Kathryn Jean Lopez at the National Review cites a former CIA person who thinks Leon Panetta is a good appointment for DCI simply because he’s an outsider to the agency and would be in a position to break its culture. Panetta wouldn’t be the first appointee to the CIA whose primary qualification was not being from there. If you read the text very carefully though, “Ishmael Jones” isn’t praising Panetta, so much as endorsing what he believes is Obama’s plan to bring it to heel, because he thinks Obama is a jealous taskmaster, unlike GWB who tolerated insubordination out of a “misplaced sense” of loyalty to subordinates.
“Ishmael Jones” is a former deep-cover officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. He is author of The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture, published last year by Encounter Books. I asked him this morning what he thought of the Panetta pick and what Obama should be thinking about the CIA.
Q: Would Leon Panetta have been your CIA chief choice?
A: He’s an excellent choice because he will be loyal to the president first, not to the CIA. Mr. Obama needs someone who can be trusted, a person who will support him when the going gets tough.
A “safe” choice, viewed as inoffensive by the CIA’s top bureaucrats, would have been dangerous. Directors Tenet and Hayden were placid Washington civil servants of neutral loyalties, quickly coopted by the CIA’s bureaucracy. A military officer might have had good leadership experience but would have lacked sound partisan political connections.
The choice is a brave one because it can open Mr. Obama to charges of appointing a loyalist to a crucial post. But that is exactly what is needed at this time.
Q: More generally speaking: Whomever the nominee, what’s the opportunity Obama has to seize when it comes to the CIA?
A: The superbly run Obama campaign showed that the Obama people know how to manage an effective organization. Reform of the CIA can begin simply by requiring the CIA to obey existing laws and directives: 1) The CIA must get its clandestine-service officers out of the United States and spying in and on foreign countries. The great majority of CIA employees now live and work within the U.S. 2) Its clandestine operations should move away from embassies because, unlike the old Soviet targets, terrorists and nuclear proliferators do not attend diplomatic cocktail parties. Congress has already funded this move, but the CIA has not complied. 3) Ruthlessly streamline the bloat. Terrorists have flat chains of command and no bureaucratic turfs. The CIA has dozens of byzantine management layers which, octopus-like, loop back upon themselves. Human-source intelligence collection has been effectively strangled. 4) The CIA must strictly account for the handling of taxpayers’ money, as the law already requires. Post-9/11, the CIA has become a place to get rich for contractors and former managers.
I’m not sure “Jones” is right. The difference between campaigning and governing is the difference between making promises and keeping them. Assuming “Jones” is right then the good news is that a President is finally going to try and control the CIA; the bad news is that President is Barack Obama.
Caroline Glick, speaking at a Center for Security Policy Forum, talks about another kind of ruthlessness, possibly involving Iran’s willingness to deep six Hamas in exchange for breathing room. If Iran abandon’s Hamas, then Olmert and Livni may, against all odds, secure Gaza. Now why would Iran do that? Because, Glick explains, times are tough and there’s only room for one survivor at a time.
in contrast to the situation in 2006, today Iran seems to have little interest in expanding the war and so saving Hamas from military defeat and humiliation. Speaking on Hizbullah’s Al Manar television network on Sunday, Saeed Jalili, the head of Iran’s National Security Council, its chief nuclear negotiator and a close advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, essentially told Hamas that it is on its own.
In his words, “We believe that the great popular solidarity with the Palestinian people as expressed all over the world should reflect on the will of the Arab and Islamic countries and other countries that have an independent will so that these will move in a concerted, cooperative, and cohesive manner to draft a collective initiative that can achieve two main things as an inevitable first step. These are putting an immediate end to aggression and second breaking the siege and quickly securing humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”
In other words, Iran’s response to its great enemy’s the war against its proxy is to suggest forming a commission.
There are many possible explanations for Iran’s actions. First there is the fact that war is an expensive proposition and Iran today is in trouble on that score. In the summer of 2006, oil cost nearly $80 a barrel. Today it is being traded at $46 a barrel. Iran revised its 2009 budget downward on Monday based on the assumption that oil will average $37 a barrel in 2009.
