Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

CIA interrogations report: New Congress must tackle how to get intelligence right. As I read news reports detailing the Senate Committee Report on the CIA interrogation program after the September 2001 terrorist attacks , I concluded there are several recurring problems to this latest effort to govern our national intelligence agencies . As an old man, I have had the opportunity to have first-hand exposure to how complex it is for Congress or even the White House to assert control over these vital intelligence activities . After there were revelations in the 60's that the CIA had engaged in a variety of activities that were highly questionable including efforts to kill Fidel Castro and others , the Carter administration reacted and went through the kind of political process that many are urging should be done today . In an attempt to purge the agency of its tendency to use nefarious individuals to carry out some of its covert projects, the CIA was directed to refuse to associate with any persons who could not meet the test of good character . One CIA officer told me how absurd that directive was . "We are trying to get people to betray their governments and to lie and cheat on our behalf. You cannot expect us to find those people in the front pew at the local churches." Perhaps the directive was well-intentioned but it made no sense . Richard Helms, the CIA head from 1966 to 1973, whom I knew well and admired greatly, told me of his personal problems when he was indicted by the Carter Justice Department for perjury . In testimony he gave to the Congress, Helms denied under oath his agency had been involved in the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, an action ordered by President Nixon . Helms told me he was following instructions he had been given repeatedly by various Senators including such powerful men as Senators Richard Russell and Walter George to the effect that if he were ever asked at an open hearing a question the answer to which "would put any of our people at risk" he should feel free to protect the secrets in whatever manner he wished . Of course Helms knew of many instances when he and others in the Agency had relied on that authority . Helms was defended by the powerful Washington lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams and the case against Helms was quickly resolved when Williams explained to the Justice Department his plan to have Helms take the stand and recite all the covert programs that had been protected by various forms of prevarications by intelligence officials . Of course no such trial in public made any sense and the danger to ongoing intelligence activities of testimony such as Williams would have had Helms provide was so great the ill- advised indictment of Helms resulted only in a slap on the wrist . Williams made a deal in which Helms pled guilty to a misdemeanor with no punishment . Later ,  President Ronald Reagan gave Helms the National Intelligence Medal as an obvious act of apology . Perjury is not to be condoned and lying before the Congress is criminal conduct . But the intelligence world involves subtle issues . If we want to have a major intelligence effort , there are clear costs to be accepted . One of them is that much of the necessary supervision by Congress has to be done with deft caution . It can hardly be conducted in open hearings . Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law Professor and prominent civil libertarian, contends torture to save lives should be permitted as long as there are rigorous procedural safeguards . He points out the Israelis have used torture for years with apparent success . Getting information from unwilling prisoners cannot be done without some risks to civilized process . It can be a dirty game . I once visited Vice President Walter Mondale at his White House office where he served under President Carter from 1977 to 1981 . His desk was piled high with documents he said were mainly reports from the CIA . He volunteered his frustration at the then weaknesses at the CIA . He told me he had come to regret he had been such a vigorous supporter of the gutting of that agency that followed the suggestions of the so-called Church Committee on which Mondale had served as a Senator . His comment was an isolated one and I merely listened . But the effects of the Church Committee recommendations were damaging to the CIA and the remedial work took years . Every forty years we may have to endure periodic reports like those produced under Senators Church and Feinstein that represent well intentioned reviews of the intelligence community . The suggested reforms speak of following our sense of justice and fairness and civility . The problem is obvious : Our enemies do not play fair and war is Hell . Any reforms of the intelligence universe cannot easily be effected . The idea of a transparent intelligence agency is an inherent contradiction . Moreover how can Congress talk openly of reforms without damaging our intelligence efforts? And politicians are among those least likely to be willing to accept the secrecy that is at the core of any well managed intelligence agency . Can we imagine a Congress that can keep the secrets? The new flurry of attacks on the intelligence community -- harmful and unnecessary-- will not have any more lasting impact than did the indictment of Helms or the work of the Church Committee . But there should be some quiet and thoughtful debate within our Congress about how it can supervise these vital intelligence programs . After all ,  our national intelligence work is existential .
