President Bush has nominated Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to be the next CIA director, and the pick is already drawing fire from some top Republicans as well as Democrats, who argue that a military man isn’t the right person to head the troubled civilian agency at a time when the Pentagon is extending its control over the nation’s intelligence budget and agencies (if Hayden is confirmed, all major intelligence agencies would be headed by military people). Hayden also is controversial for his strong support of the domestic anti-terror wiretapping program.
Hayden seems qualified in most respects, and the simple fact that he is a military man shouldn’t be a deal-breaker — several other CIA heads have been in uniform.
Still, a controversial appointment isn’t helpful at a time when the CIA is demoralized and in decline, and our nation needs effective intelligence-gathering more than ever.
What do you think? Is Hayden the right person? Has the intelligence reshuffling improved our capabilities or merely added another layer of bureaucracy?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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40 Comments
Of course Hayden is the right person! We need someone that will continue to shake up the CIA.
Hank
Hank Price, Bush Administration dead-ender, so predictable. If Jesus Bush says Hayden’s the right man, Hayden’s the right man.
Never mind that the agency’s needs are in human intelligence as opposed to Hayden’s expertise in electronic surveillance. If Jesus Bush says Hayden’s the man, Hayden’s the man.
‘Shake up the CIA,’ eh? Seems to me, Hank Price, THEY didn’t get the Iraq intelligence wrong. THEY did just fine. It was the Administration who cooked the results to their liking and politically punished anyone who disagreed.
Your version of history is all wet, Hank Price. And your analysis of the present, is, well, shrill and defensive. Guess that’s what it mean to have your beloved Jesus Bush at only 31% approval in the latest Gallup poll. That’s gotta be tough.
Dearest CF,
Read your post again, then read mine.
Which one comes accross as shrill?
No evidence that the Bush administration ‘cooked’ the results.
Let’s see, CIA was wrong on the collapse of the Soviet Union. Wrong on the intelligence associated with Yogoslavia. Wrong on the intelligence associated with the first Gulf War. Wrong on the intelligence associated with North Korea’s nuclear weapons. India’s bomb was a surprise. Pakistan’s bomb was a surprise.
The CIA is broke. Broke because democrats have carried on a sucessful campaign to immasculate it for the last 30 years.
Time to fix the CIA.
OK, Now read your last post then read this one again.
Which one comes accros a shrill!
Love ya, you make my point better than I do!
Hank
If by “shake up the CIA” you mean to bring back all those people who actually knew about HumInt, all the people who were run off by Porter Goss, then yeah guess so.
I guess you’ve read that Negroponte wants Steve Kappes, who was numero uno on the list of those purged in Goss’s ill-fated tenure at CIA, to be Hayden’s #2?
Steve Kappes back as Hayden’s #1 deputy: that’s Mr. Kappes the guy who had the integrity to resign rather than put up with Goss’s political purge.
Some people might call that a “bringing back of people who actually know what the hell they’re doing” rather than a “shake-up,” but I’m cutting you some slack Hank because you’ve already shown us you were born only yesterday.
You are making great strides, though!
By shake up I mean get rid of the CIA people that think they know better than the administration and continue to hurt the security of the nation by leaking Top Secret info to the NYT.
They need to know they are working for us rather than promoting their next book deal.
Hank
May 8, 2006, 1:13 pmKappes Returning to CIA?The White House is floating the name of Stephen R. Kappes as a potential deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency under its newly appointed chief, Gen. Michael V. Hayden.
Kappes briefly served as the CIA’s deputy director of operations, and oversaw all foreign operations, in 2004 before resigning after clashes with aides to CIA Director Porter J. Goss. John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, said Kappes’s decades of experience as a clandestine officer would complement Hayden’s expertise with technical intelligence matters. Kappes’s “skill sets would form a nice balance” with Hayden’s, Negroponte said.
Members of the intelligence community believe the nomination of Kappes would help assuage concerns of the CIA’s rank and file who are wary of a military officer taking over the agency. –Jay Solomon
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/05/08/kappes-returning-to-cia/
Third time is a charm, huh?
