Originally Posted by Botnst

CIA uses covert and clandestine people, weapons and tactics. The regular military and most politicians don't like it in a large degree due to it's avoidance of the Geneva Conventions. Also, the command and control is so decentralized that light colonels and majors often have virtual autonomy. Imagine if that awful movie, Apocolypse Now, had been done in a the fashion of "Blackhawk Down." Kurtz (was that Brando's character?) would have been a hero and we'd never have known. But it also carries the danger of a wacky guy like Kurtz seizing actual control.

The people who are in the covert and clandestine business are some of the finest specimens of manhood I've ever met. They are the type of guy who you meet and immediately think pretty highly of. They are obviously competent and charismatic--but not in the sense of a politician or religious leader. If you haven't met competent military leadership then it's difficult to explain. And those guys are often the cream. Sort of like a Nietsche or Dostoeyevsky or Ayn Rand type character.

And that's why their darkside is so damned dangerous to civil society and why the Founding Fathers were adamant that civilians must control the military. You can never let those guys run the government.

It's the paradox of the perfect weapon.

B