The CIA Double Cross: How Bad a Blow in Afghanistan?

The lethal attack on the CIA raises doubts about the reliability of America's allies in the war in Afghanistan

From left: ABC News / AP; Dennis Brack / Corbis

The reaction to the two terrorist attacks during the last week in December is puzzling. One of the attacks, against a CIA outpost in Afghanistan, succeeded; the other, on an airplane landing in Detroit, failed. The Undiebomber was an amateur who was thwarted, rather neatly, by his fellow passengers on the plane. The Afghanistan operation was quite the opposite--highly sophisticated and devastating, with vast implications for both the war in Afghanistan and future clandestine CIA operations. And yet the Undiebomber has provoked an avalanche of attention in our twittery media--and from Republicans like Dick Cheney who yearn for the return of...

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