I hope, unlike Porter Goss, they checked into the General’s prediliction for drunken orgies with prostitutes.
Uh oh, looks like they DIDN’T. Check this link: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000581.php
But let’s face it, if Bush wants him, he must be crap.
Let’s look at Bush picks past, shall we?
Sec’ry of State Colin Powell, replaced or resigned hard to say which, either way his name is mud.
New Sec’ry of State Condi Rice, uttered not one word of warning about Al Qaeda for 9 months as Security Advisor. Said quite a bit about missile defense though.She also leaked classified info to AIPAC, the Israeli lobby.
Treasury Sec’ry Snow who thinks outsourcing jobs is good, after John O’Neill bailed.
“Fair and Unbalanced” Fox Newsman Tony Snow who replaced Snotty McClellen and Ari “The Liar” as Pres spokesman. Apparently, standing up there and answering every reporter’s question with “we can’t talk about an on-going investigation” can really wear on a guy . . .
Sec’ry of War Donald Rumsfeld–the one that about two dozen retired generals have gone on record to denounce.
Vice President Dick Cheney–”there is NO DOUBT that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction”
John Ashcroft–buh bye
Michael “Heck of a job” Brown–old job head of FEMA, new job scapegoat
Health and Human Services Sec’ry Michael Levitt who gave this helpful advice for preparing for the lethal bird flu–stash bread and canned tuna under your bed.
WH economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay FIRED after predicting that the Iraq invasion and occupation would cost 100-200 billion dollars. Total cost so far, 250 billion with another 200 million spent EVERY DAY.
But don’t worry, the new guy tells them exactly what they want to hear, so no problem there.
Supreme Court Nominee Harriet Mieres–after screaming hysterically for years that the President’s nominees “deserve an up or down vote,” the radical-right made sure that this seeming moderate never got anywhere close to an “up or down vote.”
And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. We all know there are others, because Bush nominates on the basis of who has the same religion he does–personal loyalty is all, truth and the country be damned.
The Bush supporters are in their last throes, if you will . . .
Come on LH,
Clinton’s cabinet looked like a bar scene from Star Wars. We’ve never seen such a group of losers since they cast the extras for the Adam’s Family!
At least Bush is picking adults.
Hank,That was then, this is now. Hayden supports Bush’s positions on the war win Iraq. That in and of itself is enough to keep him out of that office. Plus, a military man is not the kind of man one would want in the post in the first place. It’s too powerful a job for a Military man, especially one who sides with Bush’s form of government. Makes the second ammendment a bit more important.
“Bush approval rating falls to new low in poll”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush’s approval rating fell to 31 percent in a USA Today/Gallup Poll released on Monday, the lowest recorded in the survey and a drop of three percentage points in a single week.Bush’s approval rating, at 34 percent a week ago, tumbled on declining support from conservatives and Republicans. The poll found 52 percent of conservatives and 68 percent of Republicans approved of Bush’s performance, record lows in both categories.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060508/pl_nm/bush_poll_dc;_ylt=AuOd9R_vUseVfvbP9P5Ofy6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-
—————————-
Looks like running your CIA director off late on a Friday afternoon — i.e., dodging the press rather than confronting them head-on — will cost you an additional 3% in your approval ratings, if you’re President Bush!
a-one and a-two and a-three….
Wing-nuts that was your cue – you’re supposed to say that these polls don’t mean anything.
JM
13 out of 19 directors of the CIA have been ‘military men’. So I guess we should put someone in charge that disagrees with the president.
Too powerfull?! The CIA director no longer reports directly to the president. There is a DNI now that has taken a lot of the CIA director’s responsibilies over.
Hayden is very qualified for the job.
Come on JM, quit drinking the liberal kool-aid and read your nonsensical post again.
Hank
“CIA Nominee Hayden Linked to MZM”
Just what we need…another shady character.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000581.php
With these people, if it’s not one damn thing, it’s another.
