Suzanimal
03-09-2015, 08:10 AM
During my early years at the Central Intelligence Agency (2003-05), I would occasionally stop by to chat with friends and colleagues who manned the ramparts in the Office of Iraq Analysis (OIA). Here, Langley’s best and brightest pontificated over ways to weed out “former regime elements” and divined the optimum solution to foster a united and democratic government in Baghdad.
One office meme, in particular, captures the can-do spirit of those days: the “Freedometer.” The Freedometer was a circular cardboard cutout with a pivoting arrow, posted conspicuously for all to see in that particular cubicle platoon. And with all the fun and seriousness of a game of spin-the-bottle, it measured ”freedom” on no particularly observable basis.
In reality, the Freedometer was referencing President George W. Bush’s declaration in September 2001 that the War on Terror was “a war against people who hate freedom.” It was at the same time a mockery of those who believed this rhetoric and an indictment of those who knew—or should have known—that the policies laid out to wage successive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would lead to unconstitutional encroachment upon the freedoms and civil liberties of Americans.
In recent years, the government’s freedom rhetoric has proven to be as shallow as that of the OIA’s Freedometer. The government has wire-tapped Americans’ phones without warrants, carried out extrajudicial killings of American citizens suspected of joining al-Qaeda, and spent billions of American tax dollars on an ever-expanding national security establishment.
...
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-high-costs-of-the-freedom-agenda/
One office meme, in particular, captures the can-do spirit of those days: the “Freedometer.” The Freedometer was a circular cardboard cutout with a pivoting arrow, posted conspicuously for all to see in that particular cubicle platoon. And with all the fun and seriousness of a game of spin-the-bottle, it measured ”freedom” on no particularly observable basis.
In reality, the Freedometer was referencing President George W. Bush’s declaration in September 2001 that the War on Terror was “a war against people who hate freedom.” It was at the same time a mockery of those who believed this rhetoric and an indictment of those who knew—or should have known—that the policies laid out to wage successive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would lead to unconstitutional encroachment upon the freedoms and civil liberties of Americans.
In recent years, the government’s freedom rhetoric has proven to be as shallow as that of the OIA’s Freedometer. The government has wire-tapped Americans’ phones without warrants, carried out extrajudicial killings of American citizens suspected of joining al-Qaeda, and spent billions of American tax dollars on an ever-expanding national security establishment.
...
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-high-costs-of-the-freedom-agenda/