re: #4 Bass Reeves

I don’t see the connection. Or at least I don’t see how paying this unknown person untold amounts of money harmed Daesh, or IS, or whatever you want to call it. If we pay more than market value for that stuff, and the people we buy it from are less than honest, we are just continually funding our own opposition. I’ve seen it happen in both Iraq and Afghanistan on varying scales, and it’s not like we’ve seen the CIA be *smart* about anything in the last decade or so. Or couple decades.

Paying to acquire and get rid of this nerve agent didn’t directly harm any Islamist terror movement, but it kept them from getting their hands on it. ISIS has already used chlorine gas as a weapon, they’d use Tabun or Sarin (the nerve agents produced in Iraq under Saddam Hussein) in a heartbeat. This CIA action ensured they are not able to do that.