Let’s see…a 30 year campaign of CIA emasculation. That would start us off about 1976:
1976 Carter1980-1988 Reagan1988-1992 GHW Bush1992-2000 Clinton2000-pres GW Bush
109th Congress House & Senate controlled by Republicans
108th Congress ditto107th Congress three changes in Senate majority.
106th Congress Republican control both Houses
105th Congress Republican control both Houses
104th Congress republican control of both Houses…
That’s at least 10 years of republican control of the legislative branches.
And republicans have controlled the presidency for over 18 of the 30 years in question.
I hope that’s enough to put the lie to hank’s previous assertion.
Dear Brian,
Who’s in power has nothing to do with the democrat’s position on the CIA for the last 30 years.
Nice try though. By the way you’re about four assertions behind.
Hank
Hank,You know me better than that. This president has a history of, IMHO, ignoring the constitution. As such, anyone he picks for any job in the administration is subject to close scrutiny. I don’t like the idea of a military person running a civilian organization. It bothers me. That has nothing to do with “drinking the liberal kool-aid”. but using my own system of beliefs. That my be nonsensical to you, but then again, only 33% agree with you, and that number keeps dropping exponentially.
“With these people, if it’s not one damn thing, it’s another.”
Hehe, no kidding, Brer.
“WASHINGTON, May 7 — Senior Republican lawmakers on Sunday criticized the probable choice of Gen. Michael V. Hayden to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, voicing concerns about his ties to a controversial eavesdropping program and about the wisdom of installing a military officer at the civilian spy agency.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/08/washington/08cia.html
Well what do you know, Hank. Looks like some republicans are tratiors, too.
Dear JM,
If I ever get to the point that my poll numbers get as high as 31% I’ll change my opinions. There are only about a half dozen people that I care if they aggree with me or not.
Hank
XXX
Interesting, who have I called a traitor for dissagreeing with Bush’s choice of Hayden?
The NSA electronic evesdropping is polling positive for the president. Only in the left-wing extremist world do people think that we should not be listening in to al Qaida phone calls.
If you are an admiral or general and you disagree with the president you are a credible hero. If you agree with the president you are to be suspect.
It’s a wonderful world you live in, is the sky blue in your world?
Hank
Yes
Hank,”Interesting, who have I called a traitor for dissagreeing with Bush’s choice of Hayden?”
Where have I said you called anybody a traitor?
“Only in the left-wing extremist world do people think that we should not be listening in to al Qaida phone calls.”
Ad Hom, Hank. Nobody says the president can’t listen in on Al Qaida phone calls. There’s a legal framework that allows him to do just that. Too bad he can’t seem to manage it legally. But I guess this a “challenged” president. There seems to be a plethora of things he can’t do right.
Are you saying that ALL the calls being monitored have a member of Al Qaida on one end?
“If you are an admiral or general and you disagree with the president you are a credible hero.”
If you are an admiral or general and you disagree with the president, you are about to be unemployed. Shenseki, anyone?
“It’s a wonderful world you live in, is the sky blue in your world?”
Indeed it is. What color is the sky in the world of misrable failure? Failure pretty well sums up the Bush presidency. History will remember Bush as a petty flop.
I’m not sure if it would make any difference if “Bush” selected a civilian or a military man. Whoever would be chosen would be obedient under this administration.
I personally do not give much credence to the proposition that G.W.B is running the administration. Let’s see, a 1210 SAT. Not an impressive score, particularly given his attendance at a private school that knew how to maximize students’ SAT scores. Put him in a suburban public school and the score would probably have been 1100, or about the 70th percentile in the early 1960’s. Since the SAT was then an IQ test GWB’s IQ is probably about 115.Then, according to the record of his drunk-driving arrest, and admitted long record of alcoholism, his IQ today is probably measureably less than it was in high school.
I would hazard a guess that somebody else–somebody who was NOT elected in 2000 and 2004–is inventing policy, and using GWB as a mouthpiece.
