Though widely thought of as focused on waterboarding terrorists or poisoning foreign potentates, it was by smuggling paper that the CIA achieved its most monumental triumph. R.M. Gerecht in a book review for The Washington Free Beacon charts how the late Cold War-era operation to flood Poland with Western books, magazines, printing supplies and audio recordings fatally weakened the country’s Communist dictatorship, setting the stage for the downfall of the entire Soviet empire. Total cost: US$2.7 million.
Inhuman for Criminals, the Luck of the Draw for You and Me
The EU may have banished the “‘inhuman,’ ‘degrading,’ and ‘irreversible’” death penalty for criminals, writes Frank Haviland in The European Conservative – but its member states’ soft-on-crime, easy-on-illegal-immigrants policies are making violent death an increasingly common fate for innocent Europeans. In a world gripped by barbarian forces, writes Haviland, it’s time for Great Britain to hold a national referendum on restoring an older form of justice.