Over the past several months, Iran has been begging OPEC to cut back supply quotas to jack up the price of oil. But, perhaps in the interest of weakening Iran, Saudi Arabia has consistently refused Iran’s requests. To date, OPEC’s cutbacks in supply have been far too small to offset the decrease in demand. And the loss of billions in oil revenues may simply have priced Iran out of running a two-front terror war.
Then too, Washington-based Iran expert Michael Ledeen from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies argued on Monday in his blog at Pajamas Media website that Iran’s apparent decision to sit this war out may well be the result of the regime’s weakness. Its recent crackdown on dissidents – with the execution of nine people on Christmas Day – and the unleashing of regime supporters in riots against the Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Turkish and French embassies as well as the home of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi lends to the conclusion that the regime is worried about its own survival. As Ledeen notes Teheran may view another expensive terror war as a spark which could incite a popular revolution or simply destabilize the country ahead of June’s scheduled presidential elections.
There is also the possibility that Iran simply miscalculated. It believed that ahead of Israel’s February 10 elections, the lame-duck Olmert-Livni-Barak government, which was already traumatized by the 2006 war, would opt not to fight. This would have been a reasonable assumption.
The coin of the political realm is power. It’s sobering to consider that the CIA may care more about the CIA, Obama about Obama and Khamenei about Khamenei than anybody else. As to the public, maybe Ayn Rand was right to cynically observe that everyone was on his own. “The idea that ‘the public interest’ supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.”
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61 Comments
1. 49erDweet:Hmmmm. Didn’t Nixon try the same thing? How that work out?
Jan 6, 2009 - 4:42 pm 2. brian:“He’s an excellent choice because he will be loyal to the president first, not to the CIA. Mr. Obama needs someone who can be trusted, a person who will support him when the going gets tough.”
Jan 6, 2009 - 4:53 pm 3. Peter Boston:Wrong answer.Loyalty to people of the united states of america.Im not pleased so far with Obama.Something smells and i think its corruption within democrat ranks.Thats not to say that republicans arent corrupt.But republicans just lost an election so the economy,wars and mid-east crisis are Obamas now.Funny how he chose to comment on the Russia -georgia conflict during a presidential campaign,but no comment for the gaza conflict.
I have no opinion on Panetta but agree in principle with the appointment of an outsider. The CIA should have been purged of incompetents top to bottom in 2001. Unless it was done outside of public view there did not appear to be many changes.
That being said we have to assume that the CIA has played some significant role in preventing another major domestic attack. So, despite the problems important work is still being done there.
We can only hope that Obama/Panetta do not gut the worker bees that have done what was necessary to get the right kind of information in time to act on it.
Jan 6, 2009 - 4:54 pm 4. History - Cross Eyed:—That being said we have to assume that the CIA has played some significant role in preventing another major domestic attack. … We can only hope that Obama/Panetta do not gut the worker bees that have done what was necessary …—
Man – you’re an optimist.
Jan 6, 2009 - 4:59 pm 5. RWE:Unfortunately, when a bureaucracy purges undesirables they will be, more likely than not, the people who are pointing out the real problems and otherwise failing to “get with the program.”
In government we are in the age in which the Grand Plan and the New Vision supercedes getting the job done. And the Grand Plan always, always includes protecting entrenched empires, while the New Vision invariably means promoting those who are in most fear of being fired.
The prospect of being hanged on the morrow concentrates the mind wonderfully. And those people with the concentrated minds are those who have the most to fear and concentrate on avoiding their fate.
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:17 pm 6. Unsk:Wasn’t Glick just two days ago saying that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government had lost the war by negotiating with Hamas.
Also, GWB seems to have “tolerated insubordination out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to” only moderate and leftist subordinates. Ask Scooter Libby about that loyalty thing.
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:20 pm 7. bob:An excellent choice, from Hill’s point of view, as he’ll be loyal to Hill first. And Obama doesn’t see the tentacles wrapping around him.
Jan 6, 2009 - 6:15 pm 8. lc:You know we’re in trouble (and its getting pretty damn late in the hour) when someone, apparently “in the know” says – we can reform __________ (fill in the blank with your government agency of choice) by simply requiring them to obey existing laws and directives….
