therefore we would be cowards not to DO IT RIGHT NOW, WHILE WEARING NIGHT VISION GOGGLES AND CARRYING HIGH-TECH ELECTRO-GUNS!!!
This bit of magical thinking lives on in the Bushy "war paradigm", and it is the biggest problem the US has ever faced.
Not that the US has a monopoly on it, mind you. These days it seems practically a planet-wide pandemic.
