April 20, 2005: The new American Director of National Intelligence (DNI) vows to get the 14 intelligence agencies to cooperate and produce a better and more effective product. Based on past experience, this won't happen. Also based on past experience, it will be a long time before the public discovers that it didn't happen. Intelligence people are good at hiding their secrets, and for many senior intelligence officers, their careers depend on doing a convincing job of pretending to cooperate.
The basic problem is that there are several different types of intel specialist, and each believes their contributions are more important than everyone else's. You have the geeks (who use satellites and electronic gear to take photos and collect electronic messages) and the operators (the people who go into the field, run spies and do the James Bond stuff). And then there are the analysts, who get "raw intel" from the geeks and operators, and try to make sense of it. The geeks see themselves as the successors of the operators, and over the last four decades, the proportion of "actionable intelligence" (stuff you can use) that comes from the geeks has gone to over 80 percent. The operators don't deny that, but also point out that in the field, you do things geeks can't, like capturing Islamic terrorists, and intercepting couriers carrying messages that the geeks can't pick up using their gadgets. The analysts have the most balanced view, and often wish they had more operators to follow up on murky leads the geeks have come up with. The problem with the geeks is that even the best satellite photos are not as revealing as an operator on the ground, right in the middle of the situation. The same with electronic eavesdropping, which often provides only fragments, while an operator interrogating a terrorist can provide much more information. The geeks and operators used to fight about money, but the geeks won that battle decades ago. But now the operators have a blank check. The only problem is that you can hire a lot of the needed geeks right away, while it takes years to train a useful operator. Police detectives and private investigators have many of the skills used by operators, but recruiting from this community has never been very successful. Basically, the CIA, and other agencies, have to recruit and train their own.
This spotlights another problem. While most of the geeks are in one place; the NSA (National Security Agency), the operators and analysts are in many other agencies. Each of the armed forces, plus the Department of Defense itself, has an intelligence agency. Add in the State Department, Homeland Security, FBI and a few others, and you have a hell of a coordination job. No one wants to share contacts or information, lest the other agency somehow pollute the source. That's easy to do. If the army has a bunch of agents in Iraq, recruited with great effort, the last thing they want to do is let the CIA know who these guys are. The Iraqis spying for the army know that if the wrong people find out what they are doing, they are dead. If they suddenly find out that another bunch of Americans, from the CIA, are on to them, they may just quit the spy business while they are still alive. This is a legitimate fear, and the reason why local police are reluctant to share such information with the FBI or Homeland Security. Informants are the more important tool operators have, and these valuable sources of information can disappear.
But it's more than mistrust between agencies, often it's downright dislike. The FBI and CIA have had a hate/hate relationship for half a century. The various military intel outfits have always been competitive. The CIA sees the Department of Defense intelligence operations as wasted effort, while the military intel types see the CIA as a waste of money. Changing all this will take more than time, it will take a few minor miracles.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/20/2005 12:23:31 PM ||
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The operators (the people who go into the field, run spies and do the James Bond stuff).
It seems, that for the last decade, or more, the US didn't have many of those.
Given most of western Europe's dechristianization, one can doubt a Pope will do much of a difference, but who knows?
In choosing Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger to succeed Pope John Paul II as Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church has cast a vote for the survival of Europe and the West. "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century," historian Bernard Lewis predicted not long ago; however, judging from the writings of the new Pope, he is not likely to be sanguine about this transition. For one thing, the new Pope seems to be aware of the grave danger Europeans face: he has called upon Europe to recover its Christian roots "if it truly wants to survive."
