'Al-Qaeda Brought The Matches'

Captains Quarters ^ | 8/20/05 | Captains Quarters Blog

[Enchante]

Very important commentary from an anonymous intelligence 'insider' who describes myriad ways in which the 'culture' and types of bureaucratic appointees cultivated by the Clinton administration severely harmed intel and analysis. It wasn't one wall, it was many many walls and related barriers. As the author notes, there are always various walls for both security and civil liberties protections, but Clinton made them higher, more numerous, and nearly impossible to circumvent. The anecdote about trying to include terrorist groups in a project for "threat analysis" for the DIA is just incredible for what it reveals about the blind, obstinate, bureaucratic mentality among the Clintonlites.

[thulldud]

Lack of a defined national strategy based on a coherent foreign policy -- the "Holiday from History" as it's been called -- coupled with Clinton's personal animosity towards foreign policy in general and the Intelligence Community in particular devalued intelligence.

First I've heard of the term "Holiday from History", but it sure fits the DIRTXPOTUS and his monkey circus like gold lamé on a torch singer.

Thanks for posting it, and thanks to "Big Sea" for speaking up.

[Molly Pitcher]

Just curious, but in general, how do we judge such anonymous analysis...there's the info, but it's outside most of our experiences?...There's very little biogragraphical info offered to help us assess the blogger's expertise, and so forth...

[Enchante]

Certainly we should take any anonymous analysis with plenty of salt, but then the same can be said for virtually anything that appears in the LSM - reporters pretty much riff off whatever their personal view happens to be and sprinkle in a few quotations (often anonymous sources) to lend credibility. I think this guy sounds plenty credible, because his points confirm lots of things about the Clinton administration that we know or suspect from many other sources. But then that's just my take as an anonymous freeper.... :^)

[BIGLOOK]

Head bashing Ping

[ASA Vet]

MI Ping

Welcome ASA.Ranger our newest list member.

[AliVeritas]

Just can't say it clearer than that. Thank God for CQ.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Just curious, but in general, how do we judge such anonymous analysis

I think Captain Ed is quite reputable and as he states, the anonymity is his idea.

[livius]

a slathering devotion to parsing the meaning of the myriad of rules and regulations and a failure to see their overall effects.

An excellent summary.

[Dog]

This is the second time recently I have seen someone use the term 'Holiday from History'....I think there is someone moving this 'Able Danger' stuff into the public realm..

[Congressman Billybob]

The first Able Danger member to go public is already being interviewed by staff preparatory to being a congressional witness in the fall. Obviously, this man can do a great service to his nation by coming forward and being a witness. I hope there will be several others -- so there will be no doubt this is a real problem, rather than a product of "a few disaffected former employees."

John / Billybob

[Enchante]

Yes, that's a good one, and I also liked the quotation below. It's not pithy but it sure does summarize how Clinton treated the intel agencies - I think both of these points, the slavish legalistic bureaucrats like Gorelick and the Clinton degradation of the intel community, need to be extensively documented and presented to the public as the process of reviewing "Able Danger" and other intel issues moves forward.

"Clinton set out to reduce the risk that the Intelligence Community could do him harm by making it as difficult as possible for the Intelligence Community to do anything. He did this thru his appointments, seeing to it that political animals and risk-adverse adminstrators got key postions; by changing the rules by which intelligence could be collected -- for example, banning using people with crimnal associations or "human rights abusers" as HUMINT sources, which meant that no one in the Intelligence Community could talk to a disaffected terrorist; a huge blow that badly hurt our ability to keep tabs on terrorist organization after 1998 -- and by building walls.

[cwb]

This author is right on when he talks about this "culture." When you think about it, the Clinton Walls go all the way back to the very beginning of his administration. From the moment he stepped foot in office, Clinton was already being plagued by scandals (Flowers and Whitewater) from which he sought to protect himself.

Whether it was the DA Massacre were he fired all US Attorneys, the replacement of all the government Inspector Generals...or even the fraudulent firing of Billy Dale, everything Clinton did was predicated on protecting himself from the sins of his past...and present. While I don't have this list handy, Clinton's government purges were some of most extensive in US history.

The sad part of this story is that good career people lost their jobs because of Clinton's paranoia...and were replaced by ineffective political hacks (and lawyers) whose major objectives were protecting this administration. The fact that you had someone like Craig Livingstone working as chief of security at the WH was a good indicator that something was up.

[Molly Pitcher]

Captain Ed's endorsement is significant, so I really wasn't talking specifically about this particular item. Thanks!

[HiJinx]

The nature of the intelligence business makes checking facts extremely difficult without having clearance and access to the information.

I can vouch for some of what the author says without getting specific. Now, if we were in a secure facility and you had clearance/access, it would be different.

[Molly Pitcher]

You are certainly right about the LSM! I've "read between the lines" with them for decades now...ever since the Vietnam War...

It just seems harder to do with some of this blogging analysis as it relates to the WoT...national security...military affairs...and so forth. It can all sound so credible and right, but....!!

I mean after all, there have been posters on FR...anonymous of course who claim some knowledge & experience, and who turn out to be total frauds!

[mercy]

I read this over on CQ earlier today.

We must not forget that this sort of mentality can be traced back to Bush I and Reagan. It isn't just Gore lick's wall. It's bureaucratic infighting. Territorial member measuring.

The poor Homeland Security dept. takes a lot of flack and is accused of doing nothing by seemingly everyone. "All they have ever come up with is a dumb color code system" is the usual refrain.

If all they ever do over there is a good job of cross checking and collating data and then get it to the right LEOs or Special Forces branch ... that alone would be a monumental improvement over business as usual in DC.

[beyond the sea]

danke....

[mercy]

I have judicious avoided blogs until just the last few days. I started going to Captain's Quarters on the advice of FReeper cautor. It was out of a great thirst to know everything I could find out about the whole Able Danger thing.

Now CQ has led me to two other blogs. You can get a very good sense of what the blogger is all about by just reading their site. Much of the content is assemblages from other sources and the way they put these sources together tells you a lot.

I believe over time one would come to know the blogger pretty well and have a real sense of their integrity or lack thereof.

As in all things crosschecking and comparison is the only way to asses what's what.

[Enchante]

"We must not forget that this sort of mentality can be traced back to Bush I and Reagan. It isn't just Gore lick's wall. It's bureaucratic infighting. Territorial member measuring"

Absolutely - and such problems are endemic to all bureaeucracies - when we have numerous competing bureaucracies in rivalry with each other it just gets worse.

BUT, in my formerly naive state of mind, I well remember how in Feb. 1993 I thought the WTC bombing would be a huge wake-up call to all the intel agencies and to the (new) Clinton administration. I thought it was so obvious that (1) they had to contemplate that much bigger plots could be underway or would be in the foreseeable future; (2) that the threat of WMDs or other mass-casualty events indicated that WTC93 could have been far, far worse than it was; (3) that extensive reform and re-focusing of the intel agencies would be needed to transition from the Cold War to the brave new world of terrorists operating across the globe. The Clintonlites had every reason and opportunity to improve and re-focus our intel agencies, but that wasn't their agenda.