Talk:Central Intelligence Agency/Archive 6

message: Could you help me understand how the material concerns you, and what you think should be changed?  I would ask only that we try to be clear about what was done by the CIA acting independently, under White House or equivalent orders, or by other agencies of the US government. As an example of the latter, the invasions of Grenada and Panama certainly were forms of regime change, but that did not especially involve covert action or even the CIA.
Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 13:10, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I dunno who made that edit but i consider it relatively minor.  I see nothing wrong with the section, myself, but no doubt there will soon be calls for us to provide reliable sources to support the statements made there.  Stone put to sky (talk) 13:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't mind losing the box completely, especially if the principles mentioned are clearly in the overall history, since the statement, as it stands, has a POV feel. It's perfectly valid to mention a militant anticommunism being at work, at least through Dulles, a reflexive anticommunism that was at the base of many of the support of dictators and things like the overthrow of Mossadegh -- but people in authority really thought that way. Later on, Casey had a goal of destroying the USSR government. Putting this information in historical context, however, is much better.  Also, it should be clear that some of this caused major overt action by other parts of the US government. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  68.89.137.174 and Disputed Material in "Developing World" 

message: Realizing that the "History" section was without subheads, I started putting them in, although I need to think about the appropriate ranges of dates. The ranges, in any case, will overlap, due to what some people might like to call "domestic blowback": domestic operations triggered by the Vietnam War spread into politics and thus abuses.
As to abuses, I would suggest many of them logically drop into a history, probably as their own headings and marked CONTROVERSIAL or something like that -- but right now, there's no particular flow, or consistent level of detail, among the controversy items. Some link to more detailed articles, either CIA specific or not. 
Some puzzle me as to why they have risen to the main article, such as supporting warlords in Somalia. Somalia is certainly not the only place this happens, and there is a much more detailed explanation of who, what, when and why in the Africa article. Much of the drug issues in Southeast Asia involved what could easily be called "warlords", not that the term has any consistent meaning beyond "large gang leader" or "somebody we don't like". I guess warlords stop being such when they take over countries, and then usually become "dictators".  I am not proposing that any detail be lost, but just to be editorially consistent about level of details.
Others of the controvesies, I believe, are different sides of the same issue and can be combined. For example, Watergate-related activities and the Warren Commission matters are both aspects of interference in public/governmental affairs. Several deal, in one way or another, with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, both the intelligence issues leading up to it and the operations after it started. There are other examples where I believe items can be combined without loss of information, but with better flow. In some cases, a controversy may have much more text than others in the main article, and it may not be more significant ones with a shorter writeup. Indignation doesn't substitute for reasonable editing. 
So far, I've deleted nothing, added some explanatory text in the history, and moved some things around. Suggestions and comments are appreciated. There are other areas for editorial balance, such as how much covert operation approval belongs in the "organization" section, and how much in the "history" section. My first impression is that the older details should be moved to the appropriate history section, but with enough internal wikilinking to make it clear there is an approval process. Interestingly, no one has really brought out that Casey (e.g., Iran-Contra) probably ignored oversight more than any DCI after 1952, when covert operations and clandestine intelligence came clearly under DCI authority. Now, Casey was a dying man during the latter parts, but I find it ironic that the only DCI ever convicted of something was Helms, and that had some political quality -- he lied in an open Congressional hearing, but there's a good deal of opinion that he was trying to maintain security, and would have given the full details in closed session. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improving flow