Posted on 01/07/2017 5:32:36 PM PST by Olog-hai
A US president does not have to be on friendly terms with his spy agencies. On the contrary: US history demonstrates — not only since the services provided false evidence of alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which were cited as a main reason for waging war against that country — that a healthy dose of skepticism, better still, a well-founded mistrust of the intelligence services, is necessary.
This applies to US intelligence agencies in their entirety, but also in particular to the current Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who has built up a reputation of occasionally bending the truth. During an official hearing in Congress on NSA spying activities in 2013, for instance, when he was asked whether the agency collected data from US phone call records, Clapper lied bluntly and repeatedly, claiming that this was not the case, and if it did, it did so “not wittingly.”
However, although mistrust of the intelligence agencies and their upper echelons is appropriate, it is presumptuous, naïve and downright dangerous to generally disavow their work — something President-elect Donald Trump has been doing for some time now. His claim, made in December last year, that he didn’t need an intelligence service briefing on a daily basis, only if the situation required one, because he was “a smart person,” not only bears witness to arrogance and ignorance. Quite possibly, it also puts security in the US and throughout the world at risk. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
Yup, the lower class class that think’s it is the upper class class is worried about Trump.
Trump has been getting Intelligent Briefings.
Not much accurate news out of Germany.
Well, gee, Trump openly criticizes the ‘intelligence community” esp for this and Commey’s two “investigations”. And yet that is somehow “dangerous”
didn’t the Dimwits massively criticize the WMDs and anyone else remember the Church Committee which “investigated” the CIA?
Clapper occasionally bends the truth? No. He’s a criminal liar, installed in that key position by Obama for precisely that reason. Worst possible man for the job.
chocolate ... a bit pink inside or orange is good too
Not wittingly Clapper
Pink excites me
GUARDIAN July 8, 2015
NSA tapped German Chancellery for decades, WikiLeaks claims
Reuters in Berlin
The US National Security Agency tapped phone calls involving German chancellor Angela Merkel and her closest advisers for years and spied on the staff of her predecessors, according to WikiLeaks.
A report released by the group on Wednesday suggested NSA spying on Merkel and her staff had gone on far longer and more widely than previously realised. WikiLeaks said the NSA targeted 125 phone numbers of top German officials for long-term surveillance .
The release risks renewing tensions between Germany and the US a month after they sought to put a row over spying behind them, with Barack Obama declaring in Bavaria that the two nations were “inseparable allies”.
WikiLeaks published what it said were three NSA intercepts of Merkel’s conversations, and data it said listed telephone numbers for the chancellor, her aides, her office and even her fax machine. . .
much of the mass media keeps repeating this lie about no weapons in iraq...while AT THE TIME there were published aerial photos and reports of huge (500 truck) convoy(s) moving significant weapons out of harm’s way, the trucks were reportedly all driven by Russian military or intelligence men and supposed to contain much that they referred to then (do they still now?) as wmd’s
the idea was to get the most valuable weaponry out of American bombing or invasion path...
now then, I have never been to Iraq.....but these news reports with pictures were all over the media AT THAT TIME and there was never any alternative explanation (it was said that President Bush told the military to avoid hitting the convoys because he did not want to provoke a direct conflict with Russia). (whether they are still accessible, I’ve no idea)
I don’t know one person who believes the false flag operation about Russia and the DNC/Podesta eMail dumps.
But then I don’t hang with card carrying communists or registered democrats.
I would think that “spymasters” would be the most devious and cunning people of all in our vast government bureaucracy. They deal in secrets and many levels of hierarchy, so political calculation and backstabbing is probably in their DNA.
What did CIA tell us about Benghazi?
Or the main-stream media, or old-time print media. These people either believe it or are incredibly bold liars.
Or Flight 800.
“[P]rovided false evidence of alleged weapons of mass destruction” - false statement. Artillery shells with sarin were in fact found. Hussein used them against Iran. And they existing in 2003 when the Bush family went to war with Hussein. See also “yellowcake.” This article is fake news.
Yes, there was a huge Russian convoy that moved our of Iraq when we invaded, and considerable likelihood (though no absolute proof publicly released) that there were weapons of mass destructions. Moreover, several villages in the neighborhood were attacked by poisonous gas, which can reasonably be described as a weapon of mass destruction. For that reason, poison gas has been outlawed as an illegitimate weapon ever since the First World War.
Intelligence under Obama = Oxymoron
The pearl clutches giving advice
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