If this is a correct surmise, it means that NON-ELECTED people are saying to him, “This is what you have to do, and this is what you have to say.” Like telling the nation that Iraq had WMD’s and was working on an A-bomb project and was colluding with al-Qaeda. The first two of which have proved completely false, and the last of which has no evidence to support.
What we do know is that major chaos has been engendered, and oilmen are making beaucoudalbucks. Any connection here between that result and Bush and Cheney’s being oilmen? Or is it totally an accident?
America is resiliant. Most of Americans realize that they were sold a bill of goods. In the 2004 election, John Kerrry was pilloried for “flip-flopping” on the Iraq resolution. Today, he would say, “Yeah I voted for it because I trusted the president. Now I know I was lied to. I didn’t have the administration’s true intelligence, I had their selective, misleading version.”
The Diebold CEO whose Ohio company made voting machines, and who promised to deliver Ohio to the Republican Party has been canned. Diebold voting machines have been removed from most states that purchased them for the 2004 election.
We’ll see a return to a Democrat majority. If Kansans were wise, they would join this move. But nobody ever accused Kansans of being the brightest bulbs in the box.
I recently saw Pat Roberts interviewed on C-SPAN. He said that he must support big landowners in Kansas with subsidies, because they take big risks, and deserve rewards. Senator Roberts’ statements make no sense: If you take risks, you take risks. There is no such thing as a “big risk” that rests upon a federal bailout if you fail. That’s called a “moral hazard”, the no-loss-possible scenario. Taxpayer-bailed-out “free enterprise” is an oxymoron. Apparently Senator Roberts doesn’t get this.
WTO treaties are not going to allow Senator Robertson’s position to hold for very long.
Al Gore was pilloried for his global warming stance in 2000. Oh, it now looks like he was right. There’s talk about his making another presidential run. Given that most American voters wanted him in 2000, and now that he has been proven right on global warming–a problem that DWARFS Middle Eastern terrorism and renders it relatively TRIVIAL–maybe he’ll be elected this time.
Of course whoever is elected in the midterm and 2008 elections will have to devote a lot of time and energy to cleaning up this era’s government’s doo-doo, but that’s life.
BTW I’m a registered Republican. I even received a photo of GWB and Laura a few years back. I may vote Demo next time. Does that make me a flip-flopper? It depends on whom the party selects for its next presidential candidate. I won’t get to vote to select him, because Kansas’s “leaders” won’t give us an early primary, so by the time we MIGHT have one, the candidate has already been selected, which disenfranchises Kansans, a fact that most Kansans don’t seem to mind. I mind, but I’m in a minority.
But has GWB said last year, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…We won’t get fooled again.” (I wonder if The WHO are conservatives or labor party members? Anybody out there know? I think I once heard that they may have used a lot of drugs in the 60’s.)
“…fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Gawd, this is so sad.
Thanks RD for the accurate quote; I’m a paraphraser. But I think I got the gist right.
I’ve been too busy to watch this CIA leadership issue very closely. However, being pro-military, I agree with Hank on this one. I support the appointment of General Hayden as director of the CIA.
Regarding the “outing” of Valerie Plame as an employee of the CIA, I personally don’t care. Her position sounded like a case of neopotism to me. Also U.S. service men who are actually on the ground around the world in Iraq and Afghanistan are more important than a CIA office worker in Washington D.C.
Yeah except this particular CIA office worker was working on WMD in Iran. Not everybody working for our country’s interest wears a uniform.
JWink, the law is the law, and bush or his cronies broke the law by outing Plame. Whether you agree or not, the CIA said she was undercover.
How many laws does Bushco have to break before you take notice?
Long post. Steve Gilliard nails the tragic, criminal waste that has been BushCo over the last six years. All that could have been, and all that unfortunately is.
stevegilliard.blogspot.com
**********************************
Recently, Judgement at Nuremberg was on PBS and TCM, asd TNT’s Nuremberg movie is on their On Demand service.
