HerbEly

Washington Monthly Misses the point

The Washington Monthly misses the point in its report on Sandy Berger.

“....Sandy Berger may have foolishly removed copies of some classified documents during his trips to the National Archives last year, but that's all they were: copies. The originals are still safe and sound and the 9/11 Commission has "seen everything that the archives saw."

There are two issues here:
1. Did Sandy Berger withhold information from the 9/11 commission?
2. Did Sandy Berger, the former national security advisor in the white House, remove classified material from a secure facility.
If he removed copies, he removed classified material. If I, or any of my colleagues, had done that I would have been jailed, fined or at least fired.

The 9/11 Report: an Analyst’s Perspective on Impact of the Media

Cal Thomas raises an interesting issue: the impact of the media on the intelligence community. From my own experience, during the cold war the media had multiple impacts on intelligence. These included collection, analysis and distribution.

The analytical community respected, and envied, reporters from the major newspapers for their access and expertise. They were on-site collectors and got immediate distribution to the White House, the Pentagon and Congress. While we often disagreed with them we knew that our primary customers – the “decision makers” in the Pentagon, the Executive Office and the congress would read them. One of our concerns, especially after CNN and the 24-hour news cycle, was that they would get the news from the media without perspective from intelligence community

Kerry, Bush & the "Catholic Vote"

Over on Beliefnet, Steven Waldman captures the political situation on two deft paragraphs:

"Figuring out whither the Catholic vote this year is complicated by two ironic facts. First, the Protestant candidate is closer to the Catholic Church position on abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage than the Catholic candidate. Second, the candidate at odds with the Catholic Church is more in synch with the majority of Catholic voters.

Gaming this out politically is complicated. The Republicans are going hard after Catholics who attend church regularly. That's about 9 percent of the electorate. Right now, Bush is beating Kerry among those Catholics. But an analysis by Stanley Greenberg, Clinton's 1992 pollster, showed that while church-attending Catholics are breaking for Bush--very bad news for Kerry--those who attend less often are moving toward Kerry."

Spider-Man: Samaritan, Victim, or Passerby?

In the film Spider-Man II Peter Parker plays all three roles in the Good Samaritan story (Luke 10:25-37). The film character of Peter Parker/Spider-man (Tobey Mcguire) can be seen as Samaritan, the Passerby, and as the victim on the side of the road. The apparent villain, Dr. Octavius (Alfred Molina) starts out as an idealistic scientist who falls prey to the temptation to power (Luke 4:6). He is, however, only a tool manipulated by the real villain, Harry (James Franco). The one real hero in the film is Peter Parker’s girlfriend Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) who rescues him and makes him whole – at least until Spider-Man III.

Before reflecting on the message, I should note that the film is just plain comic book level fun. It has spectacular action and Kirsten Dunst is beautiful.

9/11 Report: Further Preliminary Perspective

The 9/11 Report arrived this morning, reliably delivered by Amazon, just as 17 of the 19 members of our family reunion departed. Before delving into it, I have a brief comment on today’s column by William Raspberry. He quotes Ray McGovern, of a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. (The words “for sanity” tell me that this group has a definite agenda.) Rasperry writes that the 9/11 report:
“…acknowledges the obvious, but it manages to avoid any semblance of individual responsibility. "The lamp broke," a child might say. Or, as the report would have it, the "system" failed.”

Further quoting McGovern

“And the truth as he sees it is that the commission has made two errors in judgment -- first, the refusal to place responsibility for intelligence shortcomings on particular individuals and, second, the attempt to repair the damage by proposing creation of a super spy chief, perhaps with Cabinet rank.”

While I sympathize with the first criticism, I disagree: the problem, as I have written earlier is one of corporate culture. While it is true that there individuals who should have been more active in changing the culture, it is also true that no one individual, including the first President Bush, Clinton, and the second President Bush could have made all the necessary changes by themselves. Corporate problems can be solved only by corporate effort – Congress, Executive and intelligence professionals. Systemic change takes time and effort.

The second criticism may be on the mark. A cabinet rank spy chief might make the problems worse, instead of better.

The 9/11 Report: Perspective of Senior Intelligence Analyst

We are about to be blessed with a visit from four nephew’s, a niece, spouses and children as well as our four children, spouse, fiancé, and granddaughter. A real blessing on our 38th anniversary.

I’ve ordered the 9/11 Commission Report and will have more to say. I will write from my perspective as a retired senior intelligence analyst, supervisor of a group analyzing Soviet weapons programs, and a graduate of the US Army War College. There are number of issues involved, including the application of the Just War doctrine, the Weinberger doctrine, and proper practice of spirituality in the workplace.

Good analysts rely on pattern recognition and must be willing to state conclusions for decision makers, even before complete evidence is available. For the moment, it will suffice to point out that the 9/11 report touches on some themes already discussed in my previous postings:

1. The war on terrorism is a misleading metaphor. War assumes an organized enemy and a definite center of gravity. Once it is found and destroyed further enemy action is physically impossible. We need to get this right in order to know how to expend forces and use other elements of national power (diplomatic, economic, informational).
2. The main failure was a failure of imagination.
3. Institutions (corporate, church, and government) tend to resist unpleasant or unfamiliar information so strongly that they can be said to be in denial.
4. Any reform will need to involve congress and the executive branch, much as the Goldwater Nichols reform did for defense after Vietnam and Lebanon

More later. Right now we are busy getting our house safe for toddlers, cleaning up after our basement renovations and stocking supplies essential for 18 people – including milk, TP, beer, wine and a birthday cake for our son, Paul.

Equal Justice in Applying Security Regulations

The apparent willingness of Sandy Berger to exempt himself from the regulations for handling classified documents leads me into a “rant and rave”. Since life is busy right now (see previous post), I’ll be short. I can remember the great care with which we handled the Kuklinski documents. I can remember mid level employees being reprimanded for mishandling classified documents. I can remember commanding officers transferring and reprimanding colonels and majors for sexually harassing subordinates. I wonder if the rules would now be applied with equal vigor.

The US Army field manual for Senior (i.e. 3 star and above) leaders has a chapter on ethics. It underlines the importance of establishing an ethical climate.

When the commander in chief can harass interns and his chief advisors can mishandle classified documents the ethical climate is compromised. Should we be surprised that subordinates are unwilling to challenge flawed intelligence assessments and that bad decisions are made?

End of rant.

Party (Family Reunion) Time

We are preparing for a visit by 4 nephews, a niece and our three sons and daughter plus spouses, a fiancé and grandchildren. Things will be a bit busy and only a few postings over the next few days. We are blessed – and busy.

French Literary Theory on Harry Potter

Normally I would pay no attention to this, given my general suspicion of literary theory. However, yesterday’s NYT has a story about the worldview implicit in Harry Potter. Are our children absorbing a viewpoint that government bureaucracy is bad and entrepreneurial capitalism is good?

I also have refrained from posting on the Harry Potter teaches witchcraft and is anti-Christian theme. If you want to comment on this story, please stay out of the witchcraft discussion.

Did Alexander the Great Die from West Nile Virus?

Teams of medical investigators are questioning whether Alexander the Great died from poison, as long suspected, or from a disease. According to a WaPo story this morning medical investigators at U of MD and UVA have examined historical accounts of Alex’s final illness. The prevailing theory was that he did of typhoid fever, However, it seems that a flock of ravens fell close to him before he took ill. Were these ravens sick? Did Plutarch see the ravens as an omen after the fact?

I always respect people who are willing to challenge the convetional wisdom. Read more.