Good quote by Rand…it brings to mind the current economic situation with follow-on bailout: “public risk but private profit..”
Jan 6, 2009 - 6:24 pm 9. exhelodrvr:I think this general concept actually works to the U.S.’s advantage, at least for the time being. Obama will be extremely concerned about terrorist attacks against the U.S., and about Afghanistan/Iraq falling to the Islamists, because he knows that he will be hammered with “I told you sos” if that occurs.
Jan 6, 2009 - 6:38 pm 10. Peter Boston:exhelodrvr
Obama’s monstrous ego is the best thing we have going for us. Ego always trumps ideology.
Jan 6, 2009 - 6:50 pm 11. Leo Linbeck III:The difference between campaigning and governing is the difference between making promises and keeping them.
Nicely put. I might also add that it’s the difference between a one-shot, two-player game and a infinitely-repeated, multi-player game. Or between tic-tac-toe and go.
The thing about a campaign is that you can relentlessly focus on a single end: winning the election. With such a clear objective, everyone can be aligned on mission.
What is the equivalent objective of Obama re: the CIA? Reform the agency? Keep the country safe from attacks on US soil? Learn what is happening in hostile regions? Purge disloyal agents? So what do you do with a great spymaster who fails the “loyalty test”?
Hope and change, meet cloak and dagger. Cloak and dagger, meet hope and change. I’m sure you guys will get along famously.
Yeah.
L3
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:03 pm 12. lc:“Jones” demonstrates a prominent characteristic of our intelligence community – how utterly full of themselves they are; destructively so. I hope he was not employed as an analyst. And, he seems to imply that political connections….no, make that “partisan” political connections, are the key ingredient needed to be able to make significant reforms.
“Jones’” answer on the reforms needed are pretty much right on, but they have been said before, repeatedly, elsewhere, repeatedly. Our drive-by intelligence community could give the media a run for its money (literally).
Managing a campaign seems to be Obama’s claim to executive experience, and “Jones” thinks it is significant. I agree with wretchard there is a difference (a big one) between campaigning and governing. I can’t help but think of the proverbial Thanksgiving turkey: Day after day its the same thing: life is great, people are nice to me, feed me this great food, don’t make me run around. Then comes the day before Thanksgiving and whack!
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:04 pm 13. Eggplant:Peter Boston said:
“Obama’s monstrous ego is the best thing we have going for us. Ego always trumps ideology.”
I agree. However if Obama ever gets any breathing room, he’ll use his left wing ideology to advance his ego (that’s when he becomes dangerous). (Un)fortunately Obama will probably never be allowed that bit of breathing room. It’ll be relentless crisis managment until his popularity implodes.
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:05 pm 14. enscout:Obama’s SOP is to do nothing, so how will he be in a constant crisis mode? After all, he has the MSM to ‘handle’ all crises.
So far his cabinet appointments look like a menagerie of clowns. I can’t wait to see how they perform.
Crisis indeed.
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:18 pm 15. Wadeusaf:Much of the questions about mission, may be answered in Obama’s inaugural address. Given the times and the expectations, it may be the only thing that allows anything like a honeymoon to grace the opening days of his administration.
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:50 pm 16. fred:Message to partisans, spys and a message to Pakistan too, will set the tone for what follows. It is difficult to determine given his pledges before the election what to expect of him after the swearing in.
I believe the CIA is broke beyond repair. Sen. Frank Church and the Democrats picked up the gun and shot it. And they made sure it stayed down with the 1978 FISA. Now the Agency is managed by Senate and House committees, which is why no secrets are safe. The CIA is caught in the middle of political wars being waged by ideological antagonists. And it would appear the crypto-Marxists have won this one.
Break it apart and assign many of the pieces to State and Defense.
I don’t think Panetta matters at this point. He’s there to make sure that what the Agency did to President Bush it will not do to President Obama.
I have nothing but bad feelings for the CIA because of what it did to President Bush. As far as I’m concerned, it could go to hell for all I care.
