Why Counter-Terrorism Is In Shambles

Early last week several questions were submitted to former CIA analyst Ray McGovern about the sad state of counter-terrorism in the United States, and he has answered frankly and in-depth. In addition, McGovern solicited former FBI attorney/special agent Coleen Rowley to review his answers and provide her own comments. Ray's biggest tip to the intelligence community was to "HOLD ACCOUNTABLE THOSE RESPONSIBLE. More 'reform' is the last thing we need. Sorry, but we DO have to look back. The most effective step would be to release the CIA Inspector General report on intelligence community performance prior to 9/11. That investigation was run by, and its report was prepared by an honest man, it turns out. It was immediately suppressed by then-Acting DCI John McLaughlin — another Tenet clone — and McLaughin's successors as director, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, and now Leon Panetta."

Comments

So essentially...

[Peter Steil]

The people directing the operations believe them to be ineffective? It's all smoke and mirrors, and nothing is really safer? If something was going to happen, it still is, regardless of the measures implemented today? Who could have guess this to be the case?

Re:So essentially...

[jo42]

The 'War on Terror' will prove to be ineffective as the 'War on Drugs'. When you boil it all down, you are pitting human intelligence against human intelligence. Humans are very clever critters and will find one way or another around obstacles. If any progress at all is to be made, you need to fight the disease, not the symptoms. You have to ask "Why are these people doing this in the first place?" and address that as the root problem.

Re:So essentially...

[magsol]

But this is difficult for lefties to get.

What if I'm right-handed?

Seriously though, that statement cost you all your credibility. I'd have been willing to overlook the fact that the views of both Rev. Wright (Obama's former minister) and the "retard professor" (though I have no idea who would fit the bill here...what alleged professors do you hang out with?) constitute the fringe of society and are not, by any stretch, represented accordingly by the vast majority of folk with more than two brain cells to rub together.

I would also be willing to overlook the fact that your reasoning behind Osama's motives is astonishingly shallow (our military is never "invited" anywhere; arrangements are negotiated and compromises are made in order to establish outposts, mostly for the purpose of political leverage).

I would even have been willing to overlook the fact that your comment really doesn't even have a coherent point to it, and doesn't seem to relate back to the parent comment or even to the original article (who cares that "you can't just do what everyone wants you to do"?).

But then you went and introduced stale partisan bickering (and backed it up with the beaten-to-DEATH random word CAPITALIZATION that so CHARACTERIZES political diarrhea). Is it lonely up there on your pedestal?

Re:So essentially...

[Sir_Sri]

People were willing to tolerate the US in saudi when the threat from iraq was immediate. People, on the whole, aren't stupid enough to miss the big picture here. The problem is 3, 4, 5 years later why is the wealthiest muslim country reliant on a foreign power to protect itself? (Given that they can buy US weapons) The *continued* presence of the US there shamed every saudi who believed their country should be able to defend itself from a poorer, weaker (and slightly smaller populationwise) potential adversary. If we all woke up tomorrow and realized mexico had an army of 10 million with a huge inventory of tanks aircraft etc, and was sufficiently well armed NATO rushed into help guard the US border that's one thing. But 5 years later if the potential adversary, with less money, technology, trade, access and overall weaker it's a problem. The *continued* US presence, and no fly zones over the oppressed, gassed people of Iraq was a shame on the honour of the people of Saudi, the protectors of the muslim holy places, that they are relying on a bunch of Christians from across the ocean to guard them from another muslim state. Either they lack legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the muslim world, at which point we should wonder why we're supporting them, or they figure we're dumb enough to run in and help them for free, why should they bother, and we should wonder why we're the only ones who think this needs to be done 'our' way.

The US troops in Saudi pushed bin laden over the edge, but he wasn't exactly pro US or Saudi Royal family before that. The house of Saud for all practical purposes may as well all carry US or EU passports, as they syphon off all the money they can, and then store in the US and EU. As a western country that's basically what we want them to do, if they took that money and reinvested in their economy or that of their neighbours we wouldn't have it back (think trade deficits) As it is economically Saudi arabia may as well be part of the US. But long prior to the invasion of Kuwait and the US moving into Saudi he was against what the US puppet in Israel was doing to the Palestinians, the wealth disparity in Saudi between the princes and everyone else, US involvement in southeast asia, Russian control over chechnya, the perceived relations between egypt and the US (hence he was able to merge AQ with the Egyptian IJ)

This is something the lunatic left understands perfectly. The House of Saud are the protrusion of Western imperialism into Saudi, created by Britain (like several middle eastern states) and propped up by their successors in the US. That's the problem. They aren't a government of the people, for the people or anything else, nor, in the best of both worlds old school british system are the people represented. You cannot beat someone into submission, at least not states. Every single rebellion in history has played this out. Either you give them a fair shake or eventually they will come back for it, and the house of Saud is definitely not fair to the people of Saudi arabia or their supposed brothers in the rest of the muslim world who they leave in poverty. France and Germany were at each others throats over the overlapping populations along the rhine, the solution, was first move all of the germans out (since we won WW2), and then push them towards being a single state rendering the issue moot. Indians fought, and lost, a rebellion in 1857, it took them 90 years, but eventually they got independence.

