I'm not about to stand up for Barney Frank, but the problem isn't cuts in funding to the CIA. Frankly, the CIA is getting more than enough funding already, and has made untold mischief over the years, especially under the clinton administration. No, the problem is to redirect our intelligence assets and focus them on the most dangerous threats to American security: China, Russia (not the danger it was, but still needing to be closely watched), and Islamic fundamentalist countries and groups. As I have said many times here over the past couple of years, the two gravest potential threats to our security in the coming century are China and Islam. They are both rising threats that need to be carefully monitored and redirected, in hopes of avoiding a full-scale direct confrontation.
Clinton, as most of us know, allied himself with both these groups. He took money from China and betrayed our secrets, and he helped arm and bring Islamic fundamentalists into the underbelly of Europe, in Bosnia and Kosovo. Our security agencies were directed elsewhere. That must now change.
Understood, Cicero. However, my main objection was not that they wanted to cut the money--but there utter stupidity in their assessment of our world and the dangers we confont.