One of the things I find most disturbing about the FBI/CIA/NSA/NID is their total focus, to the exclusion of terrorists intent on attacking America, on what the putative ne'er do wells in the Trump campaign might have done that doesn't come close to rivaling what Obama or Clinton did in the service of the Soviets/Russians and terrorists. It's kind of hard to see why we tolerate this kind of malfeasance and vincible ignorance and total stupidity. But the left does and so does the media and perforce, so do we.
For 2 years lawyers on the special prosecutor's team and the dirtbag in charge have been doing their damnedest to turn up evidence of any crime at all that President Trump committed and they're stuck, like a dead rat in the trap with their nose not a fraction of an inch from cheese. But there is no cheese there.
In the meantime the highest echelons of what passes for our Intel Community have been utterly wrapped around the axle of denouncing President Trump and shouting aloud in glee how he is guilty guilty guilty guilty. They don't hear it themselves but southern lynch mobs had nothing on democrats and the top echelons of CIA/FBI/STATE/Media who find guilt before evidence. Oh, wait, lynch mobs/democrats, I repeat myself. My bad.
Yep, the top floors of the FBI are and have been convulsed with finding a thing that isn't there and who cares about another bunch of 9/11 types who gain free access into the country over unsecured borders when they all know they have the TSA searching baby's diapers for dangerous liquids before they're allowed on the planes even if they miss 99% of the carry-on guns, knives, acid, bombs, etc.
I'm afraid that overseas I used to work hand in glove with the country teams (State, CIA, FBI, DIA), for the worst of these sources of terrorists and I always thought they were some of the dimmest bulbs. Honestly?
If they really really liked you as a young and upcoming anti-terrorist fighting, crime-fighting top echelon agent-wearing-black, would you be in places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE? For us in the Navy, it was the cutting edge and tip of the spear on the war on terror. We knew what we were doing and labored under a bureaucracy that swished need-to-know across our lips and ears whenever they knew that CIA and State were hiding information that mattered. It got really old about the 2nd time they did it. Deploying mobile units again again in response to I&W got old and then it got expensive.
Give it a thought. How much time do you imagine the top echelon of the Intel/FBI/DOJ spend on terrorists and terrorism and how much of their working day is devoted to taking down or concealing their role in trying to take down a duly elected President?
8 comments:
I realize the problems, what needs to happen to rectify them?
Replace all of the GS-14 and above and every single member of the SES and only promote ethical men and women to the top jobs. Stop making presidential appointments to these top admin jobs subject to Senate confirmation. The Senate has done a truly shitty job of it over the years and there's no reason to keep it up given that the reforms to the law that created the civil service usually work and there is no reason that one administration's top nominees should remain in office to stymie and frustrate the incumbent by their lawless behaviour or inaction.
Personally, I'm in favor of just shooting them all.
Your last solution seems the most expedient and logical.
State is where politicians put their relatives who have IQs almost equal to that of a mushroom. The CIA and FBI take the leftovers. I know I spent 29 years dealing with these drooling idiots.
That last solution works for me, after all American citizens have died due their incompetence.
That was my experience. I met a good consul in Dahran who was squared away and the ambassadors I met were usually top notch. The staff though were almost always terrible which is why they found themselves like the middle east and africa.
Professional ambassadors are the worst because they are clones of other professional ambassadors-in other words, self centered egoists, micromanagers, ambitious to the point of blindness, and confident in their ignorance yet refusing to recognize or seek the expertise of others.
Staffs are selected on the basis of rabbies or lack thereof. This is why people without Arabic skills or training get sent to Baghdad while posts where English is common like Berlin, Tokyo, Rome, require you speak those languages.
Only in State could you find a political section busy translating local newspapers rather than speaking with people who understood the local political situation. This is why embassies rarely had contacts in universities, labor unions,the military, the expat professional communities that did all the infrastructure work.
This was usually because those "type" of people wore white after Labor Day and just didn't belong to the "right" clubs. If you need proof of this just consider where State political and economic reporting ranks in daily intelligence briefs.
State's promotion system id feudal and bears no recognition to skills or expertise. That's why the political types are always promoted so rapidly and why ambassadors rarely have managed anything in excess of two secretaries and three officers. They then move on to embassies with combined staffs of over 200 or more.
After 30 years the only top notch officer I worked with is now the national security officer. The others were so bad that I wouldn't trust them with the welfare of a mouse, especially in an area where there was a real threat.
I forgot, the FBI and CIA seemed to recruit based on someone's hostility to the USA. In Mexico I met a CIA traitor, who was caught some years later but his hostility to the USA was obvious. In the middle east, few of them had Arabic skills or would seek real contacts, usually seeking to ruin my contacts through ill phrased and transparent questions and ham fisted observations.
The FBI seemed more interested in golfing, traveling, and drinking than anything else. Both agencies reserved their contempt not for the enemies of the USA but perhaps properly, for State personnel, especially the ambassador and DCM.
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