As I read news reports detailing the Senate Committee Report on the CIA interrogation program after the September 2001 terrorist attacks

Lebanon has just done the unthinkable. Lebanon has just done the apparently unthinkable and placed visa control on the entry of Syrians into the country . Before, the situation was effectively a free flow that had resulted in Syrians, mostly refugees, amounting today to 20 percent of the population on Lebanese soil . Imagine 12 million French in the UK today . The Lebanese government has assured international agencies that it will still permit and facilitate humanitarian cases , but the step is a telling one . The real story behind this is the annihilation of borders from Baghdad to Beirut . ISIL is one stark and ugly manifestation of that reality but so are the refugees, a tragic event that has also affected Turkey and Jordan . This zone that once facilitated trade is now closer to scenes from Road Warrior - or the sad march of the displaced . The disintegration of Sykes Picot has blurred nation-states as cross border allegiances fight it out on a series of fronts and through a myriad of forces from Jubhat al-Nusra, Shia militias, Peshmergas, to the Lebanese Armed forces to the now infamous ISIL . Borders don't seem to mean much in this Middle East , if they ever did . The refugees are the terrible consequence and victims of these conflicts that plague this area . The best response to them is not visas but a proper joint response by the Lebanese government assisted by international insititutions . The reality however is that the former is incapable , and the latter insufficiently funded to deal with such a massive influx . As a result, many refugees are living in terrible conditions . The other harsh reality is that the Lebanese government has said that this will not affect Syrian "visitors" to Lebanon . There are six classes of visitors in the new system and the Syrian middle class and rich are unlikley to be affected . Walid Jumblatt stated that his country should differentiate between "refugees who are fleeing death and destruction in Syria after they lost their homes," and those who intend to be politically active , but the reality is that the poorest will be most affected . Indeed ,  it's a large question mark whether Lebanon has the capacity to even implement the measure it has just taken . The Syrian presence in Lebanon is so pervasive it may well be impossible to manage the situation, except to manage some future inflow . Furthermore ,  the idea of Lebanon, a country barely treading water, being able to manage such a problem is unrealistic . Only a regional and international effort of significance can manage such a scale , and regional powers are busy carving their fiefdoms and creating the very problem rather than solving it . The plight of the refugees is key but it is also important to perceive this event from the perspective of the host country; a small nation with very poor governance and infrastructure in the midst of regional turmoil . In a way, this is Lebanon's very small response to the erosion of Sykes Picot . Syrians are indeed everywhere in Lebanon . In Beirut, and in every village and town one visits . Flights from Beirut to Europe are one-third to half full of Syrians . Indeed ,  given this massive presence and Lebanon's already poor infrastructure and socio-economic state, it is an achievement that the Syrian crisis has not led to further deterioration in the country . The relations in Lebanon between the two peoples, despite some racism and ugly incidents, could have been far worse . Until now, Lebanese hosting of the refugees is characterised by neither generosity nor enmity, but by a passive acceptance of fate . This is partially driven by the fact that Syrians are culturally and linguistically akin , and some sectors of the Lebanese economy, e.g  construction, remain highly dependent on Syrian workers . How this will square with the new visa rules is unknown . More importantly, this step can be seen as part of a series of recent indirect actions that attempt to strengthen the Lebanese state, or at least make the pretense of doing so . Minister of Health Abu Faour has been on an intense and mediatic campaign to clean up the food industry in Lebanon, cracking down restaurants, slaughterhouses, and airport storage sites . Despite complaints, this clean up, if it lasts, is a welcome step for Lebanese ; it is national, potentially affects everyone positively, and is an act of government . Second ,  in an echo of the Nahr el-Bared campaign, the Lebanese army is taking responsibility in the Northern Bekaa and Hermel areas against the radical groups who are effectively fighting the Syrian war on Lebanese soil . Pride in the Lebanese army is rising . There are also rumours that the Lebanese government will also take on the murderous Indie-500 speeders on Lebanse highways in the spring . If this does occur in addition to bold step of visas for Syrians , a move that would have been unheard of when Lebanon was effectively a vassal state of Damascus, then indeed Lebanon could see the bare beginnings of emerging out of chaos through these small attempts . The political realities in Lebanon are of course more complicated and illusory than this . Many only see in all of the above feeble attempts to deflect from the reality of a total political vaccuum . Indeed , the Lebanese visa step is obviously not humanitarian , it is a self- interested attempt to stem the tide, put a thumb in the dyke, and avoid the emergent chaos in the Middle East . It would be better if the Lebanese had the magnamity, or much more importantly, the capacity , to continue simply receiving all Syrians , but they are barely running their own country . Compassion requires an orderly method and capacities in order to be effectively pursued , i.e the Lebanese need a functioning state of their own to handle such a crisis properly . Indeed ,  Lebanon has mostly escaped the wars next door not out of wisdom or discipline, or any energetic international diplomacy, but because the memories of that conflict are still vivid in the minds of Lebanese adults . No one will go to war because they remember what war costs , and because they know how little they derived from the devastation . The result of 15 years of fighting was that the state was further weakened in favour of sectarianism, cronyism and corruption , while the Lebanese kept on doing what they do best, make money and enjoy life, living for today and certainly not tomorrow . Meanwhile, social and environmental erosion make the country less and less livable by the day . The recent steps however, triggered by political challenges and health risks, signal some early and feeble attempts at a return of the state, or at the very least preserving the semblance of the old order, the shadow of a nation-state, amidst the dark fluidity and chaos surging from there to Kurdistan . It took the Lebanese 40 years and external pressures to begin to think about getting their house in order , if that is indeed what is happening today . Hopefully, it won't take their neighbours that long to start to address the necessary basics of life .