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:53 pm 17. wretchard:Someone who is unable to comment due to computer has emailed me to put this up. His comment is as follows:
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:54 pm 18. Tcobb:The CIA is suffering from bureaucratic necrosis. This happens when you have close-minded people mount to the top of the pyramid. The only people who will then advance in power are people who either (1) share the world view of those at the top, or (2) spineless “yes men” who value their own status in the organization above any and all things, and would gladly agree that 2 + 2 does indeed equal five if that would further their careers. People who do fit within those categories will not advance through the ranks, and once the paradigms upon which the organization functions become outmoded or are shown to be false the “yes men” are the only ones who can rise at all.
The end result is terminal incompetence. The only cure is surgery, beginning with the head and cutting all the way down through middle management.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:16 pm 19. RWE:Fred: You left out Al Gore’s Reinventing Government Act of the 90’s, which mandated a 30% cut in the Federal civilian workforce but which also specified that Congressional directives and laws could not be ignored as a result. So you were free to stop doing some of your mission but still had to put up with the incessant visits from the GAO and all the other Congressional watchdogs. Everyone got hit by that – except Congress, which exempted itself.
One thing to remember is that the Democrats always first accuse the Republicans of doing what they themselves plan to. So you can bet that coloring intelligence assessments with ideology will be Panetta’s Priority No. 1.
Y’all might read “Spy Dust” a book that reveals how the CIA has to spy on itself to figure out why it is doing things. Compartmentilization is a wonderful and terrible thing.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:17 pm 20. peterike:The last two comments preempted most of what I had to say. So I’ll just note I agree, the entire point of Panetta is to prevent the CIA from sabotaging whatever Obama wants to do on the Nat Sec front. It’s a pity Bush was too weak to put a similar pit bull in place. The CIA was against him — and against America’s best interests — from day one. If nothing else, it will be gratifying to see (one hopes) dozens or hundreds of CIA clowns sent home for good.
In any event I think it’s clear that Panetta’s appointment has nothing, zero, to do with national security and everything to do with Obama’s security.
I suspect we’ll get a repeat of the Clinton “500 FBI files” scandal, only we won’t know about it for thirty years.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:26 pm 21. Tom Holsinger:peterike,
Panetta’s secondary mission will be to keep the CIA from obstructing the work done by the rest of the intelligence community.
If this is posted, I was the author of No. 17, and thanks to Wretchard for working around the computer problem I had.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:37 pm 22. fred:One of the tragedies of the last twenty years is that we have been snookered into thinking that we defeated the Soviet Union and that Communism is dead. They’ve been playing possum, putting into action The Andropov Plan. And now the threat is more widespread, with more proxies and allies who are converging. All the world’s totalitarian swine have, for the moment, agreed to put aside their differences and try to take us down.
The strategic threats from this huge alliance are truly frightening, and we don’t have a competent spy agency to deal with it.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:40 pm 23. Alexis:Break it apart and assign many of the pieces to State and Defense.
I like your idea. Normally, I would be concerned that the CIA’s problems would merely migrate to other agencies. However, State and Defense have strong corporate cultures that would likely digest the remnants of the CIA.
This could get interesting.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:48 pm 24. Starling:The urge to self-preservation is as strong in federal bureaucracies as it is in the animal kingdom. Panetta or no Panetta, I would predict that the agency in question will vigorously resist any and all attempts to bring it to heel. To paraphrase a recent and very popular film, There Will Be Pushback.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:50 pm 25. Starling:O/T… the two things you don’t scream in a crowded theater are “FIRE!” and “(It’s Joe) BIDEN!” Perhaps the latter sounds too much like the former and would have the same effect on the moviegoers?
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:56 pm 26. Lifeofthemind:The English despised Benedict Arnold, the disloyal are never trusted, not even by those they transfered their loyalty to. The CIA of Valerie Plame will not find a home even among the conspiratorial apparatchiks who stuffed envelopes and wrote Kos diaries for Obama while dreaming of being Chekisty. Does the United States need an organization such as Ishmael Jones envisions? Absolutely it does and the lack of one has cost American lives. Is there a snowball’s chance in hell that Obama’s people will produce the professional lean focused organization desired? The incoming administration is already set to produce an orgy of competing turf wars, scandals, incompetence and waste. It will not be a movie, lives and liberties will be lost.