For while his predecessor kissed the Qur'an Infamous pic at http://www.coranix.com/102/jean_paul_2_dhimmi.jpg (6666 octets, 666 was too obvious...) or http://www.coranix.com/105bis/michel_lelong.htm, shameless plug for the excellent belgian "Coranix" site
and pursued a consistent line of conciliation toward the Islamic world, despite numerous provocations and attacks against Catholics in Muslim countries, the new Pope Benedict XVI, while no less charitable, has been a bit more forthcoming about the reality of how Islam challenges the Catholic Church, Christianity, and even the post-Christian West. He has spoken up for the rights of converts from Islam to Christianity, who live under a death sentence in Islamic countries and increasingly live in fear even in the West. He has even spoken approvingly of Christians proselytizing Muslims — a practice that enrages Muslims and is against the law in many Islamic countries.
The new Pope has criticized Europe's reluctance to acknowledge its Christian roots for fear of offending Islam's rapidly growing and increasingly influential presence in European countries — a presence which, as historian Bat Ye'or demonstrates in her book Eurabia, has been actively encouraged and facilitated by European leaders for over three decades. "What offends Islam," said Cardinal Ratzinger, "is the lack of reference to God, the arrogance of reason, which provokes fundamentalism." He has criticized multiculturalism, "which is so constantly and passionately encouraged and supported," because it "sometimes amounts to an abandonment and disavowal of what is our own."
He contrasts the modern-day resurgence of Islam with the enervation of Europe. In old Europe, he has said, "we are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires." Islam, on the other hand, is anything but relativistic: "The rebirth of Islam is due in part to the new material richness acquired by Muslim countries, but mainly to the knowledge that it is able to offer a valid spiritual foundation for the life of its people, a foundation that seems to have escaped from the hands of old Europe."
In line with his call to Europeans to recover their own spiritual heritage, the new Pope opposes Turkey's proposed entrance into the European Union: "Turkey," he has declared, "has always represented a different continent, always in contrast with Europe." But his objection is not simply geographical — in fact, he opposes the geographical oversimplifications that underlie Turkey's EU bid: "Europe," he has explained, "was founded not on a geography, but on a common faith. We have to redefine what Europe is, and we cannot stop at positivism." A Europe newly defined as in some sense a Christian entity may outrage secularists, but a secular and relativist Europe has so far proved powerless against the Islamization of Europe — despite the fact that that Islamization threatens cherished Western notions of the equality of rights and dignity of all people.
Europe, the new Pope has written, "appears to be at the start of its decline and fall."
It may be too late, as Bat Ye'or believes, to arrest that decline and fall. However, the first thing a physician does when he treats a disease is identify the problem. No healing can proceed from a misdiagnosis. It is heartening to see that Pope Benedict XVI has already, in various speeches and writings before his accession to the papacy, dared to speak more clearly about the threat that Islam poses to Western civilization than his predecessor — for all his many and remarkable gifts — ever quite managed to do.
Late in 2003 the semi-official Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica departed from John Paul II's policy toward Islam and published a scathing criticism of the mistreatment that Christians suffer in Islamic societies. It represented the first indication that any Catholic officials recognized the dimensions of the religious conflict that jihadists are waging against Christians and others around the world. La Civiltà Cattolica pointed out that "for almost a thousand years Europe was under constant threat from Islam, which twice put its survival in serious danger." Now, through jihad terrorism and demographics Islam is threatening Europe's survival yet again — and it looks as if now there is a Pope who has noticed. Maybe in Europe the resistance is just beginning.
Posted by: Anonymous5089 ||
04/20/2005 9:44:09 AM ||
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For those who missed OldSpook's commentary yesterday concerning the new pope, check it out.
Thank you to OldSpook for a lot of valuable information.
#2
An "ample extract" of the La Civiltà Cattolica article describing Vatican policy towards Islam can be found here.
