{"id":48847,"date":"2014-12-10T06:26:14","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T13:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/10\/if-you-have-to-be-told-not-to-overreact.html"},"modified":"2014-12-15T06:31:01","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T13:31:01","slug":"if-you-have-to-be-told-not-to-overreact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/10\/if-you-have-to-be-told-not-to-overreact.html","title":{"rendered":"If you have to be told not to overreact"},"content":{"rendered":"

Then you probably shouldn't be running major intelligence agencies. I mean, that's part of your job, right? To consider your actions, to chart out the optimal course, to provide options and consider the disadvantages and possible concerns and blowback around each one? Even if you don't think it's your job to consider the moral or existential aspects of the policies you pursue?<\/p>\n

Yet here's Michael Hayden saying "I was in government for ten years after 9\/11, and let me tell ya, a phrase I never heard from anybody in any position of authority: 'Whatever you guys do about this terrorism threat, please, please don't overreact.' Never heard it, Brian."<\/i><\/p>\n

Maybe they were assuming that you already knew not to overreact, like a mature adult, Michael. Or maybe they were frightened and overreacting themselves, and needed you, as a senior voice of leadership, to warn them<\/i> not to overreact.<\/p>\n

I mean, there's some overreactions we avoided, Michael. We didn't nuke Baghdad. We didn't round up and deport all Muslims in the US, or shut down the borders, or force daily loyalty oaths on everyone. We didn't call off elections or gun down everyone whose skin was too dark a tone (at least, not for anti-terror purposes). So clearly someone had some idea of what overreacting looked like.<\/p>\n

Instead, we just started invading a couple of countries, and pervasively monitoring of phone and computer use, and torturing folk we picked up here and there (and locked away offshore or in other, helpful countries) in hopes that they might give us useful intelligence that was worth the cost of what we were doing. Clearly someone didn't consider those things overreactions.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it's just bullshit excuse-making, and "Nobody told us not to" is the "I was just following orders" of the 21st Century. Worse, in some ways, because it abrogates even the responsibility of obeying authority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nMichael Hayden: No One Ever Warned Us Against Overreacting to 9\/11<\/a><\/span>
\nA damning admission from a former head of the CIA and NSA.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Then you probably shouldn't be running major intelligence agencies. I mean, that's part of your job, right? To consider your actions, to chart out the optimal course, to provide options and consider the disadvantages and possible concerns and blowback around each one? Even if you don't think it's your job to consider the moral or … Continue reading “If you have to be told not to overreact”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,29,10,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-9-11","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-homeland-security"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2338,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/10\/screw_em_if_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":48847,"position":0},"title":"Screw ’em if they can’t take a joke","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Jul-02 2:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's one thing to overreact to someone doing something stupid like joking about having a bomb or a gun while boarding a passenger jet. 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