The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

So, the Senate Intelligence Committee endorsed the nomination of General Michael Hayden to CIA chief today by a 12-3 vote.  To their eternal credit, Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Russ Feingold both voted no.

So many pixels have been spilled on the unacceptability of this nominee, based on his involvement in the wiretapping scandal, that I hardly need to add mine.  Suffice it to say, however, that if the Dems can retake either chamber of Congress and actually press for investigations of the illegal wiretapping, the nomination of a known defiler of the Constitution by his equally Constitutionally-challenged superior will go down as one of the watermarks of this administration's imperial hubris.

More important to me at this time, however, is the treasonous nature of this nomination.  That's a strong word, indeed, but I can't think of any other that would be appropriate.

The CIA is an institution with such low morale at this point that it has become a laughingstock.  And the reasons for this low morale are abundantly clear, and can be vividly seen in James Risen's book State of War.

In the CIA we have an institution that failed--whatever the other factors--to prevent 9/11, and then could not infiltrate Al-Qaeda well enough to locate Bin Laden.  That was a big enough blow.

But then this criminal administration decided that it was going to invade Iraq and ignore Al-Qaeda, come hell or high water, using trumped up rationales.  And then, to add insult to injury, they laid the blame for their own lies on the CIA.

When various members of the CIA rose up or left in protest, Bush chose to houseclean the agency by ridding it of Democrats with the nomination of Porter Goss.  And then, as if morale couldn't get any worse, the chief of the CIA then resigned in the wake of a (possibly gay) prostitute scandal at the Watergate hotel.

And now the last straw: Bush has nominated a military man to head the CIA--at a time when tensions between the Pentagon and the CIA could not be more pronounced.

In typical fashion, the Bush Administration has chosen intimidation over cooperation, in a move that can only be described as the biggest public "Fuck You" from one government organization to another in recent memory.

And if history is any judge, the effect on CIA morale will be terribly destructive.  People with institutional knowledge will quit.  Bright young talent will not join.  And the NSA and Pentagon, which have shown themselves to be not only inept but also criminally indifferent on the issue of Constitutional rights, will take over more and more of the intelligence apparatus.  By Design.

There is no other word for this than TREASON.

Because any fool knows that the phrase "The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves" is a joke--not a guidebook.  And when you're dealing with people who use the phrase as a management motto, you're not dealing with incompetent, bumbling, even malevolent idiots; you're dealing with intentionally vindictive and destructive people doing their utmost to damage and debilitate part of the apparatus that maintains our national security.

It's treason, plain and simple.