Please engage with at least one question, or feel free to make up your own question and engage with it:
1. Feel free to continue the debate about Awlaki here. You can also debate any of the ethical issues from the lecture.
2. There is a saying in intelligence work that “if you don’t play the game, you lose the game.” How does this saying help to validate practices like covert action that might cause discomfort?
3. How might analysts navigate the ethical/moral issues in the IC? Can you think of any alternatives other than to "continue the struggle from within the system or quit"? How might one navigate the internal affairs of having to negotiate and compromise among other analysts with differing views?
4. How might widespread globalization and technological advances impact moral standards in the CIA? Might there more of a focus on what is morally correct if there is more attention on government actions?
5. Lowenthal says that when Osama bin laden was killed, the US said that his killing was not an assassination, but an act of self-defense. Where is the line drawn between the two? Who gets to decide where the line is drawn? What if there is dissonance between citizens and the government about how an action is characterized?
readings list
1. Lowenthal, Chapters 8 and 13: "Covert Action" and "Ethical and Moral Issues in Intelligence"
2.Leopold, 2014. “A Justice Department Memo Provides the CIA's Legal Justification to Kill a US Citizen.”Vice News,https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbw4ma/a-justice-department-memo-provides-the-cias-legal-justification-to-kill-a-us-citizen
only answer one question and indicate which one you've answered with the number of the question