We can only hope that there will be a dawn to come. The alternatives may be dhimmi to the Islamists or kow-tow to the Chinese. Which will be the worse fate? When they clash who will survive? If we see India patch up its quarrels with China to face the greater threat then that great divide for the future may happen with surprising speed.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:43 pm 27. Aether:16 Fred is correct, that the CIA has been in a coma since the 70’s. Of course GWB was well aware of this given that his father was it’s Director in the period just after the Church commissions findings were released
and the thing about a really competent spy agency is, you wouldn’t know of it’s existence.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:54 pm 28. Dave:Hmmm? If Obama had real savvy, he would have called Charlie Wilson out of retirement to head Completely Inept and Assinine.
The Rhinoceros charges. In Sept 1990, Atlantic magazine published a mastrerful piece by famed Orientalist Bernard Lewis on the Roots of Muslim Rage.
Right now, the Kapalan article at pajamasmedia
has a link to Lewis on the sidebar.
It should be mandatory reading for everyone here.
Wretch, can You post and summarize it?
Jan 6, 2009 - 11:32 pm 29. Kirk Parker:I daresay the Pope has absorbed its message,
that is why he has been able to do what he has done.
Aether (27):
“the thing about a really competent spy agency is, you wouldn’t know of it’s existence.”
So maybe we do have one, then?
Jan 6, 2009 - 11:33 pm 30. wretchard:The Kaplan article like some of the stuff Caroline Glick has just written essentially argues that Iran seems weak. Glick in particular says she may “eat her hat” because Iran, contrary to her expectation has remained curiously passive in the face Israel’s Gaza incursion. (It occurred to me Barack Obama has been strikingly silent, the dog that didn’t bark in the night, but that’s another story).
At any rate, the theory is that while Iran is strong abroad it is very weak domestically. It’s anti-American line plays well with the media, but at home it is said to be teetering, especially now that oil prices are so low. Kaplan suggests that an Israeli success in Gaza could humiliate Iran and precipitate a cascading effect.
Personally, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s possible to know such things in advance, although I do agree with the assessment that Iran is an idol with feet of clay. If Iran does come a-cropper, it will pull the rug out from underneath a number of agendas because you can’t do a deal with a dead man. The Western “partners for peace” have a disconcerting habit of going belly up, whether it be Arafat, Musharraf or Abbas. Here today gone tomorrow. Just like all those wise and sophisticated former plans to do a deal with the Sunni insurgency which have been rendered moot by the fact of their defeat, schemes to enter into a grand bargain with Teheran will be kind of silly if the regime collapses in the meantime.
Essentially Glick is saying that her gloomy prognostications to the contrary, Olmert and Livni may win the bout in spite of their desire to take a fall if Kid Khamenei doesn’t show up at all.
Well who knows? I for one don’t.
Jan 6, 2009 - 11:46 pm 31. twobyfour:@ 24. Starling
Yep, regardless that it has been taken over by crypto-commies, it still has its culture and its turf. And it may be Leon Trotsky himself trying to tie them to a by-the-book rule set… they won’t take it magnanimously and get him one way or another. GWB knew, it was not a matter of weakness, but a pragmatic assessment of the situation–why stir a hornet nest?
Jan 6, 2009 - 11:50 pm 32. Nomenklatura:The inevitable consequence of the CIA’s decision to attack George Bush was that any incoming President would have to focus from the outset on shrinking its influence, and on getting the actual job of national security done elsewhere in the Administration.
Even as an Obama opponent, a conservative and someone who is no fan of Panetta’s, I welcome this appointment. The CIA is a pit of snakes, and Panetta will do well to fight them to a draw.
The commenter who emailed in comment #17 has an unusually detailed and accurate grasp of how this all works.
Jan 7, 2009 - 12:01 am 33. twobyfour:Richard, funding proxies is not cheap, and in times when revenue dries up, one would think whether the arm and a leg is worth it. Given choice, Hezbies are shi’te more closer to ayatollahs’ heart and the circumstances dictate Hamas their ass. They would find some other outlet when the circumstances allow.
