While I don’t think it is reasonable to expect Leon to control his grown daughter’s actions, I question the wisdom in appointing as the head of the
CIA a man who:
1) Has no intelligence background (although we’ve been informed he is a consumer of intelligence )
2) Has a daughter who is actively lecturing about the negative “implications of US foreign policy and the realities of war.” and who hangs out with enemies of the United States.
If Leon becomes the head of the CIA, what assurances if any can we get that Linda won’t have access to classified information which would then be passed on to the people she circulates with?
Incidentally, it is an open secret that the School of the Americas is a training ground for Pro-US military officers from the Western Hemisphere. Officers who go back to their countries upon completion of their studies and in many cases work closely with the CIA to promote US economic and diplomatic interests.
CAVEAT: Based on the reasearch we’ve done, it seems Linda is the daughter of Leon. She’s definitely given speaking engagements using that family history, there is however some controversy about her parentage, so till it’s conclusively proven that Leon is her father, take this one with a grain of salt.
Either way from PoliticalWarfare:
Linda Panetta is a noted anti-military activist who has accused the US military of teaching Latin American officers how to torture. She has also been close to causes hostile toward the United States and friendly to the old Soviet Union, and the regimes in Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.
As a leader of School of the Americas Watch, Panetta urged Chavez to cancel Venezuela’s participation in the US military school for Latin American officers in Fort Benning, Georgia. Chavez agreed, and promptly did so. As such, Compañera Panetta helped sever an important link between the US and the Venezuelan officer corps. This is a big blow to US intelligence efforts in the hemisphere.
Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, Linda Panetta
This says a few things about CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta. While a parent can’t necessarily be blamed for his wayward children, we think senators should ask the nominee to be the next CIA chief about his daughter’s support for sworn enemies of the United States. As a congressman, Panetta was pretty soft on the communist FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador, and Daniel Ortega’s Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. So father and daughter’s views do coincide somewhat.
Certainly any prospective CIA intelligence analyst would be grilled pretty hard before getting a security clearance if it was known that his or her sister or daughter was an anti-US militant who aided and abetted Chavez and the Sandinistas. And even then he might not get a very high clearance. It’s only fair to hold Leon Panetta to at least the same standards that apply to ordinary CIA analysts and operators.
