The American Intelligence Community (IC) is starting to resemble a large cast of delinquents, a Faustian opera where bad behavior seeks constant rationalization and confirmation. And like most bad behavior, the real remedy might not be that complicated.

2. | The American Intelligence Community (IC) is starting to resemble a large cast of delinquents,
a Faustian opera where bad behavior seeks constant rationalization and confirmation. And like
most bad behavior, the real remedy might not be that complicated. Restraint is always an
obvious solution; unfortunately, this is an obvious path seldom prescribed or taken by any
branch of government these days, especially Intelligence agencies. Ironically, the 9/11 attack in
New York, the worst warning failure since Pearl Harbor, produced a knee-jerk windfall for
American Intelligence. Like public school systems, failure became a kind of fiscal stimulus.
Subsequently, government agencies that could embed "terrorism" in their mission statements
were showered with tax dollars.
The logic behind such largess is bigness, the assumption that more is the key to effectiveness:
more personnel, more toys, more facilities, and more deficit spending. Unfortunately, these
days, big Intelligence looks more like the problem than the solution. And the performance
deficit didn't begin with Benghazi or Boston. It took ten years for the American IC to find bin
Laden. Several of his thugs still serve today as propaganda martyrs at Gitmo, yet to be
convicted of anything. Nonetheless, all are hosted at American taxpayer expense, indefinitely,
with three hots, a cot, and a Koran unsullied by the touch of infidels.
The Israeli Mossad took out most of Black September, Palestinians responsible for the Munich
massacre (1972), immediately after the atrocity.

3. The Russian FSB took less than two years to find
and kill Shamil Baysev, Chechen jihadist
responsible for the children's massacre at Beslan
(2004). Rendition is seldom a measure of
effectiveness for successful anti-terror doctrine. The
Twin Towers failure in New York was not a one off
either. The slide may have begun with Vietnam era
"systems analysis" where CIA and DOD cooked
statistics to suggest there was "a light at the end of
the tunnel. " And then there was the surprise loss of
Shia Iran (1979) to theocracy four years after the fall
of Saigon
Or maybe it was the surprise advent of nuclear weapons in North Korea and
Pakistan. The Islam bomb was a watershed. Surely the Shia in Iran could not let
that Sunni advantage stand. Alas, American intelligence fudged the call on the first
bomb in Pakistan, and is still too timid to make a call on the coming Muslim bomb
in Iran.
On this corner: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/82054-crown-
capital-eco-management-indonesia-fraud
http://www.greenoptions.com/t/5279/crown-capital-eco-management-carbon-
trading-scam

4. The problem with truth is that it often makes action imperative. Alter truth and the
need to act can always be deferred. Or maybe it was the "shock and awe" of not
finding any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after being assured by national
intelligence estimates (see George Tenant and Colin Powell at the UN, 2003) that
Saddam Hussein was so armed. Were truths told: Iraq 1 was about oil and Iraq 2
was about regime change? And let's be candid, since the invasion of Kuwait
(1990), regime change has been the leitmotif of American and European foreign
policy. This sponsored change strategy is underwritten by an assertion that
imperial Sunni Islam is a protected religion, not theocratic fascism or puerile
imperial politics.
Regime change policies have two pillars. First, Islam is said to be "one of the
world's great religions," thus entitled to moral equivalence and related immunities.
A second axiom claims that the Sunni brand of irredentism is the "right side of
history. “See almost any public statement on these matters by John Brennan,
James Clapper, or Barack Hussein Obama. Unfortunately, support to any Muslim
faction in their millennial feuds is a little like, as Churchill might have said,
"Feeding crocodiles with the hope of being eaten last. “Negotiating with the
Taliban is just the first course in the coming South Asia buffet. The Arab (or Sunni)
tilts in Intelligence and policy are expensive. Playing defense is always more
costly -- and often mistaken for appeasement. And surrender, no matter the
rhetoric, always has a political cost. Such things are often managed with
mendacity.

5. All intelligence operatives lie; it's part of their job. Heretofore, the mendacity was reserved for
the enemy. But now, if Jim Clapper can be believed, we need to lie to the folks who vote and
pay the bills too. Peace (talks) with the Taliban is the big lie du jour. The only thing left to
negotiate with south Asia Islamists is the terms of allied surrender and retreat. The Stuxnet
and Prism disclosures are just symptoms of decay too, signs that American Intelligence has
lost its original moorings. All agencies begin with good ideas until the institution becomes the
enemy of the original ideal. Big Intelligence is an example of such excess and decay.
And the failure of the IC to provide strategic warning is not the worst of it. American
Intelligence is frontloaded; omnivorous collection undone by inadequate processing and
tainted analysis. Analysis is both the product and weakest link in the Intelligence chain. The
most expensive technical collection systems on earth feed the worst amateur estimates. And
this corrupt product sets the stage for all manner of national security folly. Just two examples
suffice; John Brennan and Susan Rice. Personalities, we might point out, promoted recently
for being agenda merchants, accomplished liars, and not very modest about either skill.
Loyalty, not achievement or professional integrity, seems to be the only bullet on Obama staff
resumes.
Brennan is clearly the architect of the modern a priori paradigm, an analytic model which
provides the "great religion" narrative for administration policy. Brennan is the Intelligence
Svengali if you will. Decoupling Islamism from Islam at the White House is his great career
achievement, even if has been a little like arguing that cheese and goats are unrelated. The
Brennan ad vericundium analysis of Islam and Islamism is now fixed policy. And with
Brennan at CIA, any event or evidence that contradicts the "great religion" assertion is likely
to be ignored, minimized, or spun. There may be 16 Intelligence agencies in the IC, but CIA
is still the big dog in the National Intelligence Estimates pound.

6. The Susan Rice saga provides the lurid details of how these things are done, a sordid tale of
how corrupt and malleable Intelligence analysis has become. The immediate IC assessment of
the Benghazi slaughter was revised 12 times after passing through some unknown number of
layers of bureaucratic review in the IC, at the NSC, and over at the State Department. In the
process, facts and conclusions about terror and Islamism were altered. All of which makes the
collection of evidence, and any objective analysis of those facts, irrelevant. After the Benghazi
talking point memo was 'scrubbed,' it was released to Ms. Rice, then UN ambassador, as
blessed Intelligence. Rice was subsequently launched at the Sunday chat shows to sell a
blatant lie, a sanitized edition of yet another national humiliation.
The Sunni tilt or bias colors recent reportss and analysis of Egypt too. The IC and CIA didn't
predict another military coup in Cairo because such speculation would contradict the "Arab
Spring" charade.
If ground truth is bureaucratic revision or political spin, why call it an assessment or analysis,
no less Intelligence? If national security analysis can be suborned by political hacks, the IC
might be just another cabal of pricy beltway whores. James Clapper is one of the most
impressive chaps working in Washington. He began his military career as an enlisted Marine
and rose to become an Air Force general. Eventually, he became the Director of National
Intelligence. His technical achievements in Intelligence collection are impressive. Prism,
speaks for itself. Somewhere along the way, however, Clapper also sold his soul.
American national security has devolved into a very expensive game of liar's poker where the
voting public needs to be kept in the dark too. Jim Clapper admits as much in Congressional
testimony. In doing so, General Clapper tells us that truth and administration politics are
mutually exclusive. Deception in the name of national security might be justified, but lying in
the name of venal politics makes American Intelligence a very frivolous extravagance.