My response is taken from today's Wall Street Journal, in toto and without
comment. See URL: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001164
============================================================================
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THE HISTORY
How We Got Here
First we crippled the CIA. Then we blamed it.
BY TOM CLANCY
Tuesday, September 18, 2001 12:01 a.m.
We know now that America has been the victim of a large, well-planned, and
well-executed terrorist act. The parameters are yet to be fully explored,
but that won't stop the usual suspects from pontificating (and, yes, that
includes me) on what happened and what needs to be done as a result. A few
modest observations:
* As I write this we only know the rough outlines of what has taken place.
We do not know exactly who the perpetrators were, though we have heard from
Vice President Dick Cheney that there is "no question" that Osama bin Laden
had a role. But many groups may have been involved, and we do not know their
motivation, or for whom or for what particular objective they worked.
* "Don't know" means "don't know" and nothing more. Absent hard information,
talking about who it must have been and what we need to do about it is a
waste of air and energy. To discern the important facts, we have the Federal
Bureau of Investigation as our principal investigative agency, and the
Central Intelligence Agency (along with National Security Agency and the
Defense Intelligence Agency) as our principal foreign-intelligence services.
Getting the most important information is their job, not the job of the news
media, which will only repeat what they are told. Gathering this information
will take time, because we need to get it right.
* Terrorism is a political act, performed for political objectives. The
general aim of terrorism is to force changes in the targeted society through
the shock value of the crime committed. Therefore, if we make radical
changes in how our country operates, the bad guys win. We do not want that
to happen. Whoever planned this operation is watching us right now, and they
are probably having a pretty good laugh. We can't stop that. What we can do
is to maintain that which they most hate, which is a free society. We've
worked too hard to become what we are, and we can't allow a few savages to
change it for us.
Next, our job is to take a step back, take a deep breath and get to work
finding out who it was, where they are, and what to do about it.
Terrorism is a crime under the civil law when committed by domestic
terrorists; it can be an act of war when committed by foreigners. For
domestic criminals we have the FBI and police. For acts of war we have our
intelligence community and the military. In either case we have well-trained
people to do the work. If we let them do their job, and give them the
support they need, the job will get done as reliably as gravity.
The foreign-source option seems the most likely at this time. The first line
of defense in such a case is the intelligence community. The CIA is an
agency of about 18,000 employees, of whom perhaps 800 are field-intelligence
officers--that is, the people who go out on the street and learn what people
are thinking, not how many tanks they have parked outside (we have
satellites to photograph those).
I've been saying for a lot of years that this number is too small. American
society doesn't love its CIA, for the same reason that it doesn't always
love its cops. We too often regard them as a threat to ourselves rather than
our enemies. Perhaps these incidents will make us rethink that.
The best defense against terrorist incidents is to prevent them from
happening. You do that by finding out what a potential enemy is thinking
before he is able to act. What the field intelligence officers do is no
different from what Special Agent Joe Pistone of the FBI did when he
infiltrated the mafia under the cover name of Donnie Brasco. The purpose of
these operations is to find out what people are thinking and talking about.
However good your satellites are, they cannot see inside a human head. Only
people can go and do that.
But America, and especially the American news media, does not love the CIA
in general and the field spooks in particular. As recently as two weeks ago,
CBS's "60 Minutes" regaled us with the hoary old chestnut about how the CIA
undermined the leftist government of Chile three decades ago. The effect of
this media coverage, always solicitous to leftist governments, is to brand
the CIA an antiprogressive agency that does Bad Things.
In fact, the CIA is a government agency, subject to the political whims of
whoever sits in the White House and Congress. The CIA does what the
government of which it is a part tells it to do. Whatever evil the CIA may
have done was the result of orders from above.
The Chilean event and others (for example, attempts to remove Fidel Castro
from the land of the living, undertaken during the presidency of JFK, rather
more rarely reported because only good came from Camelot) caused the late
Sen. Frank Church to help gut the CIA's Directorate of Operations in the
1970s. What he carelessly left undisturbed then fell afoul of the Carter
administration's hit man, Stansfield Turner. That capability has never been
replaced.
It is a lamentably common practice in Washington and elsewhere to shoot
people in the back and then complain when they fail to win the race. The
loss of so many lives in New York and Washington is now called an
"intelligence failure," mostly by those who crippled the CIA in the first
place, and by those who celebrated the loss of its invaluable capabilities.
What a pity that they cannot stand up like adults now and say: "See, we
gutted our intelligence agencies because we don't much like them, and now we
can bury thousands of American citizens as an indirect result." This, of
course, will not happen, because those who inflict their aesthetic on the
rest of us are never around to clean up the resulting mess, though they seem
to enjoy further assaulting those whom they crippled to begin with.