61 years after the end of the war in Europe, it is a fair question to ask how far have we come. We tried the Nazis, not just for wholesale murder, but a multitude of criminal acts including aggressive war.
We divide history into neat segments which do not exist in real life. The New Deal made the fleets and armies possible. Berlin’s skies turned black filled with airmen saved by government relief and flew in planes build by a government ready to do large things and ask for great sacrifices.
When Grover Norquist talks about drowning the government and the conservatives talk of small government, they forget that it was large government which saved Europe from communism after WWII, the one that fought the Korean War. They want a large government to wage war, but a small one to run America and the two do not mesh.
We have an army taking autistics and gang members because there is no way Bush can ask for national service, even voluntary national service, from the majority of Americans. Most of those in the service want out when their enlistments end. The former NCO’s and Officers on the blog are horrified by this.
But after 9/11, Bush asked for nothing. Not to save gas, not to enlist, nothing. So the burden fell on the willing and they are tired. Tired of war, tired of begging for food, tired of seeing their friends horrifically wounded. Once, military service was a way up and out for the working poor, a way to see the world. Most military jobs involve transportation or other kinds of service, only 10 percent, the stuff they show on TV, involves killing, and only a few are members of the elite Special Operators. But Iraq is so dangerous that any job can involve risk, and parents do not want their children taking that risk.
Bush has demanded nothing, and he gets nothing.
The US after WWII understood not only the burdens but the rewards of shared sacrifice. The GI Bill was originally to be a limited program to reward combat survivors, but was pushed to include all honorably discharged service members, men and women, black, latino and white.
This administration does not. It’s as if Herbert Hoover was asked to fight the Nazis without rallying the public.
But we don’t face Nazis, no matter how much the sad, drink-sodden Christopher Hitchens may pretend, we face the poor and angry, fighting for a fantasy world, a perfect world which never existed.
And how do we do it? By tossing away every lesson we’ve learned from Nuremberg.
We build gulags, we sent people into a modern version of night and fog, where people are beaten to death, we coerse our allies into accepting kidnapping flights and dump the passengers in places where they will be tortured.
In the TNT movie, Herman Goering is given his endictment by a Major Airey Neave. Neave, who was a lawyer by profession, had been one of the SOE’s premier agents in Europe and had escaped from the Gestapo. His feats eventually were noticed by the German high command, as was the desire for his untimely death.
There is a moment of moral superiority when Neave hands Goering the criminal charges against him. Why? Because Goering was a murderer and Neave opposed him.
Bush and Rumsfeld traded that, the thing we could have faced Osama Bin Laden down with, something the world would have stood by us, for capturing Saddam and destroying Iraq. We now kick around the idea of partitioning Iraq as if it is any more legal than Hitler and Stalin dividing Poland and annexing Austria.
American foreign policy has been addicted to power and fear for a long time, as our Central American neighbors can tell you. But we backed the torturers, we didn’t take their place, unleash angry young men on them, ship them to places where torture was the rule of the day, then dump them in Albania as a mistake or because they have no place else to go.
Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush made a fatal error, not because we have to worry about Iraqis blowing up buildings years from now, but because we gave away the advantage of clean hands. It may not be much, but it gave us the moral high ground to save dissisents and press for human rights. Vietnam may have ben wrong, but it was based on real fears and was logical. There was an army and a government and we chose sides. Iraq had no sides, just exiles with a siren song only fools heard.
But now, they disdained what they should have held deeply. They thought they could act in any way, because 9/11 would brook no questions. Torture, aggresive war, it didn’t matter because we were America, we ruled the world, and other people would follow along.
Too bad half of America didn’t even believe that, much less willing to risk their children in such a colonial adventure. Europe, having seen this before, walked away. The French and Germans knew how this ended and it was always tragic. Not movie tragic, but generationally tragic. Iraq is ruined for a generation, maybe two, and Iran and Syria, which now have the whip hand, will feel it as well.
