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| Government |
| CIA Keeps Having Disastrous Failures - How To Fix It |
| 2018-11-16 |
| [FrontPage] Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that democracies would have a tough time with foreign policy, in large part because it was so hard for them to maintain secrecy. Recent events show how prescient he was. Indeed, the story reveals one of the most chilling developments in the history of our secret intelligence services. You wouldn’t know it from the "news coverage," but the CIA’s global secret internet communications network was uncovered by Iranian spooks between 2009 and 2013 (that would be the first Obama term), thanks in part to Iran’s enlisting an American double agent who knew all about the system. A very big deal, as Yahoo reported and Breitbart summarized: Moving down to the author's 'Fix' What is to be done? Putting terrific leaders at the top of CIA obviously won’t do the trick. Pompeo, a good man, was director for nearly two years, and there is still no sign that the Intelligence Community is significantly improved. I’m afraid we have to go back to Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s prescription: shut it down and start a new secret intelligence service. It’s a big country, full of talented people. The analyses can be farmed out to think tanks and research centers, where much of the good work is done anyway. As for operations, much of the work should be done by the military, as General Flynn intended (this is one of the reasons CIA went after him, first at DIA and then again at the National Security Council. And I have a scheme. Recruit young scholars and business people. Pay them to live abroad, and to befriend the next generation of leaders. That way, some years down the road, we will have agents in place who are on first-name terms with the top people. My own experiences testify to the effectiveness of this stratagem. I went off to Italy as a graduate student, and assimilated into the Roman political and intellectual worlds. One of the people I befriended was Bettino Craxi, then an unknown Socialist, who went on to become prime minister. One night it was urgent for President Reagan to talk to Craxi, who wouldn’t take a call from our Embassy late at night. But he did take a call from me, his old friend. It worked out. We need these informal avenues. CIA at its best has them, but not nearly on the necessary scale. It’s not hard but it’s urgent work. Faster, please. Emphasis added. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #5 Independent kingdom |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-11-16 07:25 |
| #4 Spends too much time plotting to overthrow elected governments, particularly their own. Not just Trump, see the leaks during the Bush administration. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2018-11-16 07:12 |
| #3 Think lots of the CIA etc got retasked to protecting the establishment and neglecting any humint by going for big shiny computers that will do the dirty jobs for them. The more opaque the bureaucracies are, the more they are run for the convenience of the staff, not the purpose they were set up to do. Nothing is more opaque than "intelligence". |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2018-11-16 06:50 |
| #2 The roots of this Program was under the OSS - which was effective in taking care of other Countries and their people. Finding Remnant anywhere is the fulcrum |
| Posted by: newc 2018-11-16 06:32 |
| #1 The author refers to it as his 'scheme.' I believe what the author has highlighted is the need for a long-term investment. General Mike Flynn saw the need for a long-term approach while serving as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. His insistence upon the 'long-term', and his various attempts at investment and development of the 'long-term', ultimately resulted in his ouster. The futility of continued crisis management and political motivated operations is evidenced in the rush to find and dispose of UBL, and the subsequent tragic events in 2009 at FOB Chapman in Afghanistan. Needless to say, our government does not do very well when it comes to long-term planning and stability. Tragically, it tends to follow established election cycles. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2018-11-16 06:24 |