Jan 7, 2009 - 12:06 am 34. twobyfour:@ 32. Nomenklatura
The general impression is that they attacked GWB. I say it was just a triangulation, a preemptive posturing and bit of war games. They (them) get their pound of flesh when push comes to shove.
The only rational and workable way to deal with them (they) is to defund and close for good. There are good people still working in Langley, the actual working staff pouring over satellite images and such (as opposed to upper plotting echelons) and they may be transferred to other agencies.
Jan 7, 2009 - 12:15 am 35. Contrarian:I recommend reading Tim Weiner’s book “Legacy of Ashes.” It is a history of the CIA from it’s inception under Wild Bill Donovan through it’s dismal performance with the 9/11 attack. In Weiner’s words, the book “describes how the most powerful country in the history of Western civilization has failed to create a first-rate spy service” and that this “constitutes a danger to the national security of the United States.”
A constant theme is how little Presidents and Intelligence Directors seem to know about the real inner workings of the Agency and how unsuccessful their attempts to reform it have been. The very nature of a spy service is subterfuge and disinformation, and the Agency has used these qualities to effectively deflect attempts to reform it.
Jan 7, 2009 - 12:56 am 36. JFSanders:The CIA is the intelligence community’s way of keeping the romper room occupied and out of their hair.
Jim
Jan 7, 2009 - 5:13 am 37. bvw:Wretchard’s anon wrote “Panetta’s first priority is to prevent the CIA from sabotaging the Obama administration the way it did the Bush administration.”
That makes the most sense of all.
Jan 7, 2009 - 5:31 am 38. Jim in Virginia:Panetta will be loyal to a person and not to the CIA as an institution. But which person? He has a much longer history with the Clintons than with Obama. Does that make him more or less loyal to Bill, Hillary, or Obama?
Jan 7, 2009 - 5:35 am 39. Peter Boston:I can’t guess whether this is about rewarding your friends; or keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. I’m pretty sure that Obama did not name Panetta to the CIA because he is the most qualified candidate. Then again, maybe Obama isn’t quite as smart as everyone thinks he is.
Just the fact that we have the CIA with its annual budget of untold billions of dollars working independently for or against the administration, as it sees fit, is reason enough to never elect to public office, anywhere, any person who has attended Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Columbia.
If the patricians are not in office they cannot appoint fellow patricians to high government positions. Break the cycle and take back the culture.
Jan 7, 2009 - 5:57 am 40. Jim in Virginia:A couple more thoughts after reading all the comments. There’s a theory that the Russians weren’t sure whether Reagan was brillaint or crazy; after Grenada and the Libya bombing no one was quite sure what he would do, and by the time they figured him out, it was too late- for the Soviets at least.
Jan 7, 2009 - 6:12 am 41. Jim in Virginia:Hamas spokesman said a few days ago that if they’d known the Israelis would invade on this scale, they would have renewed the truce. Maybe Olmert has spooked the Iranians.
On the other hand, maybe everyone is waiting for one of the other guys to go first. India/ Pakistan, Iran, threatened retaliation by Hamas, Egypt, the Euroweenies, and a new US administration in 13 days. Why go first when you can take advantage of potential chaos? If things turn really bad it will be Wrtechard’s cascade- really bad in a lot of places.
Why is Obama silent? He knows he’s not in charge yet. Anything he says now will constrain him later, and give Bush and others reason to blame him for anything that goes wrong before January 2o. Maybe he is as smart as people think.
39 Peter Boston: Add Dartmouth, Georgeotown Law, and Sidwell Friends.
Jan 7, 2009 - 6:15 am 42. SShiell:Also remember Panetta was Clinton’s Chief of Staff when Clinton authorized the use of Rendition as US policy – a policy incorrectly attributed to Bush as its initiator. Obama will be able to do all of the things the Bush Administration has done to keep the country safe while silencing the Left at the same time. With this administration, waterboarding will be commonplace but not common knowledge for 30 years.
