Interview by Mohsen Abdelmoumen, American Herald Tribune
“We Obviously Learned Nothing from The Loss in Vietnam Forty Years Ago”
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: In your must-read book “Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider’s Account of the Politics of Intelligence”, you make a historical testimony about the internal functioning of the American intelligence community. What was the impact of your report on the world of intelligence? Since the publication of your book, do you think there have been positive changes in the intelligence services or, on the contrary, do the same practices that you denounce continue?
Dr. Melvin Goodman: Since my congressional testimony in 1991, there has been a greater recognition of the problem of politicization of intelligence. But my books in 2008 and 2017 on the CIA have not received sufficient attention in my opinion. Moreover, the so-called intelligence “reform” after 9/11 only made matters worse by expanding the militarization of intelligence. Also, the appointments of such CIA directors as Gina Haspel, Mike Pompeo, Gen. Petraeus, and Leon Panetta indicate that we need a president who understands the need for an independent and tough-minded CIA director. Under these leaders, the CIA has become too much of a para-military organization.
Recent News and Latest Book
The USS Liberty: a Well-Planned Accident
Today marks the 56th anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, which has been described by too many U.S. and Israeli accounts as an accident. In fact, the attack took place after eight hours of aerial surveillance by Israel, and it involved a two-hour air and naval attack that killed 34 sailors and wounded an…
The Mainstream Media’s Unwillingness to Challenge U.S. Militarization
The Post regularly states that the United States spends as much on defense as the next 10 or 11 nations combined, but the cruel fact is that we spend as much as all other nations combined. The global total for defense spending is around $2.5 trillion, and U.S. defense spending exceeds $1.2 trillion. The Pentagon’s budget for next year is $886 billion, but that is not the full extent of defense spending. The budget for the Veteran’s Administration is over $120 billion, which takes total defense spending to more than $1 trillion. There is significant defense spending in the budgets of the intelligence community, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Homeland Security, bringing total defense spending to at least $1.2 trillion.