An excerpt:
We must, finally, recall a fact that is often forgotten because Saudi Arabia is the largest provider of oil to the Western world, and the latter therefore has an interest in not disturbing relations with that country. In reality, in Saudi Arabia, where wahhabism is in force, not only is it impossible to build a church or even a tiny place of worship, but any act of Christian worship or any sign of Christian faith is severely prohibited with the harshest penalties. Thus about a million Christians working in Saudi Arabia are deprived by violence of any Christian practice or sign. They may participate in mass or in other Christian practices - and even then with the serious danger of losing their jobs - only on the property of the foreign oil companies. And yet, Saudi Arabia spends billions of petrodollars, not for the benefit of its poor citizens or of poor Muslims in other Muslim countries, but to construct mosques and madrasas in Europe and to finance the imams of the mosques in all the Western countries. We recall that the Roman mosque of Monte Antenne, constructed on land donated by the Italian government, was principally financed by Saudi Arabia and was built to be the largest mosque in Europe, in the very heart of Christianity.
I think it would be a very good move if journals like La Civiltà Cattolica were available in English translations.
From my conversations with him in the late 70s, when he was archbishop of Munich, I learned a few things about him:
1) That he hated the Nazis even during his short time in the Hitler Youth. He was a nominal member, but was exempted weeks after his compulsory joining because of his fragile health and studies in the Catholic seminary (many boys actually joined Catholic institutions to avoid service in the HJ.) His teen years had a lasting effect on him as he was able to see the difference between reality and what the Nazis taught. His love for truth and being truthful all the time stems from this early experience.
2) He was a progressive Catholic in his early year (played an important role at the 2nd Vaticanum), but the intolerance of 1968 made him change his mind. He abhorred communism and the carefree nihilist thinkings in these times and became a conservative, but not a reactionary, as many claim.
3) He saw the dangers of Islamic fanatism in the 70s already. Khomeini was a menetekel for him. At this time he didn't see Islam so much as a threat for Europe (yet), but for Asia and Africa.
4) He is more a friend of the Jews than most other Catholic priests. I remember him saying that Christians and Jews are on the same direction to salvation, just on different paths. Islam instead was an aberration that would lead humanity into a religious "dead end street" (Sackgasse was his exact word). He strongly favoured a rapprochement between the Catholic and Jewish faith, but didn't see any common ground between Christianity and Islam.
Latest proof of this was that he strongly supported John Paul II travel to Israel but did have a big headache about that voyage to Damascus. I doubt you'll see Benedict XVI visiting a mosque... ever. And he sees Turkey as a big religious threat to the judeochristian identity of Europe.
He may come across as the Great Inquisitor, but he has never refused discussion and arguments. He is firm on the "essentials" of the Catholic faith. The German Catholic professors he suspended clearly violated the essential principles of Catholicism. He is an extremely intelligent, bright personality... a bit shy with people though. He won't pretend to have the charisma of JPII.
And yes, I think, we'll see a few surprises from him in the next years. I had to chuckle when I heard the Chicoms demands today. Oh boy, they are messing with the wrong guy here.
Benedict of Nursia one restored the Christian faith in a devastated Europe. Commentators have focussed much on Benedict XV as the closest role model of Ratzinger. But I think he's much closer to Benedict XIV.
And yes, he loved the "Apfelmaultaschen" (pasta made with potato flour, filled with apples and powder sugar and cinnamon on top) my wife prepared for him :-)
#6
TGA, that is just incredible insight. Thank you so much for sharing it. Information like this is why I love Rantburg. I look forward to Benedict's papacy with much enthusiasm. Oh, speaking of sharing, do you think the wife could whip up a batch of the Apfelmaultaschen for some hungry Americanos? That looks very tasty.
#8
I note that as Cardinal, Ratzinger had good relations with Jews, and that Landau, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, and Abe Foxman of ADL both say so.
OTOH i dont think Europe has EVER been "judeochristian" or that, to the extent it has been, Turkey (as opposed to wahabi loonies) is a threat to that character - Turkey MAY be a threat to the CHRISTIAN character of Europe, but thats something else.
#11
TGA - it looked tasty ... unfortunately.... eggs, milk products.... at that point I would be at 3 or more 1500 level or greater allergies so I will have to just imagine what it might taste like.... You wouldn't have a recipe for Apfelmaultaschen using soy would you? 8^>
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