The excuse for violating what we once rejected was more than hubris. Every society has sadists. Most keep them under check, few allow them real power. Rumsfeld unleashed them, their worst instincts justified and it went from CENTCOM down to their field. Sadism is a controllable act, like any other act. Sadists can be controlled. But not when the allure of torture seems near, the ability to solve problems through force. Rumsfeld unleashed these people because he thought they had an easy solution to a difficult problem.
But instead, they allows children to be raped and the innocent murdered for no gain. None.
We had embraced what we had fought so hard to end, not because we were inherently evil, but because it was one more easy thing to do for a man who always chosen the easy, wrong path.
I would like to think we will redeem ourselves one day, that the sadists and their bosses will face justice, real justice, in a large court for the world to see, to redeem the promise of what was begun at Nuremberg.
Heartlander, you did a good job of paraphrasing. It’s just one of my “favorites,” and I had to post it. Yeah, it’s funny, but there are so many like that, it’s just sad to have someone in the highest office of the nation that can’t string a few words together that make sense. Yeah, I’m dreaming.
Hank
“Dear JM,
If I ever get to the point that my poll numbers get as high as 31% I’ll change my opinions. There are only about a half dozen people that I care if they aggree with me or not.”
Kinda spacey for you, Hank. Would those half dozen people include Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Jerry Falwell?
Hank
“Dear JM,
If I ever get to the point that my poll numbers get as high as 31% I’ll change my opinions. There are only about a half dozen people that I care if they aggree with me or not.”
Kinda spacey for you, Hank. Would those half dozen people include Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Jerry Falwell?
Posting twice is okay once!
CF’s post is something that every man, woman and teenager in this country should read.
One of the tragedies of war is that opponents demonize each other, and become LIKE each other, and then strive to up the ante.
Native Americans captured and killed women and children. So we did same agains them. Of course, they didn’t invade Europe, we invaded their homeland.
Japan committed atrocities against our troops and against Asian civilians. Our troops justifiably killed many Japs whom they could have captured. But then we committed war crimes against women, children, and the elderly, in the April-May 1945 firebombing raids, and the August A-bomb droppings. These were not designed to destroy war-industry capacity, they were designed to terrorize innocents, and show NO MERCY. These were anti-Christian acts.
The Vietnamese were sub-human “gooks”. So we chemically defoliated large swaths of North Vietnam to induce starvation. Our Air Force dropped bombs indiscriminantly from 50,000 feet, killing tens of thousands of peasants who just wanted to live peacibly. Today, our growing trade with Vietnam demonstrates the truth that they are not a war-mongering people.
In dealing with our former WWII ally, the Soviet Union, after the war, we adopted their security-state model.
Now we are fighting terrorists who are willing to kill civilians, and we again again become willing to fight fire with fire–only we make BIGGER fires.
General Hayden, in a speech and Q&A to the National Press Club in January that was broadcast on C-SPAN yesterday, said that he can’t reveal what the warrantless NSA comm-intercept program is about, because that would tip off the terrorists and enable them to change their communications to evade detection. But what are they going to do, use camel couriers and message-carrying pigeons to coordinate?
The secret “black budgets” of the post-WWII era violate the Constitution. Bush harangued that the Muslim terrorists were bent on destroying our free way of life. The terrorists are not seeking to destroy the basic freedoms of 99.9% of Americans. They ARE opposed to the freedom of a small clique of money-and-power-lusting capitalists to control their natural resources, which includes setting up puppet regimes whose American-chosen leaders live lives of luxury, while the general population lives in 8th century primitive destitution.
We have 5% of the world’s population, but we use 25% of the world’s energy. Is this because we are “fair” to everyone? China wants to modernize. American capitalists are happy to invest in China. Is this because they want to be “fair”? No, it’s because they want to get richer than they already are. If this means that American working-class wages will fall to Chinese wage levels, or to be more accurate, equalization will occur, but because China has 5 times as many bodies as America, the ultimate wage level will be equalized closer to the current Chinese level than the current American level, the capitalists think this fine.
