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Comment by sitkack | Hacker News Reader

I was disappointed that we never got an apology, or a plaque or wall or whatever they give out for heroes. Because all the foreign aid workers that have been killed due the CIA operation to pinpoint bin Laden via his kids DNA, definitely deserve one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_fake_vaccination_campaign_...

https://www.csis.org/blogs/smart-global-health/fake-cia-vacc...

> Terrorists began murdering polio vaccine workers, mostly women volunteers, as the Taliban banned immunizations in the areas under its control.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/lasting-fallout-fake-vaccinati...

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Assuming you're serious, why would the CIA apologise to foreign aid workers? Maybe you can petition Médecins Sans Frontières to make a plaque, but the US security services are mandated to deal with pretty discrete and clear issues. Their remit was to find Osama. Random foreign aid workers (particularly non US citizens) are - vis-a-vis the CIA/NSA - justifiable collateral in these sorts of operations. That's just how it is, mate.

And yet

> I wanted to inform you that the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) directed in August 2013 that the agency make no operational use of vaccination programs, which includes vaccination workers. Similarly, the Agency will not seek to obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material acquired through such programs. This CIA policy applies worldwide and to U.S. and non-U.S. persons alike.

The CIA themselves recognizes such an approach as being bad overall.

What's your point? That doesn't mean they owe anybody an apology. There have been plenty of CIA ops that have failed or resulted in blowback that I'm sure the CIA regretted ex post - that doesn't mean they wouldn't have tried them again, or that they weren't worth trying.

Also actual lol if you take anything the CIA says as being prima facie true, especially things relating to what the CIA will or will not do in the future operationally.

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