read an amazing article about the CIA handling of information regarding Eichmann and other top Nazi officials post WWII (i am quite surprised it didn't get more coverage).

according to recent findings (based on declassifying of millions of documents) the US government has worked closely with a good number of ex-Nazi officials post WWII. the main purpose was to gain information that will help in the cold war against the soviet union.

the logic was the usual realpolitik. the greater good. the cause justifies the means. a lesser evil?,  my enemy's enemy is my friend..

the work on the archives started after Congress passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act in 1998, the Inter-agency Working Group worked to declassify over 8 million pages of documents from the period, and came up with some interesting conclusions. 

• the CIA knew about the whereabouts and alias of Adolf Eichmann in 1958, but have not share the information with other agencies or the israelis
• the CIA has asked Life magazine to omit a mention of Hans Globke Nazi's past from an article. Globke was a former Nazi government official that at the time served as the national security adviser in West Germany
• the intelligence service of west germany (that was heavily supported by the US) and included many ex-Nazis was penetrated and compromised easily by the KGB. apparently the ex-Nazis were easy targets for the KGB. many of them harbored bad feelings towards the west, and their nazi past was an easy button to push in terms of extortion

the american public should be concerned about the morality of this policy and the secrecy and censorship that came together with it. in retrospect it looks like the strategy of recruiting ex-Nazis to serve against the soviets was not effective, and in many cases worked against the US.

looking at the US government conduct over the last two decades and today, i am not sure much have changed in terms of policy. the evil we are fighting today is terrorism, and the administration thinks that giving up on some personal liberties, breaking a few rules (both US and International), running secret prisons in europe, Guantanamo, etc. all are justified in light of the battle that is being waged (and the cruel/merciless/inhumane enemy we are facing).

in the case of US policy in afganistan/pakistan we didn't have to wait too long, to see the result of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" and questionable values of our selected partners backfiring.

maybe i am naive on this issue, but i believe foreign policy can not be disconnected from the values the country stand for. and while in the short term opportunistic approach may look effective and rewarding it seems that with the perspective of time these decisions turn to be a long term liability, overshadowing the short-term gains.