My head is killing me. It has been ever since December 31, 2009.

This can't be attributed to the two aneurysms that were growing in my brain; the operation which took care of that problem was performed last October, and successfully it seems.

This pain is caused by a bungled operation in which seven CIA officials died. And by my inability to understand how such a thing could happen.

I am not as well-versed in foreign affairs as I probably should be, granted. But I'm sure that's where the pain comes from. Because if an idiot like myself, who needs the “For Dummies” version of most anything geo-political, if a simpleton with literally two holes in her head like me can understand without needing to be told that this wouldn't have happened unless there were serious problems with the intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency—if that's the situation as she stands, we're in bigger trouble than we knew.

As I've said, I am not well-versed in these matters, so, I endeavored to learn more of how this came about. And that's when the headache started.

NBC News reports: “The December 30th suicide bombing on a CIA base in Afghanistan was carried out by a Jordanian doctor who was an al-Qaida double-agent. According to Western intelligence officials, the perpetrator was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, 36, an al-Qaida sympathizer from Zarqa, which is also the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant Islamist believed responsible for several devastating attacks in Iraq.”

“Al-Balawi was arrested by Jordanian intelligence more than a year ago. He had moderated the main al-Qaida chat forum before his arrest and was known online as Abu Dujanah al-Khurasani.”

“Abu Dujanah was an active member of jihadi forums,” said Evan Kohlmann, who tracks jihadi Web sites for NBC News. “He was actually an administrator on the now-defunct Al-Hesbah forum, previously al-Qaida's main chat forum. The Jordanians believed that al-Balawi had been successfully reformed and brought over to the American and Jordanian side. They set him up as an agent and sent him to Afghanistan and Pakistan to infiltrate al-Qaida.”

“His specific mission, according to officials, was to find and meet Ayman al Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s No. 2, also a physician. However, a Taliban spokesman, quoted on the Al-Jazeera Web site, said al-Balawi misled Jordanian and U.S. intelligence services for a year.”

I have ongoing health problems, two artero-venous malformations in the brain, which I'm told were the precursor to the aneurysms. But enough of my troubles, the point is, when I was still employable, I used to work in alcohol and drug counseling. Which, along with a knack for diplomacy, also requires one to be a good bullshit detector.

And Rule Number One for dealing with alcoholics and addicts is : never allow yourself to be misled. Always assume the person you're dealing with is lying. I would've thought it was the same for dealing with past or present al-Qaida sympathizers. What happened with al-Balawi seems, at best, like a rookie mistake.

But these weren't rookies. At least two of the now-deceased were senior-ranking officials. Which is really, really scary, and even scarier is the fact that al-Balawi was allowed into a meeting where seven CIA officials were present without having to undergo what we're routinely put through at any major airport, even though we're jihad-free and just flying in to see Aunt Alice in Altoona, or whatever.

According to one source, who understandably wished to remain anonymous, Jordanian intelligence assured the CIA that al-Balawi was “flipped”, he had seen the light, and as an ally in our war on terrorism it seems no one wanted to run the risk of offending Jordan by say, patting down al-Balawi.

Again, I am relatively ignorant about such matters. But I like to think I know something about people, and I would assume just as alkies and addicts are always looking for ways of getting around urine screens, jihadists look for ways of sneaking explosive devices onto CIA compounds. I would never have left a junkie alone in a bathroom stall with an empty plastic cup, to go outside for a smoke; awkward as it may have been, I had to stand there and watch 'em. And believe me, there is a situation that requires tact.

Once a junkie, always a junkie; since I am one, I can say that with some authority and I would've assumed the CIA took a similar position regarding men like Humam al-Balawi. I know there were times I was willing to die for my drug of choice; it would be equally as foolish to underestimate what an alcoholic will do for alcohol, but it's downright idiotic when an intelligence organization so badly underestimates what might be done for Allah.

I've read everything I could find about this incident and I don't seem to be any closer to understanding how it could've happened than I was.

And now my headache's even worse, and there's only two things I'm sure of: if I had handled heroin addicts and boozehounds like the CIA handled al-Balawi, it wouldn't be them aneurysms that kept me from working for the last two years.

The other thing I'm certain of is, it's time to take a pill.