{"id":4367,"date":"2009-08-20T07:10:33","date_gmt":"2009-08-20T11:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=4367"},"modified":"2009-08-20T07:10:33","modified_gmt":"2009-08-20T11:10:33","slug":"outsourcing-is-a-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/outsourcing-is-a-hit","title":{"rendered":"Outsourcing is a Hit!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three weeks ago, I wrote about CIA Director Leon Panetta’s “I’m not here to talk about the past” <\/a>op-ed piece, in which the agency was just following orders for the previous 8 years. Mr. Panetta was writing because of an uproar over a secret “jihadist” assassination program that had been devised during a previous regime. He canceled the program the day after he found out about it, and reported it to Congress, noting that it had never been put into operation and had not been used to assassinate members of Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

It always felt like a piece of the story was missing, and now we might have that missing piece. According to the NYTimes<\/em>, the program also employed an outside contractor<\/a>, Blackwater USA, for “planning, training and surveillance.” And, well . . .<\/p>\n

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, the main point of my day job<\/a> is that organizations should stick to their core competencies. You know: “If there’s a function that you can’t do well in-house, then you should look to outsource it.” Still, I can see where a privatized hit team getting captured on foreign soil might create some problems. Fortunately,<\/p>\n

Blackwater\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work on the program actually ended years before Mr. Panetta took over the agency, after senior C.I.A. officials themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, good for Mr. Panetta for ending the program the day he found out about it, but I’m afraid this (or programs like it) is going to be like Pete Rose’s slow-motion confession about gambling on baseball: the admissions will keep getting a little worse and a little worse.<\/p>\n

Read all about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three weeks ago, I wrote about CIA Director Leon Panetta’s “I’m not here to talk about the past” op-ed piece, in which the agency was just following orders for the previous 8 years. Mr. Panetta was writing because of an uproar over a secret “jihadist” assassination program that had been devised during a previous regime. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Outsourcing is a Hit!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[796],"class_list":["post-4367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-explicit","tag-leon-panetta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-18r","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4295,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/f-you-you-whining-f-dont-look-back-edition","url_meta":{"origin":4367,"position":0},"title":"F*** You, You Whining F***: Don’t Look Back edition","author":"Gil","date":"August 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, CIA Director Leon Panetta pulls a Mark McGwire and asks Congress to stop looking into the CIA's role in running secret torture prisons and planning political assassinations: I've become increasingly concerned that the focus on the past, especially in Congress, threatens to distract\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "F*** You, You Whining F***"","block_context":{"text":"F*** You, You Whining F***","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/f-you-you-whining-f"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1995,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/learning-to-learn","url_meta":{"origin":4367,"position":1},"title":"Learning to learn","author":"Gil","date":"April 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In my previous post, I decried some lame-ass attempts at infusing \"literaryness\" into an article that chronicled the decline of the New York Knicks. My complaint was that the writer's story is compelling enough that it doesn't require the trappings of middlebrowness-trying-to-prove-its-smartypantsness in order to please hip urban crowd. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=158510101X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6085,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/virtual-memories-radio-the-missing-tapes","url_meta":{"origin":4367,"position":2},"title":"Virtual Memories Radio: the missing tapes!","author":"Gil","date":"August 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I just discovered that I have a podcast from last May that never posted! I could've sworn I posted this one shortly after Ernesto Sabato's death on April 30, but there's no sign of it anywhere on the blog! The files were posted on the morning of May 4, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":319,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/oil-for-money","url_meta":{"origin":4367,"position":3},"title":"Oil for Money","author":"Gil","date":"August 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Great piece in the NYTimes today about the scandal of the UN's Iraqi oil-for-food program. Claudia Rosett at the Wall Street Journal has been way out in front on this story, so it's good to see it get front-page treatment from the Times.Because, y'know, it shows that a lot of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (implicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (implicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-implicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10500,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-231-sven-birkerts","url_meta":{"origin":4367,"position":4},"title":"Episode 231 – Sven Birkerts","author":"Gil","date":"August 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 231: Sven Birkerts \"There are thresholds or shelves where we go from having incremental change to systemic moments of transformation.\" In the '90s, Sven Birkerts cautioned us about the impact of technology on reading with The Gutenberg Elegies. In 2017, we mute our iPhones to talk about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "0-fer"","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/birk800web-620x620.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/birk800web-620x620.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/birk800web-620x620.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1861,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/well-its-no-gherkin","url_meta":{"origin":4367,"position":5},"title":"Well, it’s no Gherkin","author":"Gil","date":"January 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I first noticed the Hearst Tower during ferry rides over to NYC about a year ago. Last April, I meandered by the building and snapped some pictures. I thought it was a neat-looking building, especially as it poked out of an existing structure like a giant f***-you: Last November, when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hearst Tower","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/198\/448741823_6b0962279c.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4367"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4370,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367\/revisions\/4370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}