[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by Aramike

Umm, really?

This is still citizen government. However, the government REPRESENTS the citizens. That's the whole freakin' point of representative government in a democratic republic - so that each citizen doesn't need to know everything in order to have what is accepted to be their best interests represented.

Doesn't *need* to know. The point of a representative government is that the average citizen can just live its live without having to know all and everything, they can just sit back and watch TV while others care about diplomatic stuff and such. But the fact that they don't *need* to know says nothing about whether or not they *should be able* to know.

Results.

Results? Results to what exactly? Because it is not known what is done, remember?
Results are not everything that matters to the public. The US is in debt? You can either save a few bucks by cutting costs, or you can gain a few bucks by assassinating the richest few and stealing their money. The short term results are the same. But I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't agree with the second way.

I'm sorry, but are you even taking this seriously? Who's the Commander-in-Chief? Is the Presidency (you know, the Executive Branch) not government now? Or is this just spin to try to make your argument make sense?

Do you really have any idea of what you're talking about?

What do YOU think the CinC does, or SecDef for that matter?

So you're saying that the CinC/SecDef/President make all tactical decisions?
That's great news! What do you need your officers for? Just sack all those expensive generals and save a few bucks

Surely you do realize that pretty much all of our black operations come on directive from the White House, originating from a little document known as a National Intelligence Estimate, which our President reads daily... And, surely you're aware of the fact that the specifics of such operations, more often than not, are run through both the State Department and the Justice Department to examine possible ramifications, right?

Did you even read what I wrote? Apparently not. Why don't you get back on this once you have?

Why? So we can endanger those assets we have in the field which gives us intel on which commands are made?

See above.

This is a Submarine board, so let me use a Submarine example to make my point. Ever hear of the German Enigma code? What happens when we let the enemy know we're responding to things we're not even supposed to know about?

You guessed it: he changes the code.

The intelligence gathering operation is still going on. So according to my ideas the information should still be withheld. Sorry, but your example only proves my point.

Should the State Department also release that we decided to act in concert with, say, the Germans? What if the Germans don't want that? Would they ever engage in such dealings with us again?

If it's something the Germans don't want to be associated with, one can wonder whether it is something the US should be doing.
Otherwise, you can simply replace "German" with "a foreign nation" in the report.