There were lots of mistakes that led to Al qaeda hating the US as much as it does. Some of that was simply not inviting them to be part of the coalition to liberate kuwait, a mistake no one even conceived that we could have been making. Al qaeda offered to do it all, we not only turned them down but insulted them by suggesting they couldn't even participate - something 20 years in hindsight we can see, by definitely had no idea of at the time. Some of it is fundamental and deeply ideological. There are still KKK members in the US, there are still people

We are focused on symptoms and fear

[WillAffleckUW]

Look, the main thing is we forgot that terrorism is a tactic, and let ourselves get swept up in Fear.

From my personal experience (multiple counter-terrorism ops) what works is fairly simple: basic police detective work.

Torture doesn't work. Fear plays into what they want.

Stop living in fear and treat this as we treat natural disasters and food poisoning - don't overreact, don't reduce your freedom or liberty, but do allocate a PORTION of your police resources to proper detective work in tracking them down.

That works. None of what we've done so far does, sadly.

Re:Hold them accountable? Who? Congress?

[gmack]

Two problems with this statement.

1 You can't be sure they are a terrorist while your punching them there have been several people tortured who were, in the end, found innocent.

2 Torture only makes the person say what they think will make you leave them alone. Maybe they confess to something they didn't do or maybe they give you bad intelligence.

In World War two it was discovered that the best way for the allies to get intel from their prisoners on what the Germans were up to was a steak dinner.

Torture is just a violent jerk finding righteous excuses for unconscionable behavior and is counter productive every time.

Many will say that I'm trolling, but ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

The so called acts of "terrorism" against the USA, could be called by another name. They are the resistance. The United States is an empire. it's ok, it's not a bad thing in itself. Embrace what you are. So, there is a resistance. A small, stupid, disorganized, and full of religious fanatics resistance. The fact that the resistance isn't bigger doesn't mean there are not a lot of other people that would like to resist, they just don't think blowing up buildings is the way to resist the empire.

So, when you say "Anti-terrorism" you actually mean "Anti enemies of the empire". What the government is doing is chasing the enemies of the empire. It is doing so using the worth methodologies: fear, violence, persecution, surveillance. And what the US is accomplishing is far from stopping that resistance: It actually gets more people to join in, and causes even more hate against your country.

The UK was once a Huge Empire, and they conquered most of the known world. And nobody hated them as much as everyone hates the US. And many times, what they did was actually far worse than the actions of the US. Then, why is the US hated so much? two reasons: One, people don't like self-righteous fucks. Do what you must, but don't pretend to be the land of the free and home of the whatever anymore. You are an empire. Conquer and STFU. Stop trying to sell the "American" way to everyone. Second: Conquer, but don't destroy. The UK conquered half the world, and now those places are known as Australia, The United States, Canada ... The US, OTOH, conquered Iran, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and those places are the same shitholes they were before. They are actually worse now after you screwed them up. Want their oil? Conquer them, get their oil, and in the process establish there and build trains and schools. The Colony model works, the big country takes the resources and cheap work that they need, and the small startup country grows and learns. Eventually, it becomes independent.

But if you keep conquering, screwing the place up, and then leaving, with the sole goal of selling more weapons and controlling the price of oil, people will hate you mroe and more, and they'll continue trying to blow the fuck out of your country.

Being a self righteous fuck and saying "why does the world hate us" doesn't help. Realizing what you are, and acting in consequence does.

Re:Always surprised me

[Areyoukiddingme]

And lord knows holding those responsible responsible is a novel concept.

I don't know what George Tenet did or didn't do, I don't know how much of a nutball the owner of that site is, and I have no idea if McGovern was good as his job while he was in the business for 27 years, but he was right about that one thing: there are no consequences to being appointed to a prominent US government position and being a fuckup.

That site had a funny smell around the edges and some of McGovern's response starting out seemed pretty hand-wavy, but the part about why the CIA was created and why there's a Director of that organization rang true. Intelligence about Japanese intentions was available, it failed to be correlated, and Pearl Harbor happened. So why did the investigation fail to name names? Why did the 9/11 Commission mumble around with suggestions that didn't involve actual people?

I can think of two answers to that, that are the opposite sides of the same coin. The first being the good old boy network: "George is a good man he is. I know 'cause I see him in passing every Tuesday at my country club. He must be a good man, because I'm a good man, and we're both members of the same clubs and go to the same restaurants and the same shows." The second being everybody on the Commission wanted to believe that each individual in US intelligence was competent, well-meaning, and diligently doing their job. "Aww shucks, he don't mean nuttin'. If he got appointed to that there job, surely he couldn't have done anything wrong. That's unpossible!" They wrote of institutional failure, as if institutions have some existence outside of the people staffing them. The consequences of the two attitudes result in an unholy marriage of cronyism and irresponsibility.

People decry the children of today. Everybody gets a trophy for showing up, everybody wins, everybody is a beautiful and unique snowflake. I've got bad news. It starts at the top, with OLD people. Elementary schools are just falling in line. George Tenet is 57 years old and presided over what was arguably the US's worst intelligence failure of the past 100 years (2402 killed at Pearl Harbor, 2992 killed on 9/11). Judging by his Wikipedia page (which shows evidence of mangling by opposing factions), he's still wealthy and comfortable and happy. They even gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I suppose he got it for showing up.