The CIA is here to help you

On a random browse of the internet (I was looking for Australia’s territory in the Antarctic) I stumbled on a map with a slightly disturbing caption – "This color map of Australia is courtesy of the CIA Factbook".

THERE IS A CIA FACT BOOK? And its online!!

So of course I had to have a look. Interestingly enough its pretty detailed and, in its own way, factually pretty up to date. The obvious place to start with it was Iraq.

Some of the detail includes:

• A fairly good map, which is actually(better than the Australian one.
• Lots of detail on the geography, including that they don’t have a name for the highest mountain, but they can tell which one it isn’t.
• Population facts
• Economy
• Politics and
• Some history

The details in the fact book are fairly clearly skewed to the US governments current political agenda, but I am not sure anyone could reasonably expect anything else. Apart from that it was concise and pretty interesting.

The question I have is what else can they be telling us? Surely the CIA has better things to talk about than gross national product and the international organizations that country belongs to. You have to wonder if there isn’t SOME sort of juicy gossip they could be letting out that doesn’t a/ endanger the US national interest; and b/ risk starting a war with someone.

Surely there is some fresh kiss and tell type gossip that could serve to distract the global public from the actual events of the day.

Perhaps a daily index of the colour of heads of states underwear. Or maybe what they had for breakfast, or the last time they had sex with their spouse (or others). This last one could give us some real insight into some of their reactions to events. It would make it clear to us that if Tony was a little tetchy, it was a least PARTIALLY because Cherie wasn’t giving him any sugar.

Given the sort of funding the CIA, and the rest of the global intelligence services, receive on a annual basis, surely the least we, the tax paying public can expect is some quality tabloid style entertainment.