PrintMay 11, 2007
Trivializing National Security
Yesterday, House Democrats once again showed the electorate why they cannot be entrusted with the nation's national security. Incredibly, the Democrats are insisting that the Intelligence Authorization Act include a provision funding a global warming study. Texas Democrat Silvestre Reyes, Intelligence Committee Chairman preposterously argued that "this is an area we may vulnerable in terms of potential terrorists."
I understand many terrorists claim a special hot-line to God, but to date I have yet to see any evidence of a connection. So let me get this straight, Democrats believe there is a link between terrorists and global warming but not Al Qa'eda and Iraq. And those Chlorine Bombs they are now blowing up in Iraq, no they're not WMD.
Mr. Reyes and other Democrats claim that nearly a dozen Generals support the plan.
As usual, the Democrats found some shills at the Pentagon to give their boondoggle a veneer of legitimacy. Vice Admiral Richard Truly, former commander of the Navy Space Command said he believes global warming issue is urgent. To pass the straight face test, Truly clarified his position,
"Its an issue, not in the sense the climate is going to declare war on the United States its not that kind of problem but its slowly building stress and its time to build into the nation's security planning."
No word from Democrats or their pliant Generals on the rapidly building stress being caused by their instant failure to fund the troops on the battlefield.
Fortunately, there are serious voices objecting to this farce. Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the committee called the global warming intelligence funding "inappropriate." He said, "It sends exactly the wrong signal"
Yes, I think the CIA already has a full portfolio. What with tracking nukes in North Korea and Iran not to mention numerous security threats all over the World, anyone of which could morph into the next 9/11. This is hardly the first time the Democrats have hijacked national security for their own selfish political interests. A look back at the CIA's public website provides ample evidence of this.
The public press release pages are mainly reserved for links to major public announcements like the opening of a new language school, newspaper op-eds, public media interviews by the Director, courteous salutations, and retirement testimonials. During the Clinton Administration some of the public announcements betrayed how unserious the Commander in Chief was about intelligence and national security.
In October of 1994, the CIA announced with great fanfare that they were reinventing government. Hallelujah, Clinton had them joining the global war against, drum-roll please, breast cancer. This is a critical part of the CIA's mission? How does this advance national security?
It may not be critical to national security but it was important to Clinton's electoral security. Pandering to the women's vote was an imperative. With characteristically hyperbolic rhetoric, CIA Director Woolsey commented
"what we are trying to do is to use tools developed to protect the lives of 250,000,000 Americans toward also using them to help save the lives of a substantial share of the 46,000 women who die annually of breast cancer."
From the pinnacle of near perfect ignorance, Woolsey further declared
"Breast cancer is a problem of pressing national importance. Reinvention of government applies in our community as much as it does in the rest of the federal government."
See, breast cancer is a national security issue, Director Woolsey says so.
In June of 1995, Clinton couldn't pass up this chance to rile up the female voters, announcing the CIA settlement of a Class Action Suit brought by female CIA case officers. This was great for Clinton, a twofer: the trial lawyers and the gals.
I wonder if that world famous spy, Valerie Plame got in on this action.?
In December the CIA announced a technology sharing agreement with Navajo Indian Nation. This was after the election, perhaps it was a payback by Clinton for a tribal campaign contribution. Needless to say, this hardly enhanced national security. It did distract from the mission.
In October of 1999, the Central Intelligence Agency hosted a premiere screening of Showtime and Paramount Network Television spy thriller, In The Company Of Spies. Staging movie premieres at CIA headquarters, this is just perfect. For Clinton, the whole idea was to fool people into thinking they were actually interested in the serious business of intelligence, when in reality it was all just an act. How better to accomplish this than producing a propaganda film about the CIA's heroics. Things must have been a little slow out in Langley, for the press release indicates 50 agency employees volunteered as extras.
I wonder if this when super spy Valerie Plame got the movie bug?
Most assuredly, a few CIA public press releases are not sufficient proof of the apparent institutional breakdown at the agency. But these are merely the most egregious examples; there is much more. There is however, a great deal of other evidence that suggests just how badly the CIA lost its way under Clinton. This is well documented in an eerily précis cent piece from Insight Magazine written days before 9/11/2001 by J. Michael Waller titled "Ground Down CIA Still In the Pit." In it, Waller details the near collapse of the CIA under Clinton. Bloated management staffs, crippled human intel capability, an ossified bureaucracy, excessive out-sourcing to foreign intelligence agencies, defective quality control, rampant security breaches, ill motivated leaks of classified material to the press, a high level cover up of former director John Deutch's negligent handling of classified material, and gross politicization of the agency by Clinton political appointees.
It is difficult to imagine how the CIA could have been any more broken at 9/11.
Illustrating just how far the CIA had deviated from their core basic intelligence-gathering mission is the story of the now infamous diversity quilt ordered by Clinton appointee Nora Slatkin. The quilt is referred to in an Oct 2001 piece written by the highly regarded British writer, Andrew Roberts for the Spectator.
To make his point, Roberts cheekily poses the question:
"So where was Felix Leiter? In the James Bond movies the threatened climax is...always averted by James and his competent and dependable CIA friend (Leiter). Not this time. When Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda organization was planning its spectacular attack on the heart of Western capitalism, Mr. Leiter, it seems, was at his headquarters in Langley, Virginia, either on a sensitivity-- training course or, perhaps, sowing a `diversity quilt'. No fewer than 20,000 CIA man-hours have been spent on those activities in the past year."
Stories abound of managers going to subordinates' offices to check up on their intelligence projects and being told they didn't have time to do their work because they had go sew the "diversity quilt." Apparently under Clinton, time wasting became an art at Langley. Waller recounts the policy requiring professionals to take sensitivity classes and do role-playing about how stereotypical language and attitudes create a hurtful workplace environment.
I'm sure tyrants like Ayman al Zawahiri and Kim jong Ill will feel much better knowing CIA case officers have their requisite sensitivity training.
The House Democrats have done a real service by reminding the nation what happens when you place National Security under their stewardship. Driven by their legion of special interest groups the Democrats are inevitably compelled to consider everything but national security when making national security policy. Making global warming a national security issue may set certain special interests' hearts aflutter, but it does not make good policy.
Unless and until the Democrats can escape from the thrall of their special interests, they will remain unqualified to run the nation's national security.