Jan 7, 2009 - 6:22 am 43. Ari Tai:Necrosis. What makes anyone think any other agency of the federal government is in better shape? They all sit in the same soup of congressional rules, mandates, personnel management, including what’s rewarded and what behavior is punished – institutions where quality of process is measured, seldom results. Where there are few rewards (mostly downside) for using intellect and judgment.
Jan 7, 2009 - 6:56 am 44. Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Wednesday Highlights:[...] Mr Fernandez considers Mr Panetta’s appointment. [...]
Jan 7, 2009 - 7:04 am 45. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e49v3:[...] Mr Fernandez considers Mr Panetta’s appointment. [...]
Jan 7, 2009 - 7:05 am 46. Jay:The Federal government is corrupt at the top and even in the middle layers. Senior bureaucrats expect to retire with a wealth much higher than what they can save from their salaries.
Jan 7, 2009 - 7:09 am 47. joe buzz:It is convenient to say that Russia, China, and Iran are not real threats. Iran really is but the CIA has played the threat down.
The game becomes interesting when reality intrudes on the new New Deal.
Ah yes. One of the “journalists” on NBC mentioned yesterday that Panetta is a good choice as he will not support GW’s torture and rendition policies. The media is desperately trying to rewrite history with their ignorance and lack of research. If Di Fi is as bitter as she sounds about not being consulted she should ask Mr. P how he feels about the policies of his former cigar dipping boss.
Jan 7, 2009 - 7:54 am 48. Dave:Wretchard: Thanks for the Kaplan/Glick comments.
BUT: The Bernard Lewis article from 1990
is what I consider the important one.
And it is as timely now as it was then.
Dave
Jan 7, 2009 - 10:22 am 49. Roderick Reilly:“”"”"”"”5. RWE:
Unfortunately, when a bureaucracy purges undesirables they will be, more likely than not, the people who are pointing out the real problems and otherwise failing to “get with the program.””"”"”"”"
This is correct. My late father was purged from the CIA after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. My father had nothing to do with bay of Pigs or Cuba, as his focus was the Soviet Union and European communism. Oh, and unlike Plame, my father was an actual spy.
Does Leon Panetta have the desire and ability to purge the CIA from the top? And, if so, will he know to find out first who the really effective CIA folks are whose first loyalty is to Country, and whom he can move in to replace the purged?
Frankly, I have more confidence in being able to graft workable wings on pigs.
Jan 7, 2009 - 1:47 pm 50. Tom Holsinger:Rod,
You assume that Obama expects to get intelligence value from the CIA. Panetta’s selection is pretty good evidence that Obama does not expect anything but grief from the CIA. He chose Panetta to limit the damage the CIA does, not to make the CIA better.
IMO the objective of any purges within the CIA, during the Obama administration, will be to keep the survivors so busy playing musical chairs that they’ll have little, or at least less, opportunity to cause trouble for Obama or interfere with the productive work done by the rest of the intelligence community.
Jan 7, 2009 - 3:21 pm 51. lc:Dave – can you supply a link the the Lewis article? Thanks.
Jan 7, 2009 - 3:46 pm 52. slade:The Roots of Muslim Rage
Jan 7, 2009 - 5:41 pm 53. lc:Slade, thanks!
Jan 7, 2009 - 6:33 pm 54. slade:lc: I read the piece a while back. It’s a structural insuffiency in Islam more than a geopolitical mismaneuver.
In my view.
Althought both contribute.
Jan 7, 2009 - 7:17 pm 55. NahnCee:Isn’t Panetta a Clintonite? I haven’t been paying *that* much attention, but it seems to me that a lot of the people being appointed by Obama are ex-Clinton people.
Surely that will mean that Bill and Hill will have an inside track on everything those people are telling Obama, and may know before Obama about this, that or the other thing. Who would Panetta tell first, for example, if the CIA overheard someone describing Obama spending time in a Pakistani madrassah and being a Muslim? Or if the CIA were able to track donations into Obama’s campaign chest from the same Saudi princes who are funding Al-Queda both by proxy Americans and via internet donations.
I don’t understand why Obama would set himself up like this.