Call it the law of unintended consequences. The intelligence community was
successfully assaulted for actions taken under constitutionally mandated
orders, and with nothing left to replace what was smashed, warnings we might
have had to prevent this horrid event never came. Of course, neither I nor
anyone else can prove that the warnings would have come, and I will not
invoke the rhetoric of the political left on so sad an occasion as this.
But the next time America is in a fight, it is well to remember that tying
one's own arm is unlikely to assist in preserving, protecting and defending
what is ours.
Mr. Clancy is a novelist.
Copyright � 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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-----Original Message-----
From: Great Cthulhu Jones [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 12:04 PM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: RE: my 2 cents
Please, Carlos.
Anyone grieving does not need such things at this time. Save such things for
later, when minds are not in shock and the cruel grip of death does not hold
us as tightly.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Velazquez, Carlos F [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:24 AM
> To: Exchange Discussions
> Subject: my 2 cents
>
>
> The world, not just the US, has just changed. Assume we will be on war
> footing for the next several months. The news is reporting as
> I type that
> terrorist organizations are saying that not all attacks are over.
>
> Expect all sorts of shortages in fuel, food, etc. Nationwide
> curfews are in
> the offing and should be implemented immediately. This "me" or "X" or
> whatever generation has just learned a tough lesson: those
> that fail to heed
> history are doomed to repeat it. This is Pearl Harbor all
> over again, except
> it is worse.
>
> We have grown fat, inattentive, complacent, naively thinking
> the rest of the
> world hold the same values and respect for human life that we
> have. Now we
> know better.
>
> This is a massive incomprehensible failure in intelligence.
> The liberals
> gutted the CIA & the FBI in the 70's and we are now reaping
> the rewards.
>
> The only way to have and preserve peace is to be always ready
> for conflict
> and to have the gonads to follow up and implement what we
> have learned from
> the hard lessons of history.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Allhiser [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:02 AM
> To: Exchange Discussions
> Subject: RE: Terrible disasters and an expression of
> sympathetic grief.
>
>
> If we step back a moment from the horrific events happening,
> we realize that
> the world has changed abruptly this morning. The United
> States is at war,
> (officially or not) and it is for the first time that it has
> affected the
> mainland since 1812.
>
> God help us all...
>
> John Allhiser MCSE CCNA
> Network Engineer
> Business Men's Assurance
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Velazquez, Carlos F [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:05 AM
> To: Exchange Discussions
> Subject: RE: Terrible disasters and an expression of
> sympathetic grief.
>
>
> plane just crashed at Camp David
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Monteleone-Haught Matt - Millville
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:56 AM
> To: Exchange Discussions
> Subject: RE: Terrible disasters and an expression of
> sympathetic grief.
>
>
> Does anyone know if the Wired Magazine is located in the
> World Trade Center?
>
>
> >>>-----Original Message-----
> >>>From: Orr, Dale L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> >>>Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:00 AM
> >>>To: Exchange Discussions
> >>>Subject: RE: Terrible disasters and an expression of
> >>>sympathetic grief.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Very thoughtful of you, Dean. We have all lost someone
> >>>today: the person we
> >>>woke up as. And I doubt if we'll ever see them again. Our
> >>>thoughts and
> >>>prayers are with the victims.
> >>>
> >>>Dale L. Orr
> >>>Network Administrator
> >>>DoD Polygraph Institute
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>-----Original Message-----
> >>>From: Great Cthulhu Jones [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> >>>Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:47 AM
> >>>To: Exchange Discussions
> >>>Subject: Terrible disasters and an expression of sympathetic grief.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Let me step out from behind the curtain to say I feel deep
> >>>shock and grief
> >>>for those of you who are affected by the disasters happening
> >>>today. Some of
> >>>you are only in shock; others have lost dear ones. Some of
> >>>the people on
> >>>this list may have been injured or killed, even.
> >>>
> >>>The enormity of this day overwhelms us all. The images,
> >>>reports, and losses
> >>>touch every human deeply. Let me offer myself as someone you
> >>>can correspond
> >>>with, should you have any need. Many of you placed
> >>>yourselves at my disposal
> >>>during my time of loss: I am here for you, should you need
> >>>in your time of
> >>>loss.
> >>>
> >>>It is peacemaking and sharing of grief that keeps us human.
> >>>
> >>>You can reach me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>>
> >>>Dean Webb
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>_________________________________________________________________
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>
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