Americans have been brainwashed to believe that capitalism and representative democracy are two sides of the same coin. They’re two different coins.
At times they find ways to work synergistically, at other times they are antipodal. We are currently in a period of capitalism’s and anti-democracy’s ascendance. Hopefully, the pendulum will swing back over the next two election cycles. Democracy is being severely tested right now. It has been substantially eroded. We’ll find out if it can be reinvigorated.
If you think NSA spying is a positive thing than Hayden is your man.
Really, hank,
Who funds the executive agencies of the US. Who oversees their operations? I guess you’re saying, then that covert operations in the US are entirely in the hands of liberals (guffaws and giggles).
Hank,
The reason that the US has suffered massive intelligence and military setbacks in the past was primarily because the people at the top, regardless of political affiliation, have put their faith in technology rather than in people. As with many corporations, senior executives seem to think that computers and automation are going to bring the next “big” breakthrough. They have their place, no doubt, but breakthroughs come from the minds of people, using technology to help them. Putting up the most sophisticated spy satellites in the world is a futile exercise if you don’t have the photo reconnaissance interpreters AND the people on the ground to help sort out what the real story is.
Governments and those involved in national security around the globe are prescient enough to know how to hide their intentions, present false information, etc. You need people with a long history in the field to sort things out, not technological gimmickry.
We can blame every executive at the CIA and FBI who bought into the notion that fancy electronics could take the place of a human being.
And, unfortunately, the Pentagon is falling into the same trap. State-of-the art weaponry is wonderful, but it will never take the place of the man in the field. We have yet to see a war won with air power alone, for example. Maybe the US military would be better off refocusing some of their efforts, like at the war colleges, to discusss HOW to win an insurgency…and I can tell you it has very little to do with firepower, it has to do with the hearts and minds of the people on the ground and out treatment of those people….respect and compassion turn out to be potent weapons too.
Does anyone have enough interest to do a bone dig on hank’s greatest hits regarding anyone who doesnt agree with him?
I think “traitor” is the least offensive thing he calls anyone who isnt a bushbot.
No one vounteering to waste a ton of bandwidth posting hanks words again?
I didnt think so.
worst. poster. ever.
“Nice of athe NYT to give us part of the news. These same judges testified that GWB was within his constitutional rights to intercept these terrorist’s communications by signing an executive order.
“He didn’t break any laws!
“Amazing that the democrats believe the way to sucess in the next election is to come up with a terrorist ‘bill of rights’!”
Hank
Posted by: Hank | March 30, 2006 at 09:24 AM
The above is my nomination for KFG’s quest. While he did not use the word “traitor” – being the drafter of the “terrorist bill of rights” might be worse.
But, it is not a shame to be derided by H.P. In fact, it is a sure sign that one is on the right (read “truthful”) track.
Here H.P. does use the “traitor” word, but he is only calling a decorated war VN war veteran this -
“flike,
“Murtha and Cleland were not ’slimed’. The Bush administration pretty much stayed with the facts. Now I admit that people outside of the administration brought out some unflattering facts about them, but Bush has never spoken badly of them. He has jst said they were wrong.
“When was Kerry ever slimed by Rove or Bush? Truth is, Kerry was a traitor. I think the Bush campaign was very easy on him.
“The only trend I see is that most liberals are dispicable.”
Hank
Posted by: Hank Price | May 08, 2006 at 10:13 AM
“By shake up I mean get rid of the CIA people that think they know better than the administration”
For instance, Weapons of mass destruction–a lot of CIA people and former CIA people like Scott Ritter were telling the administration that Saddam couldn’t still be manufacturing WMD’s.
They pretended to know more than the administration, and look what happened.
We found the WMD’s. George Bush said and has never recanted saying “Those people that said we haven’t found the WMD’s were wrong–we found them.”
So there you have it. A good example of the CIA thinking that they knew more than the administration.
Thanks, Hank!