Lebanon has just done the apparently unthinkable and placed visa control on the entry of Syrians into the country

The Paris attacks and the failure of the republic. Following the Paris attacks, there appears to be a consensus that France has experienced a turning point in its modern history . Most commentators place an emphasis on the possible role external factors have played in this act of terrorism . Various external factors are cited , but they mostly focus on the conflicts in the Middle East and international tensions in general, in a bid to link the Paris attacks to extremist ideologies that promote such murderous acts . A week after the attack, the French political class and key media outlets remain focused on the security aspect and barely attempt to address the issue from a different angle . They do not question the responsibility held by French society and state - as well as the role of the socioeconomic policies practised by successive French governments - in addressing the woes of the socially marginalised and disenfranchised zones from which the Kouachi brothers sprang . How can this act be attributed only to dogmatic ideological motivations and grievances over international conflicts, given that the religious and ideological indoctrination process is too complicated to be attributed solely to external factors? As both French officials and analysts respond with emotion , they ignore a series of socioeconomic factors that have fuelled the motivations of the actors . It is important to remember that the perpetrators of the attack were born and raised in France in a poor, disadvantaged area where unemployment rates among the youth aged 18 to 24 years reaches 45 percent (compared to the national rate which is nearly 10 percent) . In these areas, called"banlieues", state infrastructure is almost non- existent and the population is subject to segregation and racial discrimination in terms of access to employment opportunities and housing , which in most cases leads to exclusion from the civic sphere . In 2006, an official case study focusing on access to employment conditions showed that 51 percent of young French candidates are subject to discrimination based on ethnic origin and/or skin colour . These conditions result in social marginalisation and promote delinquency which in turn raises the chances of incarceration ; a place where religious indoctrination and ideological radicalisation mostly occur . Sociologist Robert Castel describes the situation of young people in these deprived areas as follows:"These young people are not completely [living] outside of society, however, they are not inside it either, for they do not enjoy any recognised space/role [...] Their situation is pretty paradoxical: they are citizens, who live on French territory, and yet they undergo differential and discriminatory treatment that disqualifies them. The republic, in contradiction with its own principles, seems incapable of integrating these young French people who live like the indigenous minority of the nation." This, combined with a conflicting social context that is constantly fuelled by debates over identity, religion and behavioural issues (such as the debate on national identity, the veil, halal food in schools, Islam and French secularism) further stigmatise this community and place it in a permanent state of confrontation with the rest of society . This vicious cycle prevents any change in the dynamics of this relationship into a cooperative one that could help find solutions in order to improve their socioeconomical status . Not to mention the mainstream media discourse permanently framing those zones and communities as an ailment to the society . Young people are depicted in a caricaturist form, making it all the more difficult for them to socially and professionally integrate , which deepens their sense of marginalisation . Such dynamics only complicate the relationship with the government, often seen as an opponent and sometimes as an enemy . This is the gap where religious indoctrination factors sneaks in - often occurring in prison environments where ethnic groups are predominantly from these areas and where 18- to 30 -year-olds represent 35 percent of the incarcerated population . Are these good enough reasons to explain the motives behind committing such a terrorist act? Of course not . But the conditions described above constitute the factors that facilitate and accelerate the ideological and religious indoctrination process . Especially when protagonists have the financial resources(this is often the case) to attract the most fragile, the most helpless and the most excluded in order to step forward and enrol in extremist activities , the international context helps . With such a grim reality, the question going forward would be if purely security measures are sufficient to challenge the terrorism that threatens France . We expected to find an answer to this question in Prime Minister Manuel Valls's speech at the National Assembly in which he outlined "exceptional" measures to be taken . "France is at war against terrorism and against radical Islam," he said . "Exceptional measures will be taken to challenge terrorism." Valls mentioned exclusively security measures, such as reinforcing supervision within the prisons where Islamist prisoners are concentrated; establishing inter-European border controls; strengthening international intelligence cooperation ... however ,  there was no mention of a possible revision of the government's social policies to address the problems in the marginalised zones; no announcement of a reflection on a possible serious debate to propose a new approach to address all the socioeconomic ills affecting them . The security measures announced by the prime minister are necessary, but not sufficient to contain terrorism ; the roots of extremism, where the first frustrations are formed, remain untouched . That is not to say that the French government should be solely held responsible for the situation which France is facing today . Nevertheless ,  failing to take into account the catastrophic socioeconomic factor would be tantamount to promoting the very context that contributes to the development of fundamentalist ideologies . The government urgently needs to review its social and economic policies towards these disadvantaged areas , developing real socioeconomic infrastructure, strengthening solidarity, emphasising the fight against discrimination in employment and housing, strengthening anti-racist laws and promoting a fairer media discourse towards these populations in order to improve their lot in life . This will undoubtedly contribute towards sterilising any niches where extremist ideology can take root .

Following the Paris attacks, there appears to be a consensus that France has experienced a turning point in its modern history