From: Jasper
Date: 10/1/01
Time: 12:14:05 PM
Kari,
It seems to me that the problem is more complex in some way than glory and money vs. security and in some ways just that simple.
On the complex side of things, the intelligence communities within our own government are in constant danger of being compromised by foreign spies and domestic traitors. For that reason alone it's not a good idea for every intelligence agency to share everything it gets with every other intelligence agency. You have similarly problems with friendly foreign intelligence services that have to cope with their own saboteurs and their own interests, which don't always coincide with ours. What information can they pass on to our people? How much of it can our people trust? How much can they afford to pass on to other agencies in our own intelligence community?
After the fact, it's easy to see what information WAS valid and what information WAS actually misinformation. Before the fact, information and disinformation often look the same. That's what disinformation is for.
On the simple side of things I think we have the same fundamental problem with American traitors and ambitious politicians who put American security at risk for the sake of money or appearances that we had with some of the people involved in the failed rescue of American hostages in Iran. The soldiers and marines on that mission took their training seriously and were fully prepared to do what they had to do to get out people back. The mission fell apart because a few key people in the Navy and the Air Force DIDN'T BELIEVE THE UNTIED STATES WOULD DO ANYTHING MILITARILY.
One Air Force pilot called his wife and told her all about it. He treated his training like a joke. Maybe his plan was to goof off so much that he wouldn't be picked. Anyhow, he was one of the pilots involved in the deadly collision when the mission had to be scrubbed. Somebody on the Navy helicopter maintenance crew allowed three of the rescue helicopters to go up with mechanical problems that would make them useless in the desert sands where they were deployed. Two of them never got there. One of them crapped out in the desert before the rescue could be launched.
The prevailing attitude among political leaders and pendants before the aborted hostage rescue mission was the same as the disbelieving pilot's. Namely, the President didn't have the guts to take military action against "the students" in Iran without the consent of Congress (the War Powers Act of '73) - and there was no way Congress was ever going to give its consent to military action before all peaceful remedies were exhausted. Why? Because they were responding to a political "crisis," not an act of war. All of the talk was therefore about resolving the crisis, not fighting the war. The enemy captives were called hostages rather than prisoners of war. The "legitimate grievances" of the people who held them were being aired every day as news, not propaganda. Captive Americans chosen by the "students" to speak for all the captives, just happened to agree with their captors, and our media were calling those Americans heroes. How can you even see a national security problem through a wall of rhetoric like that?
A security problem of long standing existed before the 911attack because some people responsible for maintaining security didn't believe that their actions or lack of actions really mattered to anyone but themselves and the ones who were prepared to act appropriately were dependant on those who weren't. --Jasper