Charles Krauthammer offers
his take on the WikiLeaks release of the CIA classified trove in his column in
the Philadelphia Inquirer.
When he was Ronald Reagan's
secretary of state, George Shultz was once asked about the CIA's disavowal of
involvement in a mysterious bombing in Lebanon. Replied Shultz: "If the
CIA denies something, it's denied."
Has there ever been a more
dry, more wry, more ironic verdict on the world of espionage? Within it, there
is admission and denial, smoke and mirrors, impenetrable fog and deliberate
obfuscation. Truth? Ask the next guy.
Which is why my default view
of espionage is to never believe anyone, because everyone is trained in
deception. This is not a value judgment; it's a job description.
We learn, for example, from
Tuesday's spectacular WikiLeaks dump that among the CIA's various and nefarious
cybertools is the capacity to simulate intrusion by a foreign power, the
equivalent of planting phony fingerprints on a smoking gun.
Who are you going to believe
now? I can assure you that some enterprising Trumpite will use this revelation
to claim that the whole storyline pointing to Russian interference in the U.S.
election was a fabrication. And who was behind that? There is no end to this
hall of mirrors. My rule, therefore, is: Stay away.
You can read the rest of the
column via the below link:
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