Jan 7, 2009 - 7:46 pm 56. Dave:Thank you Slade. Linking is one of the things I have not learned how to do.
Sooner or later I will have to learn how to procrastinate.
lc: As that Lewis piece was written before the current fracas got started, it gives a
clearer view (IMO) of the fundamentals of
the human actions involved.
Back in late 2001, T. R. Fehrenbach penned
a column about “Ancient History and the struggle for the soul of Islam”. Copy NOT
available today, drat it.
Thrust of that one was that Wahab and the Wahabis gained credence when the Ottoman Sultan ceded Hungary to the Hapsburgs of Austria. It was a proper geo-political move
that rocked Islam up one side and down the other. (Imagine what we would feel like if James Dobson suddenly engaged in a same-sex marriage with Pat Robertson.)
The Wahabis grew like wildfire and then made such a nuisance of themselves that they got chased into the Saudi desert where they were able to do no harm until it was found that there was where Allah put the oil.
BTW, there wasn’t a USA when the Sultan went heretical on them, nor was there an Israel.
So why do these two get blamed? Lewis explores those reasons.
And the next big blow to Islam’s fanatics was after WW1 when Kernal Attaturk did away with the caliphate and instituted the modern Turkish state. This came about because the Sultan had allied himself with the Kaiser in order to spread the Peace of Allah. And it took Satan Himself—–officially called Pershing—–to thwart that noble endeavor.
Jan 7, 2009 - 9:14 pm 57. davod:You know, we do manage to grow the best Demonic Doughboys of them all.
“I recommend reading Tim Weiner’s book “Legacy of Ashes.” It is a history of the CIA from it’s inception under Wild Bill Donovan through it’s dismal performance with the 9/11 attack. ”
It is my understanding that Weiner’s book is just that, a whine. He covered all the mistakes without any of the successes .
Jan 8, 2009 - 12:18 am 58. davod:General comment: I get the feeling the Clintons have something on Obama. Why else would so many Clintonites be coming back into govenmet. Most were just not that good the first time around.
WRT Panetta: Panetta will not be able to stop the CIA screwing with Obama’s foreign policy, only seek retribution after the fact.
Of course, who is to say that the CIA will not agree with Obama’s policies.
Jan 8, 2009 - 12:26 am 59. twobyfour:@ 58. davod
Of course, who is to say that the CIA will not agree with Obama’s policies.
A good point. 0 and CIA both firmly planted on the left. But so were nazis and communists, and commies hunted down social democrats ans socialists without mercy, when numbers and levers of power were on their side.
And 0 by his nomination already declared a war.
Jan 8, 2009 - 1:40 am 60. lc:As usual I’m way late in the thread, but anyways:
Slade @54 – I think you are right re: structural flaw as a feature of Islam.
From what I’ve seen Lewis is the best scholar on Islam in the U.S. – I believe he is fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, and probably also Turkish and probably Greek too I would guess. I like him for his understanding of the West as it relates to Islam (and vice versa), and his respect and appreciation for Islam is a good foil to my increasingly negative view of Islam.
I’m sure you have heard the story about how, for some ceremony during the Clinton administration, Lewis was asked for a quote about peace from the Koran. He gave them one and everyone was happy. A couple of years later, for another ceremony (could that scumbag Arafat have been involved?) they asked him for another quote about peace, again from the Koran. He complied, and when they realized it was the same one as before, they asked Lewis for another. He replied, “There is no other.”
And of course there are the 3 inequalities…3 relationships firmly established by practice and tradition, as as Lewis says, “sanctified by Holy Writ”: believer/infidel, master/slave, and man/woman. Lewis points out that the infidel can become a believer, the slave can be freed, but the woman is always a woman.
Islam is the perfect warrior mythology – spare, self abnegating, everything is spelled out, your enemies are clear, your God, your family and your tribe are at the center of your life….and you get all the girls!
Jan 8, 2009 - 2:37 pm 61. Dave:lc: What we have to do is let them know that
they will get to spend ALL ETERNITY with
SEVENTY-TWO——–Rosie O’Donnels.
Immediate reform will follow.
Jan 9, 2009 - 2:22 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.