re: #401 lawhawk

Greenwald doesn’t like the fact that the CIA used the polio vaccination program as a cover to get DNA that it apparently helped use to track down OBL in Pakistan. The CIA now promises not to do that again, in the interests of public health (because the backlash has undermined the efforts to eradicate polio in Pakistan, which is one of the few places in the world where it’s still prevalent).

The polio vaccination program was vaccinating people (a truly worthy goal) - but it was also using the injectors to pick up the DNA, and that was funneled into a CIA database.

It was not smart to use a vaccination program this way - that much is definitely true. But it would be nice if people also put the largest share of the blame for the backlash on the Taliban cavemen, who started murdering health workers in response.

It’s not a rational response to this revelation, and there’s more than a hint of condescension in the way people seem to hold the Taliban blameless for their violent behavior.