Joining the FBI/CIA

[lawstudent2004]

were did you get your information from?  What inoccent people did they kill?  Just curious have you worked for the CIA?  Do you have a clearance that allows you to see the innocent people they have killed?

[Victor]

they have killed thousands of innocents in scores of foreign countries.

I dont understand that though, arent they suppose to practice law? why do they need to go to law school if theyre job is to kill people. BTW, on the website is does say you have to go law school. But if you want another job like legal clerk or some agent then no.

[Findedeux]

In my post I did not state (nor imply) that lawyers in the CIA kill people. What I did say is that the CIA does the dirty work for the U.S. government, and that much of that work is against people and countries that do not deserve such treatment. I don't need clearance to talk about issues that are common news in political circles. As a religion major, I've had the pleasure to study liberation theology, a subject that deals with foreign policy of the U.S. towards Latin America. Take Nicaragua for example. In Nicaragua (1970's) a coup by a group called the Sandinistas occurred against the Somoza regime. This regime was extremely violent towards its citizens and was pretty much your standard dictatorship, etc. When this regime was overthrown, the Sandinistas began reforms for the people that did much to improve quality of life. Because some of their policy was Marxist, however, the U.S. automatically ignored the positive goals they were aiming for (free elections, land reform, free education, etc)and took steps to stop them. While this is understandable considering the cold-war mentality, the actions the U.S. took (through the CIA) were atrocious. They organized the remnants of the Somoza regime (the Contras), funded and trained them, and let them loose in Nicaragua. They killed over 25,000 people by 1986, and badly hurt a government that had been elected democratically by its people. This is not a unique example. There are many more. And this example wasn't even extreme because there are many examples like this where it is not a paternalistic attitude (against Marxism)that is the reason for action but the monetary interests of multinationals.
  As for the FBI, I think they just had an article on JD2B.com about how many FBI agents are not only making little money, but they are frequently sent to cities where the cost of living is exorbitant (this is after the general article that focused on lawyers as special FBI agents).

[Victor]

In my post I did not state (nor imply) that lawyers in the CIA kill people. What I did say is that the CIA does the dirty work for the U.S. government, and that much of that work is against people and countries that do not deserve such treatment. I don't need clearance to talk about issues that are common news in political circles. As a religion major, I've had the pleasure to study liberation theology, a subject that deals with foreign policy of the U.S. towards Latin America. Take Nicaragua for example. In Nicaragua (1970's) a coup by a group called the Sandinistas occurred against the Somoza regime. This regime was extremely violent towards its citizens and was pretty much your standard dictatorship, etc. When this regime was overthrown, the Sandinistas began reforms for the people that did much to improve quality of life. Because some of their policy was Marxist, however, the U.S. automatically ignored the positive goals they were aiming for (free elections, land reform, free education, etc)and took steps to stop them. While this is understandable considering the cold-war mentality, the actions the U.S. took (through the CIA) were atrocious. They organized the remnants of the Somoza regime (the Contras), funded and trained them, and let them loose in Nicaragua. They killed over 25,000 people by 1986, and badly hurt a government that had been elected democratically by its people. This is not a unique example. There are many more. And this example wasn't even extreme because there are many examples like this where it is not a paternalistic attitude (against Marxism)that is the reason for action but the monetary interests of multinationals.
  As for the FBI, I think they just had an article on JD2B.com about how many FBI agents are not only making little money, but they are frequently sent to cities where the cost of living is exorbitant (this is after the general article that focused on lawyers as special FBI agents).

Well said. Yeah the CIA recently killed innocent people in Iraq. They were the ones who set pin-point targets in areas.

[lawstudent2004]

Innocent people sometimes get killed in a war, this is a necessary part of war.  I think that the CIA has more information on the targets they pursue then you and I and I am glad they are doing what they are doing to protect the best interests of the citizens of the United States and the good of the entire World. 

[Findedeux]

Actually, I should have mentioned this in my last post, but in the case of Nicaragua the Contras specifically went after civilians so that more unrest would occur and people would become dissatisfied with the regime. As for Iraq, I agree that some times it is justified to kill innocents in order to get at people who would kill thousands if given. However, in Iraq there were many of these attempts and few of them succeeded. Overall, we killed 4,000-9000 civilians based on estimations made by human rights groups and Amnesty international. And these are old figures so the real tally would probably be significantly higher. I would also be wary about confusing the interests of the entire world with the interests of the U.S. The U.S. tends to interfere in countries where it has something to gain (e.g., Kuwait-oil). You don't see us interfering in Africa, where genocide takes place yearly, because we don't have much to gain. Not that this is a not true of most other countries to a significant extent. But I believe it would be hard to interpret many of the U.S. foreign policy in Latin America as beneficial to the world in general. Anyway, I am not going to post anymore on this subject, because I know this is getting off topic of the original poster's intent.

[holidayinspain]

typical answer of the typical American. i bet you support the war in Iraq because we are "freeing the iraqi people" and " killing the terrorists" right?

let's hope I am wrong, and your previous post just didn't come out right. You are supposed to quesiton your gov't and hold them accountable... have to taken con law? and, especially as a lawyer to be, i would expect you to be less gullible than that...

including the contras that the poster above mentioned, you should also check out the chiapas conflict, the columbian war, chile and allende, etc.... it is often about politics, not about saving people or protecting the US. watch out for agendas masked as patriotism and security issues.

[neorealist]

Findedeux, are you a native English speaker?

[Findedeux]

Yes, born and raised in FL.

[jas9999]

With a few exceptions, I don't think it's really fair to blame the CIA for the campaigns they have conducted. The blame needs to go to the executive branch and to the pentagon, since they're the ones who tell the CIA what to do. If you've read Clarke's book, he makes some good points about institutional pressures on the CIA, and how they tend to be hamstrung in their operations, and then hung out to dry by the policitians when things inevitably go wrong.

Though I strongly disapprove of nearly everything the government has done over the course of the last forty years (as alluded to by Findedeux, ignoring African genocides while sending US troops to guard commerically owned oil pipelines in Colombia and Venezuela), the only way the system can change is to get the most thoughtful and consciencious people into the jobs where they can make a difference. So yes, while the CIA kills people, I would absolutely consider working there, for the opportunity to help save the American democracy from its leaders.